Split (1)

train · ~970k rows (showing the first 140k)

decoded_text stringlengths 4.18k 47.6k
messages, read/unread line indicators, URL previews in chat, keyboard shortcuts, drag and drop of files and photos, drag and drop of URLs from web browsers, and video messaging. Easier calling. You’ll be able to start a call or conversation from a contact’s profile page, group calls will continue even when the person who started the call leaves, audio/video device settings are coming, and Microsoft will make loudspeaker improvements. Additional Windows 10 Mobile updates. Microsoft will add a transparent app tile, video calls will default to the loudspeaker, and back button navigation will be improved. Naturally, I’m curious when/if this functionality will work with Android handsets. (I don’t honestly expect this to ever work with iPhone.) But the best news, in a way, is that Microsoft has confirmed my contention that SMS relay would be added to Windows 10–through Skype—before the next major milestone of Windows 10. That is, by tying this functionality to an app (Skype) instead of the OS, it can happen (and be improved) more quickly. And that’s great news for everyone. Even those who can’t test it quite yet. Tagged with Messin Design Advertising makes the market work, so that’s why we can’t live without it either we like it or not. If the ads are well made then the product will have great chances to by bought, but unfortunately many commercials are not so great. Well, let’s forget the ugly part and let’s talk about the ones that make a difference. In this article you can see a cool collection of creative advertising banner printing designs which will surely make you smile. Alcro: Colour Tackle Stichting Consument Veiligheid & VWA: Children See Things Differently Harvey Nichols Winter Sale: Window Shopping, Accessories Mother’s Pride: God Kiss FM: Open your ears The Mint Museum: Train Hair Club: Restore it 3D Billboard Dow Chemical Company: Giant Chalkboard Colorado State Patrol: Don’t Lose Your Head Student Adventure: Ambient window NFS (Dutch Stutter Foundation): Stutter billboard Quebec city magic festival: Magic hat and pigeons Serbian Film Festival: Watch Films. Not formulas. New York International Latino Film Festival (NYILFF): Computer geeks in movies Wienerschnitzel Wiener Nationals: Champion Will Rise SunSmart Cancer Council Western Australia: Cut Out Denver Water: Big hair Nordica Cottage Cheese: Burger Craftsman Tools: WrenchHOW did your club fare in trade week? See every deal and draft pick, our verdict and have your say. How do you rate your club's trade week? Leave a comment below ADELAIDE Gained: Tom Lynch, Lewis Johnston, Josh Jenkins, Luke Brown, Brad Crouch, Picks 27, 41, 46, 64 Lost: Ivan Maric, Jack Gunston, Tony Armstrong, Picks 10, 35, 53, 71, mid-first round compensation pick* Draft picks: 27, 41, 46, 64, 89 On-traded: Picks 24, 31, 37, 68 * Via under-17 mini-draft ** Can be used in any draft until 2015 Verdict: There hasn't been this much excitement in the city of churches since they built the casino. Were forced to become players by the likes of Maric and Gunston wanting out, but decided if they were in, they were going to do it properly. Involved in no less than seven different deals. Gunston is the biggest loss, along with their top-10 draft pick, and they did seem to give up a bit for Johnston, but key-position prospects are tough to find - and remember they lost one in Phil Davis to GWS. Determined to keep Kurt Tippett. Crouch will be a gun but we won't see him until 2013. Crows get the participation award. BRISBANE LIONS Gained: Jordan Lisle, Ben Hudson, Dayne Zorko, picks 12, 47, 69 Lost: Mitch Clark, Luke Power, picks 29, 34, 52, 70 Draft picks: 8, 12, 30, 47, 69, 88 Verdict: Losing Clark is a blow but given he quit the club they did well do get the best deal. And he did kick only 27 goals as a full-forward this year. Lose an ageing midfielder in Power and pick up an ageing ruckman in Hudson to give Leuenberger a chop-out. Somehow managed to deny GWS two picks in the top 12 - a great result. CARLTON Gained: Nothing Lost: Nothing Draft picks: 22, 44, 62, 80, 98 Verdict: Did they even show up? If the Dogs can get something for Hudson and Josh Hill surely someone would have given up a pick for Paul Bower. Must try harder. COLLINGWOOD Gained: Marty Clarke, Jamie Elliott, Peter Yagmoor, picks 50, 67 Lost: Picks 25, 47 Draft picks: 50, 65, 67, 83, 101 Verdict: Who needs the draft? The Pies know who they want and go and get them. Elliot can add some spark up forward and Yagmoor is an athletic 181cm left-footed midfielder from Cairns. We've never heard of him either, but recruiting genius Derek Hine doesn't get many wrong. ESSENDON Gained: Pick 31 Lost: Josh Jenkins, pick 41 Draft picks: 19, 31, 59, 77, 95 Verdict: The usual routine - throw all their energy into trying to snare a midfielder and come up with nothing. Reportedly offered Cale Hooker or Scott Gumbleton along with pick 19 for Josh Caddy, but Gold Coast was never going to take that for a kid taken at pick seven in last year's draft. Ricky Dyson and Henry Slattery didn't generate much excitement, either. FREMANTLE Gained: Picks 20, 29, 58, 71 Lost: Picks 38, 56, end-of-first round compensation selection Draft picks: 16, 20, 29, 58, 71, 74, 92 Verdict: Not a great week. Thought they had Mitch Clark in the bag - even issuing press releases for him - but forgot they still had to make Brisbane happy. Rumours of a late play for Saint Zac Dawson amounted to zilch. GEELONG Gained: Picks 32, 34 Lost: Pick 26 Draft picks: 32, 34, 48, 66, 84, 102 Verdict: Biggest win was keeping Tom Gillies, who wanted to go to Hawthorn. Will be interesting to see who Stephen Wells has in mind with the selections he picked up from Gold Coast in a two-for-one deal. Gets father-son pick Jed Bews with its last draft selection. GOLD COAST Gained: Matthew Warnock, Jaeger O’Meara, pick 24, end-of-first-round compensation pick Lost: Picks 4, 26, 27, 32, 50, 68, mid-first-round compensation pick*, second round compensation pick On-traded: Picks 26, 31, 34, 47 Qld zone players traded: Peter Yagmoor, Dayne Zorko Draft picks: 24, 86, 104 Verdict: Gave up a lot of picks but it's all part of Scott Clayton's long-term plan. O'Meara will be a superstar and they kept Josh Caddy, another very highly rated midfielder. Nathan Bock will be laying out the welcome mat for Warnock after carrying the Suns' backline on his own this year. GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY Gained: Sam Reid, Chad Cornes, Dean Brogan, Luke Power, picks 4, 10, 14, 56, mid-first round compensation pick, first round compensation pick, end-of-first round compensation pick Lost: Picks Picks 15, 31, 49, 67, 69 On-traded: Picks 20, 25, 69 Pre-listed players traded: Jarrad Boumann, Ahmed Saad, Terry Milera, Marty Clarke, Jamie Elliott, Luke Brown, Steven Morris Draft picks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 56, 85 Verdict: Wow. Obviously someone rates this year's draft - or at least the first 14 picks, of which GWS will have 11. AFL knocked back bid to get Jaeger O'Meara but they played the rest of the competition on a break. Picked up a few wise old heads to help the kids but it will be an interesting list model next year - not many players aged between 21 and 33. HAWTHORN Gained: Jack Gunston, Jarrad Boumann, picks 33, 38, 53 Lost: Brent Renouf, Jordan Lisle, Will Sierakowski, picks 24, 46, 64 On-traded: Picks 29, 56, 58, 71 Draft picks: 33, 38, 53, 82, 100 Verdict: Hawks just love this time of year. Gunston will be a great foil for Buddy and Boumann was picked from their backyard at Box Hill after a failed stint at the Bulldogs. Didn't lose any key players but they did give up a few big bodies - hopefully Max Bailey's legs stay intact. MELBOURNE Gained: Mitch Clark, pick 52 Lost: Matthew Warnock, pick 12 Draft picks: 36, 52, 54, 72, 90 Verdict: Picked its target and got him with some very smart manouevring. Time will tell if Clark is worth his huge salary but pick 12 seems reasonable for exactly the type of player the Dees have been screaming out for. And he's still only 23. Made the best of losing Tom Scully. Big tick. NORTH MELBOURNE Gained: Will Sierakowski Lost: Pick 58 Draft picks: 18, 40, 76, 94 Verdict: Any chance of something exciting happening out of Arden St? Obviously happy with current list but strange they didn't make a play for some outside pace with a few options on offer. Were rumoured to be right into Demon Addam Maric but denied any knowledge of it. Might get him in the draft. PORT ADELAIDE Gained: Brent Renouf, Brad Ebert, pick 45 Lost: Dean Brogan, Chad Cornes, picks 28, 33, 69 On-traded: Pick 49 Draft picks: 6, 45, 51, 87 Verdict: Another big winner. They lose two players who had retired anyway, pick up a decent ruckman and an emerging midfielder - and keep pick six in the draft plus John Butcher and Co. Not bad work for a club nobody wanted to be at. RICHMOND Gained: Ivan Maric, Steven Morris, picks 15, 26, 79, second-round compensation pick Lost: Mitch Morton, picks 14, 37, end-of-first-round compensation pick Draft picks: 15, 26, 55, 73, 79, 91 Verdict: Tiges stood their ground on Maric and got him for pick 37, which is a fair deal. He's no star but he will offer a contest in the middle. Got something for Morton but couldn't find a home for Luke McGuane. Overall a solid effort. ST KILDA Gained: Ahmed Saad, Terry Milera, picks 25, 35, 37, 68 Lost: Tom Lynch, Tommy Walsh, pick 20 Draft picks: 25, 35, 37, 42, 60, 68, 78, 96 Verdict: Didn't want to lose Walsh but if you had said a week ago he and Tom Lynch would be their biggest losses most Saints fans would be pretty happy. Held on to Farren Ray, Zac Dawson and Jason Gram despite salary cap issues. Now have a problem in having to cut another 4-5 players from their list especially considering it's hard to believe Lynch and Walsh took up much of the budget. And we'll still be talking about Goddard and GWS for a while. But Saad in particular looks like an exciting pick-up and they have a good shot at the draft. Plenty for Scott Watters to work with. SYDNEY Gained: Mitch Morton, Tony Armstrong, Tommy Walsh Lost: Lewis Johnston, pick 79 On-traded: Picks 35, 68 Draft picks: 21, 43, 61, 97 Verdict: The Swans recycling depot was open for business again, snaring enigmatic Morton and Irish prospect Walsh. Losing a No.12 draft pick in Johnston isn't ideal, and do they need another running defender? Will use their first-round draft pick on father-son pick Tom Mitchell. WEST COAST Gained: Josh Hill, pick 28 Lost: Brad Ebert, pick 45 On-traded: Pick 49 Draft picks: 23, 28, 63, 81, 99 Verdict: Copped the dud deal of the week. Ebert is no star but he was a No.13 draft pick and has shown a bit. Picks 28 and 39 don't seem to match his talents. Got Josh Hill as well but hard to see him getting a game in the Eagles' best 22 at the moment. WESTERN BULLDOGS Gained: Picks 49, 70 Lost: Josh Hill, Ben Hudson Draft picks: 17, 39, 49, 57, 70, 75, 93 Verdict: This time last year they loaded up on fringe players (Sherman, Djerrkura, Vezspremi) but took the opposite approach this year, offloading a couple and getting something for retired ruckman Hudson. Lost Sam Reid to the Giants as an uncontracted signing, along with Callan Ward. Hard to believe the flag window was open 12 months ago, now the focus is all on the draft. Note: draft picks are provisional until the draft order is finalised by the AFL Originally published as Trade week report cardRep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) listens at right as President Obama speaks Thursday on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) President Obama, on the 50th anniversary of Voting Rights Act, renewed a call for new, broader legislation and urged people to exercise their hard-won voting rights instead of staying home on election days. Obama said that in the half-century since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act it has become impossible to hear anyone defend the idea of discrimination against certain voters. "That’s huge progress," he said, "a normative shift in how we think about our democracy." But he said that initiatives in state legislatures to require drivers licenses and other forms of photo identification and to make it harder to vote early were having the same discriminating effect. He said no matter how reasonable such rules may sound, they all discriminated against the poor, elderly and working-class voters who often work odd shifts or travel by bus or are single parents. Voting rights activists say that 15 states with 162 electoral votes will have new voting restrictions in 2016. "So, in theory everybody is in favor of the right to vote," Obama said. "In practice, we have state legislatures that are deliberately trying to make it harder for people to vote." In response, Obama said, Congress should pass an updated Voting Rights Act that would address these new efforts that impede voting rights. [Gallery: The road to Montgomery] The president was introduced by Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who marched across the bridge in Selma, Ala., in 1965 and was arrested several times in the quest for equal rights for African Americans. Obama also noted, however, that African Americans and others should exercise their voting rights in larger numbers. "This isn't always a popular thing to say in front of progressive groups," he said, but “far more people disenfranchise themselves than any law does by not participating, by not getting involved.” Obama proposed making Sept. 22 National Voter Registration Day. "We’re going to try to get everybody to register to vote," he said. "We’re probably not going to get everybody, but we’re going to try." Read more on voting rights: Federal court says Texas voter ID violates Voting Rights Act N.C. case represents pivotal point of voting debate Thousands descend on Selma to mark the 50th anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’My Secret Santa did not retrieve my information until after the shipping date, so I was automatically assigned to a Rematch Santa. So imagine my surprise to see that my original Secret Santa actually came through! My son walks in today with a really large box that the postman had brought to the door. I hurriedly opened it, and found a lovely assortment of gifts. I put on my profile page that I am currently on a journey to lose weight and get healthy. My Secret Santa took that and ran with it! I received a great Yoga Mat and Exercise Ball. There was also a cute little bear thingy that I'm not sure what it is. :) Of course I also got the required cat Christmas card, but was surprised to find inside a $20 Steam credit to use towards purchasing a new game! What a great surprise! Thank you, Secret Santa, for coming through for me! Great choices!! Hope you did well on your finals!Wizard! Unseen sketch of Harry Potter meeting a Hippogriff goes under the hammer (and it's set to sell for £10k) An unseen sketch of Harry Potter meeting the mythical Hippogriff has been discovered 10 years after being drawn is set to sell for more than £10,000. The one-of-a-kind drawing by former Potter illustrator Cliff Wright, who designed the front covers for books two and three in the series, shows the wizard holding hands with the creature. The Hippogriff, a cross between a horse, lion and eagle, first swooped into Harry's adventures in the third book of the series, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban. Rare: The unseen sketch worth at least £10,000 features a note written to a friend in Canada, which says: 'To Louis Charles, all best wishes from Cliff' The Sussex based artist refused to illustrate the fourth book after his original front and back cover artwork for Azkaban was lost by a design studio, meaning this drawing could be one of his last. Experts estimate the 2002 sketch could sell for a five-figure sum. Antique dealers Art Of The Imagination are selling the drawing at the Antiques for Everyone Fair at the end of the month. Magic: A young Daniel Radcliffe, as Harry Potter Mike Emeny, from Art Of The Imagination, said: 'There are an incredibly limited number of Harry Potter drawings and paintings because they have not been made into story books. 'Mainly it's just the artwork made to preview and promote the books, but that is all so closely controlled by rights it's almost impossible for collectors to get hold of them. 'This sketch is extremely rare - when Cliff finished his association with the Harry Potter series he stopped doing any drawings. 'Therefore, we would expect this to sell for around £10,000, but it could be a lot more. 'He did it for a friend of his from Canada but its ended up in our hands a decade later. 'Any Potter fan would love to get their hands on this item and there is a lot of excitement around it already. It would make a fantastic part of any collection.' The sketch is being sold at the Antiques for Everyone Fair at the Birmingham NEC, which runs from October 27 to 30. Antiques for Everyone is the UK's largest antair with more than 300 specialist dealers exhibiting more than 100,000 items.Tens of thousands of people who have shopped in Supervalu, Centra and Daybreak stores in recent days have been warned to watch their next credit and debit card statements as a precautionary measure after an attempted cyber attack on the stores. The supermarkets and convenience stores, as well as their parent company Musgrave, were targeted by criminals who tried to steal numbers and expiry dates of customers’ cards. Musgrave, which confirmed the attack on Tuesday, said it was engaged in an ongoing investigation with the Garda. It did not provide details of when the attack took place or how many of its customers were potentially involved. The company said it had notified the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner of the incident. Its spokesman said it had committed to keeping the commissioner updated as its investigation progressed. In a statement Musgrave said it had “detected that malicious software was attempting to extract debit and credit card numbers and expiry dates, but not the cardholder name, PIN number or CCV number” of customers. It stressed there was “no evidence that any data has been stolen”, but said it was still advising shoppers “to review activity on their statements as a precautionary measure”. It said it was still assessing the extent of the attempted extraction by the unidentified cyber-criminals and had followed all appropriate steps. Technical fixes “We took preventative action and there is no evidence of extraction of data,” a spokesman said, adding that its “cyber breach response consultancy” had installed advanced technical fixes on its systems as soon as the potential breach was uncovered. “It is important to note that once we became aware of the attempted extraction of data from our systems yesterday afternoon, we immediately took preventative action,” he said. “We informed the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) this morning in line with their guidance. We are updating the ODPC as our investigation with An Garda Síochána continues.” He said that the company did not store card data on its servers, which suggests the breach involved the criminals potentially intercepting customers’ sensitive financial data in real time. The spokesman said it had communicated with customers “in order to provide reassurance and to advise them to review activity on their statements as a precautionary measure”. Cybercriminals The threat by cybercriminals targeting businesses is on the increase across Europe. Ransomware attacks have gone up by 300 per cent since 2015 and the economic impact of cybercrime is estimated to have risen five-fold between 2013 and 2017 and is set to rise another four-fold by 2019. Ransomware works by encrypting files on infected computers and demanding a sum be paid in exchange for a password, which allows the owner to regain access to their data. While there is no evidence any of Musgrave’s customers’ cards having been compromised, credit and debit card fraud is a growing problem. In 2015, card fraud in the Republic was estimated to amount to about €29.6 million. Some 70 per cent of these purchases – worth almost €21 million – were carried out through “card not present” fraud by online or telephone purchasers. In the first half of last year €20.8 million was lost through card fraud in Ireland. Some 78 per cent of this fraud was through “card not present” incidents.Ain't got time for this. I am going to keep it short and simple.First: Origin of how the image ended up onlineIn 2014, it was first released by online museum of famous Pakistani painter Abdur Rahman Chughtai (who had done painting with Krishna theme). The belief that it is Krishna showing Eid moon also comes from there. The original image with in Germany in private collection. Interestingly, the original caption by uploader talks of "two nations" and not just two religions. Since, subcontinent has no culture of properly citing sources, Dipankar Deb ( Swarajya, in a 2015 article) just used the image and didn't mention the source. And rest all it was copy-pasted over and over again.As for what is depicted, (it is amazing that people, even people who claim to be "true" hindus, can't even read these images clearly now):The scene is the beginning of famous Govardhan episode. On the new moon day (of Shukla Paksha), K…28th March 2014 \| International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson \| Gaza, Occupied Palestine Before we settle down for a glass of Turkish coffee among shelves filled with neatly stacked, woven carpets Mahmoud El Sawaf, 68 years old, shows me around the small factory. The tour goes pretty quickly. There ‘s only a mechanized loom and a manual one. The market in Gaza is too small for more. Before the siege escalated in 2007, he had a bigger factory, which employed 17 people with nine mechanical and 15 manual looms, and there were hundreds of producers around the Gaza Strip. Now they are only five left, and he is the only one with a power loom in production, but it has its limitations due to the daily power cuts. But the difficulties had already begun in 2005, says Mahmoud, a man viewing things in big pictures, when the Israelis left Gaza. We are still occupied, he continues. They control our airspace, borders on land and at sea, our economy and our lives. The difference is that it happens without their physical presence. But when they were here, there were completely different conditions for economic exchange, even though Palestinians were often regarded and treated as second-class people. Mahmoud was permitted to travel and trade with the West Bank, Jordan and the Gulf countries. That is impossible today. He points to a small pile of carpets lying on the floor that a Palestinian in Ukraine want to get delivered. But Mahmoud do not know how he will be able to send them there. He says he is not bitter against Israelis, carefully pointing out that its population does not necessarily support the policies of their government. He does not lay not all the blame on the Israeli government, but also on the governments of the world that allows Israel to continue. But he hopes that the situation will change for the better. We have to, he says, otherwise we have nothing to live for. And he hopes Gaza’s Ark will show the world that Gaza needs commerce, to be a part of the global economy and not aid-dependent as it is now. But one ark will not create a lasting change. It has to be many. The need is for continuity of supplies and an open export economy. This has not been allowed since the blockade began. One of the reasons is obviously to strangle the economy, but there is an even more important reason not many people think about, Mahmoud says, putting his glass down on the tray. When you go inton the market you can find a plethora of different products, mostly junk, imported without problems. But when I try to get raw material to produce carpets, it is far more difficult. It can take months to get in materials, and usually only in small quantities. I was lucky to have had a stock before the siege began. When there are fewer producers, there is also less fighting over what little there is to get. The reason is to wipe out Palestinian culture and history. It is often called a security threat, and to some extent it is true. Not for the Israelis, but for their government’s policy of denial. And this one of the reasons it is allowed to import mass-produced rugs, from China, while I will probably never be able to send those carpets to Ukraine. So it’s for more than just my own economy and survival of my company for which I hope from Gaza’s Ark, he concludes. It is for the whole Palestinian existence.I received an email recently from someone asking if I could do a Top Ten Instant Noodle Bowls list as they found the bowls to be more convenient. I figured why not as soon as some immediately came to mind. I spent some time thinking and the list was complete. So now we have the Top Ten Instant Noodle Bowls Of All Time – according to The Ramen Rater. 10 – TableMark Japanese Style Soup Noodle Soybean Paste Flavor – Japan It’s not very often that an instant noodle comes with a lot of vegetables in the dry packets. This one however did – a nice variety. Also has great soy flavor. Great on its own. Full review here. 9 – Myojo Ramen-Desse-Shio Japanese Style Soup Noodles Oriental Flavor – Japan Like eating candy. The noodles are very thin and of high quality. The broth had a nice salt taste (Shio means salt) and a good sesame flavor from the oil. I think some chicken, pork or beef would go great in this. Full review here. 8 – Vifon Korean Style Instant Noodle Kim Chee Flavor Bowl – Vietnam This one has four seasoning packets as well as a fork! Also has some interestingly fluffy noodles – fluffy but not spongy. A spicy broth and some little bits of garlic made this very memorable. Great with a couple of fried eggs. Full review here. 7 – Nissin Gozen Kitsune Udon – Japan Wider udon noodles and a nice chunk of fried tofu. When I had this, I added some fried shallots, eggs and some kizami shoga (pickled ginger) and it was magnificent! Full review here. 6 – Sunlee Crab Flavour Instant Noodle – Thailand When I first sampled this one, I didn’t expect a lot out of it. I was very happily surprised – the noodles had a very nice and unique quality to them and the slightly spicy crab flavor broth was perfect. Went absolutely perfect with a couple fried eggs – the soft yolk intermingles favorably with the broth. Full review here. 5 – Nong Shim Bowl Noodle Soup Spicy Seafood Flavor – USA Good noodles, nice depth and spiciness to the broth and a bit of flair with the veggies – some corn and some naruto in there! Excellent with a couple of fried eggs – and leftover seafood pancake from a local Korean BBQ! Full review here. 4 – Maruchan Instant Oriental Noodles Akai Kitsune Udon – Japan Flat, broad noodles combine with a very ample piece of fried tofu to make this a delectable bowl of noodles. The tofu comes out as wonderfully sweet and salty. Great on its own or perhaps try with some extra veggies or fish. Full review here. 3 – Tat Hui Koka Instant Rice Noodles Laksa Singapura Flavor – Singapore These are the only rice noodles on the list – and they’re really good! Excellent flavors including the only powdered coconut packet I’ve ever seen make it a simply wonderful bowl of noodles. Best in its unadulterated form. Full review here. 2 – Menraku Japanese Ramen “Shio” Authentic Ramen Soup – Japan This was one of the first instant ramen Shio varieties I sampled and it got me hooked. Salt is used here as a flavoring and not a flavor enhancer if that makes any sense. Combined with nice veggies like seaweed, cabbage and corn, this one goes really well with a couple fried eggs on top. Full review here. 1 – Maruchan Midori No Tanuki Instant Soba Bowl – Japan In this nice little green package beats the heart of a legendary figure in Japanese culture! The tanuki (also known as a raccoon-dog) can be found in front of many ramen shops in the form of a small statue. Tanuki brings good fortune and luck! In this bowl is a round disk of tempura – and it’s really good! Along with excellent buckwheat noodles and a fine broth, add nothing as it’s just perfect. Full review here. 4/12/2012 – Hans Lienesch – The Ramen Rater – www.theramenrater.com – www.facebook.com/theramenrater – www.twitter.com/theramenrater – [email protected]Sennheiser’s HD 630VB was developed in cooperation with Berlin-based design studio, nr21 DESIGN, following the audio specialist’s clean and contemporary design ethos. One of the latest additions to Sennheiser’s family of high-end audiophile headphones, the HD 630VB is a breakthrough product that delivers audiophile-quality sound in a circumaural closed-back design, which helps insulate the listener from external noise. Its design reflects the headphones’ ability to deliver the experience of high-end sound virtually anywhere - combining take-anywhere durability with desirable good looks, while radiating cool, purpose and performance. Powered by Sennheiser’s proprietary transducer technology, the HD 630VB offers an audiophile listening experience, with the power to deliver a more intense bass sound via a rotary bass dial – an innovative design feature that makes it effortless for the user to match the intensity of lower frequencies to their exact preference. The adjustable headband also makes it easy to achieve the perfect fit, while soft ear pads make even longer periods of listening comfortable. “The pure design of the HD 630VB is consistent with Sennheiser’s minimalist modern design language. It unites clear shapes with maximum comfort in a perfect marriage of form and function that speaks to the user even before the first note of music is heard,” said Oliver Berger, Head of Global Design Management at Sennheiser. “As a closed headphone that can still offer audiophile sound, it is a unique creation. It is therefore a true honor to receive the iF Label for a product that we have strived to make truly special in every way.” The HD 630VB is crafted from premium materials including strong yet lightweight aluminum, which is used on the ear cups, yokes and sliders to give lasting durability and excellent portability for a full-sized headphone. This is complemented by a collapsible design and a hard carry case for convenience when using the headphones on the move. About the iF DESIGN AWARD The iF DESIGN AWARD is one of the most prestigious design competitions in the world. The iF International Forum Design GmbH annually awards the iF Label for outstanding design achievements. In 2016, the jury of 58 international design experts considered 5,295 entries by 2,458 participants from 53 countries. Submissions from a range of disciplines were entered into categories covering product design, communication design, packaging design, service design, professional concepts and architecture and interior architecture. Outstanding entries were awarded the sought-after iF label.Apple's latest iPhone 5S has an unexpected feature: the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD). While it's typically an error found on older Windows PCs, a number of iPhone 5S users are reporting random reboots on their handsets following a BSOD. The blue screen reboots appear to be iPhone 5S specific and are largely occurring with Apple's own iWork apps that come free with all new iOS devices. Videos detailing the issue show that multitasking between apps seems to trigger the BSOD. iPhone 5S users are also reporting random reboots during device use. Wow… Second Blue Screen on my iPhone 5S in a bout a week…. Should I be worried?? #Apple — Brian Walters (@Scott_Knows) October 7, 2013 Apple has released iOS 7.0.2 to primarily fix lock-screen security bugs, but the latest version does not address the reboot issues. Several threads on Apple's support forums highlight the problem, and a number of Twitter users have also expressed their frustration. One workaround to alleviate the iWork-related reboots is to disable iCloud syncing for Apple's Pages, Keynote, and Numbers apps. We've reached out to Apple to comment on the blue screen reboots, and we'll update you accordingly.Dallas Distilleries made a splash when it launched the Herman Marshall whiskey line in 2013 -- the first locally distilled whiskey since Prohibition. In high spirits over recent international and national awards, this craft distiller and Lakewood Brewing Co. made a bold move this week: together releasing Herman Marshall Temptress Single Malt Whiskey. Bucking tradition, this small-batch whiskey is flavored with Lakewood's the Temptress milk stout. The whiskey was brewed at Lakewood Brewing's facility and distilled at nearby Dallas Distilleries. Aged in New American white oak barrels for seven months, this young whiskey has a light body and an enticing caramel aroma. Given a minute or two to open up, it reveals caramel, malt, roasted coffee and smoke flavors, with a bite of hops on the back end. The alcohol shows a hot edge, but a few drops of water softens it and opens up more subtle flavors, including dark cocoa. Serve a dram of this whiskey in a snifter or wide-mouth glass -- not a shot glass -- to bring out the flavors. Herman Marshall Temptress is available through the holidays at liquor stores and bars in the Dallas area. You'll find it for about $59.99 a bottle at Goody Goody, Pogo's, Sigel's, Spec's, Total Wine and other stores that sell craft spirits. Tina Danze is a freelance writer. Follow here on Twitter @Tina Danze.Microsoft corporate vice president Kudo Tsunoda, who many Xbox fans likely know as the face of Kinect, is taking a newly expanded role at the company, Microsoft announced today. Tsunoda is now leading "a bunch of Xbox teams," including Microsoft developers Rare, Lionhead, Twisted Pixel and Lift London, while also working with the teams creating games like Scalebound, Quantum Break and Crackdown. Tsunoda's new charter, as Microsoft calls it, "is the set up that gives our teams the best chance for success," he says in a new video interview. The announcement of Tsunoda's new role is one of a handful of organizational changes at the Xbox team. Microsoft Studios general manager Hanno Lemke is moving from Gears of War studio Black Tusk to oversee the company's U.K. game studios and Danish studio Press Play. John Needham, Lionhead studio head, is moving to Redmond, Washington, to focus on HoloLens development and new Xbox properties. Wil Mozell, general manager of Kinect game studio BigPark, is now working with Black Tusk. Tsunoda said that we'll hear "more about what's going on with [Gears of War] coming up soon." He also said that he's personally learned from the experience of launching Kinect for Xbox and how the company
Contemporary Austrian economics and the new economic sociology have much in common. First, they share intellectual influences, especially Max Weber. Second, they offer similar critiques of neoclassical economics, and both stress the importance of Verstehen. Third, they have complementary conceptions of rational action and of the role of social institutions in shaping rational action. Specifically, these schools agree on a number of key theoretical propositions and empirical approaches, including but not limited to the notions that economic institutions are socially constructed and that actors are neither social automatons nor asocial creatures (actors are embedded). Although there has been some effort to bring the two traditions together because of these similarities between them, more can be done to bring these schools into conversation with each other. This chapter seeks to tease out the connections between the two schools and discuss possible gains from trade between them.Hello, everybody, I’m Isaiah Cartwright, the lead game designer on Guild Wars 2. I’m going to be introducing you to three of the changes to Guild Wars 2 coming up in the September 2014 Feature Pack. Dungeon Instance Owner We’ve changed the way dungeon instances work. Currently, the instance is “owned” by the first person to enter the instance; this creates some issues when that person leaves or is kicked from the party. To prevent the dungeon instance from closing when any one person leaves, we’ve removed the concept of a dungeon “owner.” If everyone leaves an instance, it will close, but you don’t have to worry about one person leaving your party and having to restart your dungeon! Our goal here is to make instances more user-friendly, as the hidden owner concept was often hard to understand and resulted in people losing progress randomly when someone left. Crafting UI We’ve made a change to the way the crafting interface works! You can now open recipes and subcomponent recipes at the same time. This allows you to craft the parts required for a recipe and allows for faster navigation around the crafting interface. One example of something you could do is filter for ascended items, and then navigate from the ascended item to all the subcomponents. You can also select any of the recipes in the list and it will navigate back to that recipe. These improvements make it easier for crafters to quickly build things. Performance Updates We‘re always working on the performance of the game with every update, but we have a big batch of improvements coming in this feature pack. We’ve changed the way many of the underlying systems work, making them more cost-effective, which will reduce how often players will be seeing issues caused by performance. This is most notable in large combat situations like WvW and at the PvE world boss events. These improvements affect both the server and client performance, so in these situations, you should see increased frame rates as well! That’s it for today! Come back tomorrow and learn about some of the cool new items we’re adding to each crafting discipline!ELEANOR HALL: As the US struggles to deal with its latest mass shooting, crime analysts are warning that the way the media covers events like this can increase the likelihood of future shootings. The number and severity of mass shootings in the US has increased significantly in the last decade and a half. Dr Jennifer Johnson is a researcher at Western New Mexico University who has been examining the data. JENNIFER JOHNSON: What we found is mass shootings are on the rise in the United States. In the last 15 years we were able to calculate that there is indeed a three-fold increase. And so that made us question: why? What could be causing that? We find that there are shared traits among most active shooters or, sometimes, mass shooters. Generally, depression - a suicidal type of depression - social isolation and narcissism. They identify with each other and when they see someone in the media who is being given the fame that they seek, that someone who is considering an act like this in fantasy, or even had some plans laid out who might not have otherwise committed those acts, does so because they identify with another shooter and feel motivated to either best that shooter's kills or make a name for themselves as they go out in a "blaze of glory". ELEANOR HALL: So you have no doubt that media coverage is driving the increase in mass shootings in the United States? JENNIFER JOHNSON: There is strong suspicion. The reason is that, when we look at the other major causal factors involved in mass shootings - access to guns and lax gun laws; if we look at the mental health system and how mental illness is reported or intervened; and then if we look at media contagion - the only thing that has really changed in the last 15 years - and really about 20 years - is media coverage of the events. We have much more coverage in 24-hour news cycles as well as, of course, the birth of the internet in this time period. And so we think that that may be part of the reason to explain the increase in the contagion effect. ELEANOR HALL: You mentioned that there has been a dramatic increase in mass shootings. What are the actual numbers? JENNIFER JOHNSON: Before the year 2000 there were up to about 50 deaths related to mass shootings a year. We're now topping more like 300 deaths per year. ELEANOR HALL: That's a six-fold increase. JENNIFER JOHNSON: Yeah. It's significant in the number of deaths. And so, and then when we also count - that's the number of deaths, but if we count incidents: those have risen three-fold in a 15-year period. That is startling. ELEANOR HALL: So you are calling on media organisations to adopt a code of reporting, similar to our codes on reporting suicides. JENNIFER JOHNSON: Exactly. ELEANOR HALL: What ideally should or shouldn't the media be doing when it's reporting events like this Las Vegas shooting? JENNIFER JOHNSON: What we recommend - and for example, one of the parents of a Columbine victim first suggested to the media: a 'don't name them' campaign. And that had something to do with respect for the victims and their families. They didn't want to be hearing and seeing the perpetrator's names everywhere and kind of being given that attention in place of victims, because one of the issues we have found is that media coverage is about double for shooters than it is for victims, first responders or even, say, causes of murder. So we know that that is happening: much more attention on the shooter than on the people who, maybe, we should be giving attention to. The media is, of course, not intentionally trying to do any of this. They're just covering the news as best they can with the detail that they think the public wants. But the FBI adopted this campaign and has promoted it within their briefings to the news media. But a lot of times, you know, the information gets out anyway. But we believe that if you don't name the shooter and you don't show his image - and also, if possible, details about their intimate lives, histories, interests, weapon choices, those kinds of things: the details that a would-be shooter can identify with and see themselves in and want to emulate. ELEANOR HALL: And what about the descriptor of this particular shooting: "The worst mass shooting ever"? Is that something also that we should be avoiding? JENNIFER JOHNSON: I believe so. We have heard and we have read in some of the manifestos of previous shooters that they are trying to become the next, greatest known shooter by number of deaths. And so they seem to be trying to best each other. And so we do see these headlines of: yeah, "The most deadliest shooting in history." And that seems to be something that motivates shooters as well to get more powerful weapons that have larger magazines and can do more damage in shorter time. ELEANOR HALL: There is obviously a lot of interest from the public in why they have done it. How do you balance that public interest with what you're talking about: the potential contagion? JENNIFER JOHNSON: Well, there's a certain point where we all have to ask ourselves: are we going to let our fascination for something drive us to do something that could be making a problem worse? It just becomes an ethical issue for us as viewers and for the media, too. In fact, it reminds me of the study about tweets. So social media has an impact on this as well: that when tweets rise above 10 per million talking about a mass shooting in a certain area, it increases the likelihood of another mass shooting 50 per cent in the next two weeks. And if it continues to rise above 10 tweets per million, the odds go to 80 per cent that another shooting will happen within 30 days. What we suggest is: the media can always talk about shooters in aggregate. You can talk about traits of shooters; like I said, those shared traits that they seem to have; causes that may be going on underneath this issue. So there's a lot, I think, the media can cover without giving in to what the shooter really seems to be after, which is fame. ELEANOR HALL: But you're convinced that, if media organisations were to change the way we report mass killings, like this one in Las Vegas, there would be a reduction in shootings? JENNIFER JOHNSON: Yes. We believe that, if the mathematical contagion model is correct, we would see up to about a one-third reduction in mass shootings over the next one to two years: a fairly quick response, I believe, if those models are correct. ELEANOR HALL: That's a remarkably short space of time. JENNIFER JOHNSON: Yes. And of course, we're speculating. But it takes away the carrot. And we think if the shooters and would-be shooters start realising that they will only be killing themselves and no-one will know their name, no-one will remember them in history - we'll remember the victims and what happened and how the community responded, but that only the police departments will ever know their name - we think that it may discourage future shooters. ELEANOR HALL: That's Dr Jennifer Johnson from Western New Mexico University.Nancy Reagan’s recent death was a reminder of the shallow moralizing of the Just Say No anti-drug campaign she once championed. Thankfully, attitudes have changed. We’re more attuned to the fact that untreated mental health issues are often a precursor to drug use. Nancy’s slogan to fight peer pressure won’t help much there. Most people realize that the War on Drugs, begun under Nixon, has failed. And there’s growing public awareness that we’ve let our jails and prisons become warehouses for people who need treatment — and who needed it long before they took a criminal turn. Mandatory sentencing guidelines have been changed, and the days of presidential administrations following the whims of a drug czar are over. Incarceration rates are dropping. To most, this is good news. But it’s not if your business model revolves around keeping people locked up. The for-profit prison industry has kept one step ahead of the trend. They got wise quick, sensing the winds shifting away from mass incarceration and toward the need to address mental health issues within the nation’s prisons and jails. For those familiar with the term “prison-industrial complex,” meet its offspring — the “treatment-industrial complex.” A report released in February by Grassroots Leadership, a civil and human rights organization, rings some warning bells. The report, “Incorrect Care: A Prison Profiteer Turns Care into Confinement,” is part of a series of reports that has focused on reducing the nation’s dysfunctional criminal justice system. This latest installment takes an in-depth look at the privatization efforts in Texas, Florida and South Carolina. In particular, it goes after the shifting business models of for-profit prison operators Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group, as well as spinoff rehabilitation companies like Correct Care Solutions. The charge is that just as prisons are often not about rehabilitation, these new for-profit treatment places are not about helping people regain their mental stability and, therefore, their release. The report also challenges the quality of care being offered, citing cases of violence and patient deaths. One startling figure from the report: 50 percent of people in correctional facilities suffer from mental health and substance abuse disorders. This compares to estimated rates of only 1 percent to 3 percent within the U.S. population. Prisoners represent a huge market for mental health care. If the prison operator also has a side business in mental health care, a conflict of interest presents itself. Under normal circumstances, a person can get out of prison after serving his sentence. In fact, 90 percent of people who are sentenced do just that. But inmates can be placed by a judge into a for-profit mental health program in a prison — say, under civil commitment laws now on the books in about 20 states — and be detained there past the end of the sentence. The operator has a clear incentive to keep a person there indefinitely, to increase the return on its investment. The Grassroots Leadership report points out that these private operators offer cost savings to a state when the facility is full: Thus the cost per head goes down. Assigning inmates to these facilities can be very appealing to lawmakers trying to balance tight budgets. Potentially, it becomes even more alluring when a lobbyist with the industry is making a hefty donation to a re-election campaign. A basic set of circumstances and decisions has set the stage in many states. Legislatures have cut public mental health budgets, resulting in understaffing and poor conditions in state-run facilities. Community-based mental health programs are also being shorted. That leads to more untreated people who act out and then find themselves in a criminal justice system. By virtue of their mental state, many of these people are not in a position to self-advocate for better care. Locked up, they are easily forgotten. One question must continuously be asked by legislators, advocates and the taxpayers whose dollars are being spent: In a for-profit model — in which more inmates equals more revenue — what possible incentive does a rehabilitation company have to help people regain stability and rejoin society? If such an incentive doesn’t exist and outweigh the profit motive, it’s hard to see how private-sector rehab programs won’t make matters worse. (Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or via e-mail at msanchez@kcstar.com.) (c) 2016, THE KANSAS CITY STAR. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to reporters during his visit to the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution outside Oklahoma City in this July 16, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/FilesEffort To Repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Picks Up Steam The Obama Administration has endorsed a proposal that would eventually allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. The full House and a Senate committee are expected to vote on measures that would repeal the 17-year-old policy of "don't ask, don't tell." The change would not take effect until the Pentagon completes a review of how to implement the new policy. Administration officials met quietly with gay rights activists Monday morning to discuss what one called "a way forward." Who's In The Lead? When President Obama renewed his campaign promise to undo the 1993 ban in January's State of the Union speech, he said it was up to Congress to make the change, because it was Congress who imposed the ban. "This year I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are," he said. "It's the right thing to do." For its part, Congress has been waiting for the administration to take the lead. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have both told lawmakers they support allowing gays to serve openly in uniform. But they have also cautioned against moving too quickly. Gates urged lawmakers in a letter last month not to rewrite the law until the Pentagon has finished its own study on how to implement the change. That study is due to be finished in December. Putting It To A Vote Last week, the American Legion veterans group wrote to lawmakers warning against a change in "don't ask, don't tell." At a minimum, the group's Craig Roberts said, Congress should follow Gates' advice and wait for the Pentagon's review. "What we're simply asking is that the commission be allowed to report on what findings they've come up with before any change in policy is enacted," Roberts said. But some lawmakers are determined to act now. The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to reconsider the "don't ask, don't tell" policy this week, as it weighs the defense authorization bill. A similar measure could come up for a vote on the House floor. Lawrence Korb, a former assistant defense secretary who is now with the Center for American Progress, an Obama-friendly think tank, said he supports a compromise that would have lawmakers repeal the ban on gays in the military now, but give the Pentagon leeway to implement the change after its study is complete. "What would happen is it would be up to the executive branch and then the secretary of defense could say, 'OK, the ban's been repealed, but... we're going to leave this policy in place until I complete my study on the first of December,' " Korb said. The White House publicly endorsed that strategy Monday after a meeting with gay-rights activists. Budget Director Peter Orszag wrote in a letter to lawmakers the compromise meets the "critical need" of allowing the military to help shape the implementation process. 'Don't Wait, Don't Think'? But any legislative action taken now, before the Pentagon study is complete, is sure to be controversial. "I call it the strategy of 'don't wait, don't think.' Just vote for whatever," said Elaine Donnelly, who heads the nonprofit Center for Military Readiness, which opposes gays in the military. She thinks the timing of this week's votes is politically motivated. "The president and many of the advocates of gays in the military are well aware that there is a window of opportunity that could close after the November election," she said. Critics of repeal say with the country fighting two wars, this is no time to conduct what they call a social experiment on the military. But advocates for repeal also point to military necessity in making their case. With the armed services stretched thin, they argue, no one who wants to serve ought to be turned away.Opinion writer When an eight-year-old on the playground responds to an accusation with “I know you are but what am I?”, even the other children know how lame a retort it is. But when the Republican Party says the same thing, it’s much more than a desperate attempt to flummox their opponents and confuse any onlookers. It’s a careful, coordinated, and comprehensive strategy. That’s what Republicans are doing right now with regard to the question of Russian interference in the 2016 election, which it is more than clear was 1) comprehensive, involving hacking, propaganda, and outreach to Trump representatives; and 2) clearly intended to help Donald Trump win the election, or at the very least wound Hillary Clinton should she become president. What’s happening now is an audacious effort on the part of Republicans to convince everyone that not only did Trump and his campaign not work with Russia, in fact it was Hillary Clinton who did so, and Vladimir Putin (whose hatred of Clinton burns with the fire of a thousand suns) actually wanted her to win and tried to help her. If you’ve been conscious for the last year and a half, that surely strikes you as deranged, something no one could be dumb enough to believe. But Republicans have run this play many times before, and by the time they’re done, half the public will believe it. It has three essential components. The first is the cranking up of the conservative calliope: all of the right’s information sources, from Fox News to conservative talk radio to web sites like Breitbart and Drudge, immediately begin shouting about the same story and repeating the same line. Then to keep it going and force mainstream media to cover it, they create an official “investigation” that will provide a steady stream of tantalizing leaks and events that can become the occasion of news coverage, even if it all ends up proving nothing. Then the whole narrative gets validated by top-level Republicans whose words are news in and of themselves. All of these components are now in motion. Fox and the other outlets are doing hour after hour of discussion about what they are calling the “Russia dossier,” an opposition research document prepared for Democrats that gathered together facts and rumors about Trump’s dealings in Russia (I explained why their line on this document is so bogus here). Now that story is being joined to absurd charges about the sale of a uranium mining company, with all kinds of dark allegations of corruption. Michelle Ye Hee Lee explained the uranium story in this fact check, in which Trump’s claims — which were essentially the same as what he and other Republicans are making now — were awarded the maximum Four Pinocchios because they were so dishonest. But I’ll run it down very briefly: A man named Frank Giustra, who donated significant sums to the Clinton Foundation, sold his mining company to a Canadian firm called Uranium One in 2007. Keep that date in mind. In 2009, the Russian company Rosatom bought a stake in Uranium One; in 2010 they acquired a majority stake. However, under American law, none of the uranium they mine in the U.S. can be exported without government approval, to Russia or anywhere else. Since that ownership gave Rosatom control of 20 percent of uranium mining in the United States, their purchase had to be approved by the U.S. government. That approval is done by a committee that includes representatives from nine separate agencies, one of which is the State Department. The sale was ultimately approved. There is no evidence that Clinton had any involvement in that decision (the State Department official who served on the committee has said she didn’t), let alone that she engineered it on behalf of a foundation donor who would not gain anything from it in any case. This question became a topic of public debate with the 2016 release of “Clinton Cash,” a book that made all kinds of sketchy allegations about supposed corruption and was written under the auspices of an organization controlled by Steve Bannon. Yes, that Steve Bannon. During the campaign, Trump would say things like “Remember that Hillary Clinton gave Russia 20 percent of American uranium and, you know, she was paid a fortune,” which was a lie. First of all, Giustra donated to the Clinton Foundation, which would use the money for things like AIDS relief; none of it went to Hillary Clinton. Second, by the time the American government — remember, nine separate agencies were involved — approved the sale of Uranium One, it had been years since Giustra sold his company to Uranium One. Why are we talking about this in 2017? Because of that comprehensive GOP strategy of misdirection and confusion. This week Republicans in Congress announced that they are starting an investigation into the approval of the uranium deal — a matter that it’s safe to say they care as much about as they cared about consular security or proper email management. Turn on Fox News or tune in to Rush Limbaugh today and you’ll probably hear all about it. President Trump is weighing in as well. “The uranium sale to Russia, and the way it was done, so underhanded, with tremendous amounts of money being passed, I actually think that’s Watergate, modern age,” he said the other day. Fox runs segments asking questions like “What charges could Hillary Clinton face if this does develop?” And this morning, President Trump tweeted this: It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2017 . We should acknowledge that though it is anything but “commonly agreed,” it’s entirely possible that all of Russia’s efforts to manipulate the 2016 election happened without any direct cooperation with Trump or his campaign. While they were without question the beneficiaries of Russian meddling, we don’t yet have proof that they were working directly with the Russians. Perhaps when Special Counsel Robert Mueller concludes his investigation, he’ll find that neither Trump himself nor anyone working for him did anything wrong. Perhaps that Trump Tower meeting with Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner was completely innocent, and all those meetings with Russians that Trump officials lied about were innocent, and there’s nothing to Trump’s decades of involvement with Russian gangsters and oligarchs. Perhaps. But Republicans aren’t content to wait for that investigation to conclude. They’re going on the offensive to convince people that it’s Hillary Clinton who colluded with Russia. Is it ludicrous? Absolutely. But they have powerful tools at their disposal to push their story out, and they’re going to use every one.EESC sounds the alarm and blames Commission and Member States for lack of political will. The EESC sounds the alarm amid a summer of heavy storms, landslides and other freak weather events. Several EESC proposals for the better protection of nature have been met with no reaction from the Commission or the Member States so far. "We again call on the Commission and Member States to ensure a swift and consistent implementation of the biodiversity strategy, particularly of the Birds and Habitat Directive and the Water Directive as important means of protecting biodiversity", says German EESC member Lutz Ribbe, referring to his opinion on EU biodiversity policy. Natura 2000 – 20 years overdue: EESC calls for dedicated budget The Natura 2000 network is mainly based on the Habitat Directive with special protection areas for birds under the Birds Directive. Its purpose is to preserve rare flora and fauna and unique biotopes in designated areas. This network should have been completed back in 1995. Now in 2017, nearly all Natura 2000 sites have finally been designated – comprising around 18% of the EU's land area – but many of the sites still do not enjoy permanent legal protection and only around half of them have management plans. “This is evidence of incapacity or just ignorance on the part of the EU and many of its Member States. We understand that the EU is facing many challenges, such as Brexit, unemployment, and terrorism, which we as representatives of civil society are working on side by side with the Commission. But we must not forget that biodiversity is our livelihood and continued plundering of our nature robs us of this livelihood", warns Mr Ribbe. The EESC believes that one of the main reasons for lagging behind in meeting the original goals lies in the funding for Natura 2000 areas, which almost exclusively comes from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). “In these two funds, Natura 2000 clashes with many other projects, leaving nature protection in many cases the loser. We have always warned against this conflict of interest and call again on the Commission to swiftly approve an extra Natura 2000 budget with a precise cost calculation as the starting point”, outlines Mr Ribbe. Experts estimate that around € 10 billion is needed per year, particularly in order to compensate landowners for their losses or to pay for special services. "Nature protection is a public good and must not be carried out at the expense of the land owners", states the EESC. Biodiversity is a cross-cutting issue: The CAP reform must take it into consideration Pollinators, decomposers and many other species cannot be protected by focusing solely on the designation of protected areas. Biodiversity needs to be included in other policies too, particularly in the agricultural sector. It is principally this sector – as indeed the Commission and Council rightly emphasise – that causes the highest degrees of pressure on terrestrial ecosystems. "We therefore do hope that the mid-term review of the 'ecological focus areas' and the upcoming reform of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) will also focus on the achievement of the biodiversity objectives", says Mr Ribbe. Inconsistencies in EU policies are not limited solely to agriculture policy; a lack of implementation and concerted action can be pinpointed in other policy areas as well. In the EESC’s view, biodiversity is comparable to climate protection, which should be addressed across all policies. It is not just about conserving animal or plant species: it concerns the very conditions of human existence and therefore ought to be a cross-cutting issue. As regards the protection of biodiversity, the EESC stresses that there is no shortage of laws, regulations, political declarations and recommendations in the EU. "The problem is the lack of implementation. This whole judicial framework is not worth the paper on which it is written as long as it is not transformed into real action," concludes Mr Ribbe. "The Commission has the tools and means, not least in the European Semester, to encourage the Member States to stick to their obligations. For us, this failure is a sign of the Commission's and Member States' lack of political willingness and cooperation."The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration recently announced that it would finally tear down some of the barriers that have prevented the scientific community from studying marijuana by providing more opportunities for institutions of higher learning to get involved with the cultivation of research cannabis. Unfortunately, a new report finds that the DEA’s offer to facilitate more federally sanctioned growers may not bring about the vibrant transform the cannabis community had hoped for because many universities have absolutely no interest in growing weed. Recently, the folks at STAT contacted nearly a dozen universities across the nation—some of which already operate industrial hemp programs—to find out just how many of these schools are eager to get into bed with the federal government to grow research marijuana. What they found is that none of the major universities they communicated with appear to have any plans of joining Uncle Sam’s cultivation network. Cornell University, the University of Kentucky and Virginia Tech, all said they were not interested in growing marijuana. So did Michigan State University, the University of Vermont and Western Kentucky University. The University of California, Davis, and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, said they had no plans to get involved with the DEA. Colorado State University, Oregon State University and Purdue University said the same. For the past several decades, the DEA has relied solely on the University of Mississippi to cultivate all of the marijuana it distributes for research purposes. Some have complained that this long-term relationship has hindered the discovery of the cannabis plant’s true medicinal benefit because there is not enough quality or variety in government weed for a proper exploration. Because of this, much of the cannabis community was excited by the news of the DEA’s plan to allow additional universities to join in the marijuana cultivation game. But for now, it seems that most universities are keeping their distance in respect to pot cultivation, at least until they have a better understanding of exactly what the DEA requires to join its exclusive club. Another aspect that could be causing some apprehension is cost. Any university that receives permission to begin growing marijuana for the government would be forced to cough up millions of dollars in construction expenses alone before it could ever get started. One thing is certain—getting started would not be cheap. In fact, last year, a post from the National Institute on Drug Abuse indicated that its contract with the University of Mississippi, which is worth almost $69 million, required the school to grow in a “secure and video monitored outdoor facility of approximately 12 acres” and operate an indoor facility of at least 1000 square feet, “having controls for light intensity, photo cycles, temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentration.” Interestingly, the STAT report goes on to suggest that independent growers will be another sector vying for federal cultivation contracts. After all, many of these businesses already have the type of facilities that meet the demands of the U.S. government. But the DEA may not approve any of these applications because the principals involved have technically violated the Controlled Substances Act. “Among the factors to be considered are whether… the applicant has engaged in illegal activity involving controlled substances,” said acting DEA administrator Chuck Rosenberg in a memo. “In this context, illegal activity includes any activity in violation of the CSA (regardless of whether such activity is permissible under State law) as well as activity in violation of State or local law.” The memo goes on to say that while growing marijuana in a legal state “does not automatically disqualify an applicant, it may weight heavily against” them. Although the DEA is now officially accepting applications for additional growers, the drug agency has not established any deadline for when it will make a decision. Some legal experts believe it could be years before any additional contracts are issued.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Human Rights Watch says that Communist officials are stationed in villages More than two million Tibetans have been resettled by the Chinese government over the last seven years, a new report by Human Rights Watch says. Many, including hundreds of thousands of nomads, were forced into so-called "socialist villages", the group says. The aim is to exert tighter political control over ethnic Tibetans, says HRW. China denies forced evictions. This comes amid reports that restrictions on the worship of the Dalai Lama have been eased in some areas. But the BBC was unable to confirm claims that Buddhists in China's Tibetan areas were able to openly worship their exiled spiritual leader and that some temples were displaying portraits of him. Closely monitored Images from Google Earth published by Human Rights Watch appear to show the mass destruction of existing housing and the construction of villages with uniform rows of new buildings. "The government has started to despatch new teams of Communist Party officials to each single village of the Tibet Autonomous Region," explained Nicholas Bequelin, Asia Researcher with Human Rights Watch. "The new personnel stationed in these villages have been instructed to eat, live and work with the villagers and that includes monitoring their political opinions and identifying whose loyalty to the Party or the government is questionable." We cannot hang the Dalai Lama's portrait inside the monastery or worship him openly. We can only do it in secret Monk in Sichuan's Aba prefecture The Chinese government has consistently maintained that it is pouring billions of dollars into Tibet in order to bolster its economy and improve the Tibetans' way of life. However, tensions remain. In the past four years, at least 117 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest at Chinese government rule, resulting in 90 deaths. Many Tibetans resent the influx of Han Chinese into Tibet and the Communist Party's restrictions on their religious freedoms. In response, the Chinese government has tightened surveillance over the entire Tibetan plateau. In cities, the authorities appear to be keeping tabs on potential troublemakers by dividing each neighbourhood along a grid system. The new security system is designed to closely monitor the situation at street-level to prevent a repeat of mass protests that centred in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, in March 2008. In addition, the report says, about 300,000 nomadic herders have been relocated and settled since the early 2000s and the authorities have reportedly announced their intention to turn an additional 113,000 into sedentary dwellers by the end of 2013. Open worship? In a separate development, some Buddhists in China's Tibetan areas are now able to openly worship their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, according to Radio Free Asia. In an experimental change in policy, some temples can openly display portraits of the Dalai Lama and no one is allowed to criticise him. Image copyright AP Image caption Unconfirmed reports suggest the Communist Party has relaxed its attitudes towards the Dalai Lama Tibetan Buddhists are allowed to worship their leader in his role as a religious figure and not a political one, according to sources quoted by RFA. If this policy change is true, it could represent a significant relaxation of the Communist Party's attitudes towards the Dalai Lama. For years, senior Communist officials have infuriated Tibetan Buddhists by referring to the Dalai Lama by a series of derogatory names. Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party chief in charge of Tibet until 2011, famously referred to the Buddhist cleric as "a wolf in monk's robes". Still, it is far from clear whether an experimental policy is under way. And some analysts say that, if true, it may simply be because the authorities had failed to stamp out worship of the Dalai Lama and use of his image in monasteries. The BBC contacted the Communist Party's State Administration for Religious Affairs, headquartered in Beijing, for confirmation of this change in policy. The Tibet Divide China says Tibet has always been part of its territory Tibet had long periods of autonomy China launched a military assault in 1950 Opposition to Chinese rule led to a bloody uprising in 1959 Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled to India Dalai Lama now advocates a "middle way" with Beijing, seeking autonomy but not independence The Tibet issue: Two views Inside Tibet The administration did not respond to the BBC's repeated requests for comment. China's state-run media are also silent on a possible change of policy towards the Dalai Lama. One source at a Buddhist temple in Qinghai province said that he had heard about the change in policy but could not speak about it on the telephone. The source refused to give his name. A spokesperson for the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government in exile based in Dharamshala, India, said he had heard reports of the experimental policy, but had not been able to verify its existence. "Such reports, if true, are localised reports," notes Tashi Phuntsok, secretary for the department for information and international relations for Tibet's government-in-exile. "It is possible some areas have adopted a softer policy to prevent further self-immolations." "I've seen similar news online," one monk in Sichuan's Ganzi Prefecture told the BBC by phone. "I don't know if it is true or not. But it's certainly not happening here." Another monk in Sichuan's Aba Prefecture, where many of the self-immolations have taken place, admitted: "I have not heard of this news. But we cannot hang the Dalai Lama's portrait inside the monastery or worship him openly. "We can only do it in secret. Not in our monastery, not in the monastery around here either, not that I know."Han Chinese men partake in traditional ceremony. The Han Chinese people,[32][33][34] Hanzu,[35][36][37] Han people[38][39][40][41] ( UK: ;[42] US: ;[43] Chinese: 漢人; pinyin: Hànrén; literally: 'Han people"[44] or 漢族, pinyin: Hànzú, literally "Han ethnicity"[45] or "Han ethnic group"),[46] are an East Asian ethnic group and nation native to China.[47][48][49][50] They constitute
in our earlier 2011 session all guests of students are also invited to attend as the content applies to everyone regardless of profession. 5:30pm – 7:00pm Hidden new features in SQL Server 2016 Kevin Kline Conference Room You may have seen or read about the new features of SQL Server 2016. You might have even played with some of the major new features sets by now. But did you know there are many cool features outside of the top 10 lists. This talk covers enhancements to indexing (both columnstore and traditional b-tree indexes), DMVs, database compression, string handling, encryption and obscuration, configuration, and even added time zone support. These smaller features may not be highlighted in the latest glossy ads from Microsoft’s marketing department, but they’re the kinds of things that add up to make your life easier. Attend this session to learn all sorts of new and different reasons to upgrade as quickly as possible. 4:30pm – 6:00pm Deep Dive into Time Travel with SQL Server 2016 Ben Miller Conference Room Have you ever wanted to know what the data looked like yesterday before a change was made? Have you cringed at the thought of creating triggers to get data changes logged for later analysis? Looking at a new feature in SQL 2016 called Temporal Tables gives you the ability to create a table that automatically keeps track of your data in time. Magic was never meant to be part of IT, but SQL Server has done a great job with this new feature. Join me in a time travelling adventure to find out how you can leverage Temporal Tables in your world. We will also look at the new TIME features in SQL 2016 to give you an idea of what is possible with time. 6:00pm – 7:00pm Office Hours All Technical Leads Location to be Determined Office Hours is our time to meet to go deeper than time allowed with classroom sessions, get questions to real-world issues back on land, or to dig into other topics that were not a part of this week’s curriculum. Think of it as a mix of class review, free consulting, and technical networking. 4:15pm – 5:15pm Office Hours All Technical Leads Location to be Determined Office Hours is our time to meet to go deeper than time allowed with classroom sessions, get questions to real-world issues back on land, or to dig into other topics that were not a part of this week’s curriculum. Think of it as a mix of class review, free consulting, and technical networking. 5:30pm – 7:30pm Group Casual Dinner Full group including guests Manhattan Restaurant Join us for a night of stimulating conversation and great food. Dress as nice as you’d like.A Uterus Doesn’t Qualify You To Be President Sanders surrogate stirs sexist controversy. By Victoria A. Brownworth First we had the Bernie Bros. Now we have Killer Mike. You don’t have to be a supporter of Hillary Clinton to realize that men are having a difficult time adjusting to the idea a woman might be the next president of the United States. Michael Render, known by his stage name as rapper Killer Mike, one of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ top surrogates, has caused more controversy for the presidential candidate by telling people at a Feb. 16 rally at HBCU Morehouse College in Atlanta that "a uterus doesn’t qualify you to be president of the United States." Oh. Render later attributed his comments to Jane Elliot, an 82-year-old self-declared activist who also supports Sanders. The rapper, who previously supported GOP candidate Sen. Rand Paul, has been brought on to the Sanders team to do outreach to African American youth. Polls show that while Sanders has a big advantage with white millennials, Clinton has more than 70% of the vote among black and Latin@ millennials and the most recent polls. The response to Killer Mike’s remarks were unsurprisingly swift. Amanda Terkel, senior political reporter and senior politics editor for Huffington Post said That women feel entitled to be president just bc of gender… THERE HAVE BEEN NO WOMEN PRESIDENTS. Women aren’t the ones who've felt entitled — Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) February 17, 2016 Jamil Smith, former senior politics editor at The New Republic and now senior correspondent at MTV News, said No serious person alleges that @HillaryClinton's uterus is on her list of stated qualifications for president. Implying as much is sexist. — Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) February 17, 2016 Many Clinton campaigners, especially those within the black community were outraged, especially as Killer Mike’s comments came just a few hours after Clinton delivered what many were calling an historic speech on race in Harlem. Hillary Clinton may not know what racism feels like but she knows what sexism feels like, which means she knows what oppression feels like. — Mr. Weeks (@MrDane1982) February 17, 2016 The Sanders campaign responded as they have with every allegation of sexism: dismissively. Sanders himself called the furor "gotcha politics." How? When politicians use surrogates to lure in voters, they are–for good or ill–responsible for those surrogates. Clinton was asked about former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s comments at the last debate and Albright herself wrote an apologetic op-ed. Fortunately for Sanders, he won’t have to be asked a similar question before the highly contested Nevada caucuses on Feb. 20 and South Carolina primary on Feb. 27. Despite Sanders waving the controversy away, the reality is, sexism has led in this presidential election. When has a male politician’s candidacy ever been reduced to his sex organs? Never. Sanders and Render himself should have apologized. That neither did–in fact, just blamed a woman for the comment–is problematic at best. Structural misogyny is real. That some women have internalized it is not surprising. But the idea that the first female candidate for president in U.S. history to come close to the nomination is nothing more than the sum of her sex organs? That’s the height of sexism. The reality for women in America and American politics is that our uteruses are legislated against by male politicians every day. Gov. John Kasich, a top contender for the Republican nomination, just signed legislation in Ohio further restricting a woman’s right to choose. Since Roe v. Wade became law in 1973, there has never been a time when women’s uteruses were not the subject of scrutiny by male politicians. So for Sanders and his surrogates to reduce the accomplishments of Clinton, who has a broader resume than any presidential candidate in 80 years, to her uterus? That’s the very definition of sexism. Women are legislated because of their uteruses. Women are denied jobs, denied raises, given reduced wages and any number of other restrictions are placed on women solely because of their uteruses. That’s reality. A reality Sanders and Render didn’t just ignore, but dismissed as irrelevant. Does Sanders’ "political revolution" not include women? Because women are the largest marginalized group in the country. Zerlina Maxwell is a former writer for Essence, Ebony, Feministing and Cosmopolitan, a commentator for MSNBC and Sirius radio and has been one of the most outspoken women on Twitter on issues of sexism and rape culture over the past few years. A survivor, Maxwell’s provocative speeches and writings on teaching men not to rape are among the most powerful writings on the subject of rape culture. Maxwell, who worked on the Obama election campaigns and who has consulted with the U.S. State Department, was recently hired as Digital Outreach Director for Clinton’s campaign. With sexism in high-gear this election season, it’s apparent her expertise will not only be needed, but will be required 24/7. A few months ago I started a hashtag on Twitter: #VoteYourVagina. It was partly in response to actress Susan Sarandon, a Sanders supporter, saying she doesn’t vote with hers. But it was more to make women aware that whomever they choose for president in this highly contentious election should have women’s issues and concerns front-and-center. Choosing a candidate is a deeply personal decision, but voting your own interests should be part of that decision. Women are America’s forgotten and neglected oppressed. We have been denied many of our most basic rights throughout American history. When Hillary Clinton says her historic candidacy is something to consider, she’s not wrong. There’s no place at the lead table for women in American politics. The majority of Cabinet positions have never been held by a woman, Congress is fewer than 20% women, fewer than ten percent of governors are women. The numbers tell the story. Sanders, a career politician with 30 years in Congress, knows this, even if somehow Killer Mike does not. Focusing on the frontrunner’s uterus while ignoring these facts of American women’s lives is sexist, reductive and no way to run a presidential campaign. Does Sanders’ political revolution include women? I hope so. But dismissing outrage over blatant sexism from his own campaign as "gotcha politics" implies that sexism has not been addressed by Sanders’ campaign or the candidate himself. Victoria A. Brownworth is an award-winning journalist, editor and writer and the author and editor of nearly 30 books. She has won the NLGJA and the Society of Professional Journalists awards, the Lambda Literary Award and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She won the 2013 SPJ Award for Enterprise Reporting in May 2014. She is a regular contributor to The Advocate and SheWired, a blogger for Huffington Post and A Room of Her Own, senior politics reporter and contributing editor for Curve magazine, contributing editor for Lambda Literary Review and a columnist for San Francisco Bay Area Reporter. Her reporting and commentary have appeared in the New York Times, Village Voice, Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, The Nation, Ms Magazine and Slate. Her book, Coming Out of Cancer: Writings from the Lesbian Cancer Epidemic won the Lambda Literary Award, From Where We Sit: Black Writers Write Black Youth won the 2012 Moonbeam Award for cultural & historical fiction. Her new novel, Ordinary Mayhem, won the IPPY Award for fiction on May 1, 2015. Her book Erasure: Silencing Lesbians and her next novel, Sleep So Deep, will both be published in 2016. @VABVOXHumin is an app that wants to make your address book more intuitive so that you can find the most relevant people regardless of what situation you might be in. Instead of an alphabetical display, the app, which was soft-launched last week at the DLD Conference in Munich, pulls data from other sources in order to rethink how your contacts are presented. The app integrates with your existing contacts and calendar, as well as services like Gmail, Facebook and Linkedin. Not only does it create a social graph, but it also relies on time and geo-location data to contextualize your contacts like never before. “Did you know John was visiting San Francisco? You might want to call him up. These sorts of things are super useful as we change physical and temporal context,” said Humin chief scientist Sinan Aral.Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of three members of the Russian feminist punk-rock collective Pussy Riot now serving time in prison for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred,” spends her days in a four-woman cell on the outskirts of Moscow, trying to read. She assumes that she is filmed by her jailers and spied on by her cellmates; her infrequent meetings with her husband, Petr Verzilov, are monitored, too. Her notes are confiscated during daily searches and she is told that she had better not even try to draw up “illegal escape plans.” The cell is cold and malodorous, though Nadezhda counts herself fortunate: most cells hold thirty or more prisoners. Ordinary prisoners pay up to ten thousand dollars a month in bribes to get into a four-person cell. Above the din, she has been reading Foucault, Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, the Bible, and, in recent weeks, the late essays of Tolstoy. “One good thing about Russian prisons is that they have a halfway decent library,” said Verzilov, who was in the States this week to campaign for the release of the Pussy Riot Three. “No Foucault—she gets that from outside—but good Russian classics!” The women from Pussy Riot—a group modelled on riot-grrrl bands like Bikini Kill, all with a heavy dose of performance art, left-wing feminist politics, anarchist spirit, and critical theory—were convicted of “hooliganism” after they and two others descended on the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, on February 21st, and, wearing balaclavas and interesting skirts, lip-synched (and filmed) the song “Punk Prayer—Mother of God, Get Rid of Putin.” The performance lasted around forty seconds before it was broken up. Neither Vladimir Putin nor the Russian Orthodox Church was amused. Both the regime and the Church targeted Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich as blasphemers of Russia. The ensuing prosecution and conviction of Pussy Riot is only the best known of many gestures by the Putin regime signalling an over-all crackdown on liberal, pro-Western dissent. (Masha Lipman has written about the case.) The women received a two-year sentence; it will be appealed on October 1st, but Verzilov told me that the chances of its being commuted or reduced are slim. “It would take an absolute miracle,” he said. Verzilov was in New York with his and Tolokonnikova’s daughter, Gera, an adorable four-year-old. On Friday, he and Gera were at the Ace Hotel, where Yoko Ono and Amnesty International presented Pussy Riot with the LennonOno Grant for Peace. Ono thanked Pussy Riot for “standing firmly in their belief in freedom of expression and making all women of the world proud to be women.” Among the other honorees were Christopher Hitchens, the essayist and journalist who died earlier this year, and Rachel Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist, who was killed when she was run over by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza, in 2003. In Washington, Verzilov met with the Burmese democracy activist and opposition politician Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and various congressmen. San Suu Kyi called for the release of the members of Pussy Riot and said that the only good reason to crack down on musicians was if they couldn’t sing very well. The current Russian Prime Minister and former President Dmitri Medvedev said this week that it might be a good idea to release the three members of Pussy Riot. Medvedev said that he was “sickened” by what the women had done, but that “the prolongation of their incarceration in the conditions of jail seems to me to be unproductive. A suspended sentence, taking into account time they have already spent [in jail], would be entirely sufficient.” Verzilov said that Medvedev’s comments didn’t give him much hope, because, in recent months, Putin and the silovki—members of the security agencies and the military—have made it clear that they intend to wipe away any traces of liberalization that Medvedev allowed when he was President. The atmosphere, which wasn’t particularly free under Medvedev, has soured considerably. When leaders of Amnesty International tried to present representatives of the Russian Embassy, in Washington, with a petition calling for the release of the Pussy Riot members, they were roughly dismissed, and the petition was tossed away. “You can easily see why something like Pussy Riot makes Putin so angry,” Verzilov said. “These are ordinary girls, like you might have met during the pro-democracy demonstrations in Moscow [last winter]. People can relate to them. Not everyone, obviously, but many. And Pussy Riot is so Western in its ideas and its influences—musically, politically. For people to see the state go out of its way to crush these women, well, they say, ‘Whoa, is this Iran we’re living in?’ It’s complicated; of course we are not Iran. And yet the state will not let these women out of jail. So who are we?” Photograph by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty.Looking for some hope? This post hopefully will make you smile, give you some hope. Grab your favorite beverage and let’s begin. I’ve been working in an environment with multiple vCenters. Many were either 5.5 or 6.0. We still had access to the famed ‘full C# client’, even though the Flash Client was available, many didn’t use and would continue to use C# client until we were forced to change (me included). For long-time admins, the full client is like comfort food or that favorite beverage they are used to, don’t make me change. With anything in IT, change is part of the job. In one evening, we upgraded multiple (5) vCenters to 6.5, putting the C# out to pasture. On one hand, we were thrilled the upgrades and migrations from windows to appliance worked (couple bumps, but we were able to get past). for those wondering what bumps, we had to remove / re-add the PSC to Active Directory. On the other hand, there was a small empty feeling. I try look at the bright side in any situation. ( I really do although there are others who would disagree). As part of the 6.5 rollout, there is two clients. The Flash client (full functionality and some stresses to using it!) The new HTML 5 shiny client The links are accessible within the landing page when navigating to the vCenter by name. I’ll give VMware credit putting the wording (partial functionality) on the landing page. This blog post isn’t here to debate Flash vs HTML5, that has been settled elsewhere. Remember, this blog post is about giving hope. 🙂 Did I say this blog post was about providing some hope. Dennis Lu apparently likes taking on big challenges. He is a frequent contributor and main person for something called HTML 5 fling (more info here) For those unaware or haven’t checked this in a while, it’s grown up. As part of our rollout, I deployed a separate HTML 5 fling appliance. The appliance is used on more frequently used vCenters accessed by customers. Plus, you can give the appliance a handy DNS name. We call ours vhtml.example.com (have to get a little “v” in the name) When I first explored the HTML 5 fling, the appliance required a re-deploy every time. Although the HTML 5 fling was “kewl”, it wasn’t functional enough to use in our environment. Fast forward, the current release is 3.9 as of this blog post. A few weeks ago, I deployed the 3.3x release appliance. I’ve used the update feature twice without issues (remember to snapshot before upgrade). Good Job Dennis and crew! Handy feature here. To access this functionality, go to https://<ApplianceIPorName>:5490 (note 5490, not 5480 like I type a few times). Login and click update. The update will take a few minutes. I noticed the finalized update status appears to not always notify when done.. I waited a few minutes and refreshed my browser (Chrome is my preferred one). Here is a screenshot of the update in progress. The reason we deployed the extra appliance was to give ability to have a client end users could access, that gets updated more frequently than the HTML 5 client hosted on the vCenter appliance. To update the HTML 5 hosted on vCenter, requires an upgrade as far as I know. Would be handy to do it separately from a vCenter upgrade. (@VMware hint hint!) We generally try to limit upgrading vCenter to once or twice a year. Using an external appliance, we get new features faster, safer with less hassle and risk upgrading vCenters. I hope you enjoyed this slice of hope, there is part of me that misses the C# as my every day tool, we have a couple of vCenters it still works on, although there is little need to access them regularly. Thanks Dennis and team for providing this option. It’s made the transition a little less painful. The disclaimer is use at your own risk, test in a non-production environment first. PS – The appliance appears it needs internet access, so you’ll have to check with the security group or whoever manages the firewalls to download updates. I’m not sure if there is a way to do offline updates to an existing appliance, probably a reload is required. Enjoy, Steve Schofield #vExpert 2017 @steveschofield http://vsteve.me What is this section for? It’s a separate way to share ideas to pass along that I thought of while typing my blog post. If you know some of the answers, I’m on twitter at @steveschofield Love to have the appliance automatically redirect port 80 to 443. We have to type in https:// (maybe a browser issue now HTTPS is more common) Ability to externalize web client on multiple machines, load-balance vs. being a single point of failure + the authentication window that appears on a Platform service controller Update HTML 5 client / Flash web client separately from vCenter appliance Single Appliance access multiple, separate vCenters hosted in separate SSO domains.Do you have an unhealthy addiction to Diablo III? Are you absolutely mad about transmogrification like I am? Good! In the next patch, 2.4.1, Blizzard plans to expand the fabulous world of dungeon crawling with loads of beautiful cosmetic item drops, including new helms, weapons, PETS (what?!), and wings! As a very enthusiastic user of transmogrification, I was a little underwhelmed by the amount of armour customization available, so this kind of update is sure to bring a lot more razzle dazzle to the show! It’s just not Diablo without the Cow King. Could this be a reference to Diablo II’s Moo Moo Farm level? Check out more of the drops some people have found here! Do you think this patch can bring even more variety to the incredibly variable Diablo III? Let us know in the comments below or on our Subreddit!A University of Texas fraternity is being investigated for a party that was reportedly border-themed. The university’s Campus Climate Response Team received multiple complaints about the off-campus party at Phi Gamma Delta, a statement from UT said. “We strive to promote a campus culture in which all students feel welcome and safe,” the university said, “and we take allegations of discrimination and hate extremely seriously.” “I think it was initially a western theme party that turned into some sort of border party,” said Erica Saenz who works for Diversity and Community Engagement at UT. That’s a theme officials with the university say is against the rules. The UT website lists non-offensive party themes and ones they consider offensive. The list clearly states not to have any party with a “South of the Border” theme. The Daily Texan obtained pictures taken at the party that show guests in sombreros and ponchos. “Some people find it offensive, some people don’t,” Saenz said. “It just sort of depends where you fall on that and if you’re a student you have the right to voice your offense to it, and we have a right and responsibility to respond to objection.” The university received nine complaints about the party, all from people who say they were offended by the theme. {snip} {snip} School officials say the fraternity could be suspended or put on probation pending the outcome of the investigation. {snip} {snip} [Editor’s Note: Here is the university’s list of “offensive” and “non-offensive” party themes.] Original Article Share ThisThe other day there was this guy in a chicken suit on Pennsylvania Avenue protesting outside the White House. Silly, but the reason the chicken and other demonstrators had crossed the avenue was to deliver a petition of more than half a million names, speaking out against new rules the US Department of Agriculture wants to put into effect — bad rules that would transfer much of the work inspecting pork and chicken and turkey meat from trained government inspectors to the processing companies themselves. Talk about putting the fox in the henhouse! The revised regulations also call for a substantial speeding up of the disassembly line along which workers use sharp knives and often painful, repetitive hand motions to cut up and clean carcasses of dirt, blood and other contaminants that can cause infection and sickness. Not only will this increase in speed — by 25 percent or more – raise the chance of injury, it makes it easier to miss anything wrong — even deadly – with the meat. To compensate for that, the rules also call for an increase in the use of antimicrobial chemicals sprayed on the meat – but those sprays may actually damage the health of the workers. Inspectors and meat packing employees report instances of asthma, burns, skin rashes, sinus trouble and other respiratory ailments, some of them severe. What’s more, when complaints were made about health or hygiene, the response from employers often came in the form of threats and reprimands. According to the Agriculture Department, their plan will increase food safety, but early last month, the Government Accountability Office — the GAO – reported on a years-old pilot program for some of these new rules and determined that the data on which they were based was, in the words of The Washington Post, “incomplete and antiquated.” One study used data that was more than 20 years old. The Agriculture Department says the new rules will save the Federal budget $30 million annually, but compared to the more than $256 million it will save the poultry industry every year, that’s chickenfeed. In reality, as Tom Philpott, the food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jonesmagazine, succinctly put it: “…The Obama administration has been pushing a deregulatory sop to a powerful industry based on a shoddy analysis.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that “each year roughly one in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases.” Every state in the union has seen an outbreak in foodborne illness over the last decade; men, women and children made sick by E.coli, salmonella and other pathogens in everything from meat to produce, cereal, even peanut butter. The progressive website Truthout notes that “Americans are 110 times more likely to die from contaminated food than terrorism… at an annual cost to the economy of nearly $80 billion.” And yet, when Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act almost three years ago, designed to toughen standards, the representatives of the food industry — spending tens of millions in campaign contributions and lobbying money – went after it with a vengeance, delaying and watering the final version down so much that the Food and Drug Administration can barely function, its own inspectors unable to fulfill their duties. (The situation was made even worse by the government shutdown.) In 2011, the FDA inspected only six percent of domestic food producers and less than half a percent of imported food — and this at a time when more and more of our food — including two thirds of our fresh fruits and vegetables — is coming from overseas. Additional pressure on Congress and state legislatures comes from our old friend ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, funded by Koch Industries and other corporations — including, recently, Google and Facebook — as well as conservative organizations, to draft legislation designed to benefit big business no matter the cost to the rest of us. In an introduction to its so-called “agriculture principles,” ALEC announced, “The proper role of government involvement in agriculture is to limit and remove barriers for agricultural production, trade and consumption throughout our innovative food system.” Safety restrictions should “incorporate a least restrictive approach,” it says, while at the same time ALEC encourages high tech, high yield farming and calls out against “unnecessary additional restrictions on the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture.” ALEC boasts abut the safety and quality of our food system — the highest in the world, it says — but at the same time designs and pushes legislation designed to prosecute and crush journalists, whistleblowers and animal rights activists who would secretly infiltrate the food industry to expose shoddy practices and unsafe, unsanitary conditions that threaten the nation’s well-being. These so-called “ag-gag” bills criminalize those who would report abuse. If such laws had existed a century ago, a muckraker like Upton Sinclair would never have been allowed to report the sordid practices of the meat packing industry that led to his book “The Jungle” and saved who knows how many from tainted food, sickness and death? Add to this the controversy over growth-enhancing drugs and hormones, the danger of genetically modified foods, the cruelty of big business factory farms: how can measures like these sound like good ideas to anyone other than those who would put profits above public health? It’s called “runaway capitalism,” and the time has come to stop this free market fundamentalism gone amok. It’s enough to make you sick. Copyright: Truth OutPolitical Wire's Taegan Goddard gets his hands on some Republican-circulated exit polls. We have no idea how closely they resemble the truth, though if they do bear some resemblance, then President Barack Obama would win the election. He would lead Mitt Romney 281-235, with two tossup states (Virginia and Colorado) still to come. Here are Goddard's numbers: 7:00 - Virginia - Tied 7:30 - North Carolina - Romney +1 7:30 - Ohio - Obama +4 8:00 - Florida - Romney +1 8:00 - New Hampshire - Obama +3 8:00 - Pennsylvania - Obama +4 9:00 - Colorado - Tied 9:00 - Minnesota - Obama +4 9:00 - Wisconsin - Obama +4 10:00 - Iowa (wave 1) Obama +3 10:00 - Nevada (wave 1) Obama +5 And here's a map of how that would look: 270towin.com Of course, Goddard cautions: "Probably best to ignore them." Drudge's exit polls are also cryptic >With a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, Waldo Jaquith pushes forward with the U.S. Open Data Institute, an effort to link government data sources and organizations over the next year. I’m convinced that we already have many of the right people, organizations and businesses working on open data in the United States. They just don’t know about each other. (The organization certainly won’t duplicate any of the efforts of the folks in this space.) And we have nearly all of the necessary software, but so much of it is only known within its narrow domain, despite its broad applicability. The institute will connect all of these entities, promote the work of those who are leading the way and provide supportive, nonjudgmental assistance to those who need help. We don’t have all the answers, but we know the folks who do. We want to amplify their message and connect them to new collaborators and clients. This could be fun.World wheat production in 2016 is expected to exceed the 2015 record by 1.2%, underpinned by output increases in India, the Russian Federation and the U.S. “A positive outlook for global cereal production in 2016, together with abundant stocks, points to a generally comfortable supply and demand balance in 2016-17,” the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a Cereal Supply and Demand Brief issued Oct. 6. “In 2016, world cereal production is set to increase by 1.5%, or 38 million tonnes, to hit a new record of 2.569 billion tonnes, topping by at least 5.5 million tonnes the preceding peak of 2014,” it said. “The current FAO forecast is over 3 million tonnes higher than projected in September, with most of the upward revisions concerning wheat and rice.” World wheat production in 2016 is expected to exceed the 2015 record by 1.2%, underpinned by output increases in India, the Russian Federation and the United States, it said. “Similarly, global rice production is forecast to grow by 1.3%, to an all-time high, driven by recoveries in Asia, as well as by gains in Africa and North America,” the FAO said. “Global production of coarse grains is set to rebound by 1.8% from last year’s reduced level, mostly reflecting prospects for record maize crops in the United States, Argentina and India.” The FAO expects global grain utilization in 2016-17 to rise by 1.6% to 2.560 billion tonnes, with feed usage up by 2.7% in a market with large supplies of maize and low quality wheat. “In spite of the projected year-on-year growth in total cereal utilization, the rise in world cereal production in 2016 would still result in an increase in the level of global cereal inventories,” the FAO said. “All would be in the form of wheat, as ending inventories of coarse grains and rice are anticipated to slide below their opening levels.” Although the world stocks-to-use ratios for wheat, coarse grains and rice are all estimated to decline somewhat in 2016-17, export availabilities are predicted to remain ample, the FAO said. “This is particularly the case for coarse grains, which are likely to face a decline in import demand in 2016-17,” the agency noted. The CBOT wheat price outlook is maintained as U.S. markets trade through seasonal lows and trend toward $4.30 per bushel ($158 per tonne) in late 2016, Rabobank said in its Agri Commodities Monthly at the end of September. “Our slightly bullish forecast for MATIF wheat also stays at €165 per tonne in fourth quarter 2016, as the end of the harvest and beginning of new crop plantings skew market risks to the upside,” Rabobank said. “Looking to the new E.U. season, a lack of soil moisture and little meaningful rainfall in the two-week forecast poses short-term risks for winter planting in key areas of France, as well as in parts of Germany. In the U.S., plantings are under way as normal, with excellent soil moisture profiles across the Southern Plains. “Big expectations for the 2016-17 Australian harvest provide no relief for current price levels, with output pegged at 28 million tonnes by ABARES (Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences) — a five-year high if realized, resulting in a further 20 million tonnes of available exports globally.” The bank did, however, raise the prospect of quality concerns in Australia. “This now extends global quality concerns from the E.U., the U.S. and Canada to Australia, driving opportunities for producers of high-quality milling grain,” Rabobank said. The International Grains Council (IGC) puts total grains production at 2.069 billion tonnes in 2016-17, up from 2.002 billion the year before. Its forecast includes 747 million tonnes of wheat, up from 736 million the previous season, and 1.027 billion tonnes of maize, up from 970 million. To view the full image, click here World grains production will break records again this year. Although usage also is expected to rise, ending stocks will be higher and export availabilities will be ample. COARSE GRAINS FAO’s full Food Outlook report predicted a tightening of the supply and demand outlook for coarse grains in 2016-17, despite higher production. “However, with large export availabilities and weak import demand prospects, international coarse grain prices could remain subdued,” the FAO said. “World production of coarse grains in 2016 is forecast to rise by 1.8% from the reduced 2015 harvest. Record maize outputs in the United States and Argentina, along with gains in a number of other major producing countries, are likely to boost world maize production in 2016, despite expected sharp declines in Brazil, China and South Africa.” Global utilization of coarse grains is anticipated to grow by 1.5% in 2016-17, driven largely by higher uptakes of coarse grains for animal feeding and industrial use, the FAO said. “The most significant expansion concerns maize, which could see much greater volumes fed to animals in the United States and China, supported by larger domestic supplies and more competitive prices than in the previous season,” the FAO said. “Relatively low prices are also likely to stimulate industrial uses, in particular of maize for the production of starch and biofuels.” Upside potential for corn prices will continue to be driven from the supply side, as global corn stocks increase by a further 1% in 2016-17, Rabobank said, noting that stocks of maize are historically high. “We expect global stocks to use to remain above 20% for the 2016-17 season, with U.S. corn stocks at a 30-year high,” Rabobank said. As well as the maize, the IGC puts the 2016 barley crop at 144.5 million tonnes, down from 147.7 million the year before. Ample rains boosted yields, but caused some quality problems, the IGC said. Barley consumption is put at 144.7 million tonnes, up from 144.4 million. “Linked to reduced imports by Saudi Arabia and China, world trade is forecast to contract from the high levels of the past two years,” the IGC said. “Japonica quotations tended to hold firmer ground, finding some support in rekindling demand in the Far East,” the FAO said. RICE The IGC cut its projection for global rice output in 2016-17 by 2 million tonnes to 482 million “due to slight downward adjustments for some producers, notably Thailand,” but explained that the figure is still 2% up year on year and an all-time high. “Amid record supplies, world carryovers are anticipated to expand to 114 million tonnes, as increases in China and other countries more than offset a contraction in the major exporters,” the IGC said. “Trade in 2017 is predicted broadly unchanged from previously, at about 40 million tonnes, a marginal decline year on year, but in line with the prior five-year average.” The FAO said in its Rice Update that its All Rice Price Index (2002-04=100) averaged 190 points in September 2016, down 5.5 points (3%) from its August value. The decline was driven lower by Indica quotations, it said. “Japonica quotations tended to hold firmer ground, finding some support in rekindling demand in the Far East,” the FAO said. The bank wondered if Argentina
behind them no record whatever. We do not even know their names. In the whole of Greek and Roman history, how many slaves’ names are known to you? I can think of two, or possibly three. One is Spartacus and the other is Epictetus. Also, in the Roman room at the British Museum there is a glass jar with the maker’s name inscribed on the bottom, ‘Felix fecit’. I have a vivid mental picture of poor Felix (a Gaul with red hair and a metal collar round his neck), but in fact he may not have been a slave; so there are only two slaves whose names I definitely know, and probably few people can remember more. The rest have gone down into utter silence. V The backbone of the resistance against Franco was the Spanish working class, especially the urban trade union members. In the long run – it is important to remember that it is only in the long run – the working class remains the most reliable enemy of Fascism, simply because the working class stands to gain most by a decent reconstruction of society. Unlike other classes or categories, it can’t be permanently bribed. To say this is not to idealize the working class. In the long struggle that has followed the Russian Revolution it is the manual workers who have been defeated, and it is impossible not to feel that it was their own fault. Time after time, in country after country, the organized working-class movements have been crushed by open, illegal violence, and their comrades abroad, linked to them in theoretical solidarity, have simply looked on and done nothing; and underneath this, secret cause of many betrayals, has lain the fact that between white and coloured workers there is not even lip-service to solidarity. Who can believe in the class-conscious international proletariat after the events of the past ten years? To the British working class the massacre of their comrades in Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, or wherever it might be, seemed less interesting and less important than yesterday’s football match. Yet this does not alter the fact that the working class will go on struggling against Fascism after the others have caved in. One feature of the Nazi conquest of France was the astonishing defections among the intelligentsia, including some of the left-wing political intelligentsia. The intelligentsia are the people who squeal loudest against Fascism, and yet a respectable proportion of them collapse into defeatism when the pinch comes. They are far-sighted enough to see the odds against them, and moreoever they can be bribed – for it is evident that the Nazis think it worth while to bribe intellectuals. With the working class it is the other way about. Too ignorant to see through the trick that is being played on them, they easily swallow the promises of Fascism, yet sooner or later they always take up the struggle again. They must do so, because in their own bodies they always discover that the promises of Fascism cannot be fulfilled. To win over the working class permanently, the Fascists would have to raise the general standard of living, which they are unable and probably unwilling to do. The struggle of the working class is like the growth of a plant. The plant is blind and stupid, but it knows enough to keep pushing upwards towards the light, and it will do this in the face of endless discouragements. What are the workers struggling for? Simply for the decent life which they are more and more aware is now technically possible. Their consciousness of this aim ebbs and flows. In Spain, for a while, people were acting consciously, moving towards a goal which they wanted to reach and believed they could reach. It accounted for the curiously buoyant feeling that life in Government Spain had during the early months of the war. The common people knew in their bones that the Republic was their friend and Franco was their enemy. They knew that they were in the right, because they were fighting for something which the world owed them and was able to give them. One has to remember this to see the Spanish war in its true perspective. When one thinks of the cruelty, squalor, and futility of war – and in this particular case of the intrigues, the persecutions, the lies and the misunderstandings – there is always the temptation to say: ‘One side is as bad as the other. I am neutral’. In practice, however, one cannot be neutral, and there is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction. The hatred which the Spanish Republic excited in millionaires, dukes, cardinals, play-boys, Blimps, and what-not would in itself be enough to show one how the land lay. In essence it was a class war. If it had been won, the cause of the common people everywhere would have been strengthened. It was lost, and the dividend-drawers all over the world rubbed their hands. That was the real issue; all else was froth on its surface. VI The outcome of the Spanish war was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin – at any rate not in Spain. After the summer of 1937 those with eyes in their heads realized that the Government could not win the war unless there were some profound change in the international set-up, and in deciding to fight on Negrin and the others may have been partly influenced by the expectation that the world war which actually broke out in 1939 was coming in 1938. The much-publicized disunity on the Government side was not a main cause of defeat. The Government militias were hurriedly raised, ill-armed and unimaginative in their military outlook, but they would have been the same if complete political agreement had existed from the start. At the outbreak of war the average Spanish factory-worker did not even know how to fire a rifle (there had never been universal conscription in Spain), and the traditional pacifism of the Left was a great handicap. The thousands of foreigners who served in Spain made good infantry, but there were very few experts of any kind among them. The Trotskyist thesis that the war could have been won if the revolution had not been sabotaged was probably false. To nationalize factories, demolish churches, and issue revolutionary manifestoes would not have made the armies more efficient. The Fascists won because they were the stronger; they had modern arms and the others hadn’t. No political strategy could offset that. The most baffling thing in the Spanish war was the behaviour of the great powers. The war was actually won for Franco by the Germans and Italians, whose motives were obvious enough. The motives of France and Britain are less easy to understand. In 1936 it was clear to everyone that if Britain would only help the Spanish Government, even to the extent of a few million pounds’ worth of arms, Franco would collapse and German strategy would be severely dislocated. By that time one did not need to be a clairvoyant to foresee that war between Britain and Germany was coming; one could even foretell within a year or two when it would come. Yet in the most mean, cowardly, hypocritical way the British ruling class did all they could to hand Spain over to Franco and the Nazis. Why? Because they were pro-Fascist, was the obvious answer. Undoubtedly they were, and yet when it came to the final showdown they chose to stand up to Germany. It is still very uncertain what plan they acted on in backing Franco, and they may have had no clear plan at all. Whether the British ruling class are wicked or merely stupid is one of the most difficult questions of our time, and at certain moments a very important question. As to the Russians, their motives in the Spanish war are completely inscrutable. Did they, as the pinks believed, intervene in Spain in order to defend democracy and thwart the Nazis? Then why did they intervene on such a niggardly scale and finally leave Spain in the lurch? Or did they, as the Catholics maintained, intervene in order to foster revolution in Spain? Then why did they do all in their power to crush the Spanish revolutionary movements, defend private property and hand power to the middle class as against the working class? Or did they, as the Trotskyists suggested, intervene simply in order to prevent a Spanish revolution? Then why not have backed Franco? Indeed, their actions are most easily explained if one assumes that they were acting on several contradictory motives. I believe that in the future we shall come to feel that Stalin’s foreign policy, instead of being so diabolically clever as it is claimed to be, has been merely opportunistic and stupid. But at any rate, the Spanish Civil War demonstrated that the Nazis knew what they were doing and their opponents did not. The war was fought at a low technical level and its major strategy was very simple. That side which had arms would win. The Nazis and the Italians gave arms to their Spanish Fascist friends, and the western democracies and the Russians didn’t give arms to those who should have been their friends. So the Spanish Republic perished, having ‘gained what no republic missed’. Whether it was right, as all left-wingers in other countries undoubtedly did, to encourage the Spaniards to go on fighting when they could not win is a question hard to answer. I myself think it was right, because I believe that it is better even from the point of view of survival to fight and be conquered than to surrender without fighting. The effects on the grand strategy of the struggle against Fascism cannot be assessed yet. The ragged, weaponless armies of the Republic held out for two and a half years, which was undoubtedly longer than their enemies expected. But whether that dislocated the Fascist timetable, or whether, on the other hand, it merely postponed the major war and gave the Nazis extra time to get their war machine into trim, is still uncertain. VII I never think of the Spanish war without two memories coming into my mind. One is of the hospital ward at Lerida and the rather sad voices of the wounded militiamen singing some song with a refrain that ended: ‘Una resolucion, Luchar hast’ al fin!’ Well, they fought to the end all right. For the last eighteen months of the war the Republican armies must have been fighting almost without cigarettes, and with precious little food. Even when I left Spain in the middle of 1937, meat and bread were scarce, tobacco a rarity, coffee and sugar almost unobtainable. The other memory is of the Italian militiaman who shook my hand in the guardroom, the day I joined the militia. I wrote about this man at the beginning of my book on the Spanish war, and do not want to repeat what I said there. When I remember – oh, how vividly! – his shabby uniform and fierce, pathetic, innocent face, the complex side-issues of the war seem to fade away and I see clearly that there was at any rate no doubt as to who was in the right. In spite of power politics and journalistic lying, the central issue of the war was the attempt of people like this to win the decent life which they knew to be their birthright. It is difficult to think of this particular man’s probable end without several kinds of bitterness. Since I met him in the Lenin Barracks he was probably a Trotskyist or an Anarchist, and in the peculiar conditions of our time, when people of that sort are not killed by the Gestapo they are usually killed by the G.P.U. But that does not affect the long-term issues. This man’s face, which I saw only for a minute or two, remains with me as a sort of visual reminder of what the war was really about. He symbolizes for me the flower of the European working class, harried by the police of all countries, the people who fill the mass graves of the Spanish battlefields and are now, to the tune of several millions, rotting in forced-labour camps. When one thinks of all the people who support or have supported Fascism, one stands amazed at their diversity. What a crew! Think of a programme which at any rate for a while could bring Hitler, Pétain, Montagu Norman, Pavelitch, William Randolph Hearst, Streicher, Buchman, Ezra Pound, Juan March, Cocteau, Thyssen, Father Coughlin, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Arnold Lunn, Antonescu, Spengler, Beverley Nichols, Lady Houston, and Marinetti all into the same boat! But the clue is really very simple. They are all people with something to lose, or people who long for a hierarchical society and dread the prospect of a world of free and equal human beings. Behind all the ballyhoo that is talked about ‘godless’ Russia and the ‘materialism’ of the working class lies the simple intention of those with money or privileges to cling to them. Ditto, though it contains a partial truth, with all the talk about the worthlessness of social reconstruction not accompanied by a ‘change of heart’. The pious ones, from the Pope to the yogis of California, are great on the ‘changes of heart’, much more reassuring from their point of view than a change in the economic system. Pétain attributes the fall of France to the common people’s ‘love of pleasure’. One sees this in its right perspective if one stops to wonder how much pleasure the ordinary French peasant’s or working-man’s life would contain compared with Pétain’s own. The damned impertinence of these politicians, priests, literary men, and what not who lecture the working-class Socialist for his ‘materialism’! All that the working man demands is what these others would consider the indispensable minimum without which human life cannot be lived at all. Enough to eat, freedom from the haunting terror of unemployment, the knowledge that your children will get a fair chance, a bath once a day, clean linen reasonably often, a roof that doesn’t leak, and short enough working hours to leave you with a little energy when the day is done. Not one of those who preach against ‘materialism’ would consider life livable without these things. And how easily that minimum could be attained if we chose to set our minds to it for only twenty years! To raise the standard of living of the whole world to that of Britain would not be a greater undertaking than the war we are now fighting. I don’t claim, and I don’t know who does, that that wouldn’t solve anything in itself. It is merely that privation and brute labour have to be abolished before the real problems of humanity can be tackled. The major problem of our time is the decay of the belief in personal immortality, and it cannot be dealt with while the average human being is either drudging like an ox or shivering in fear of the secret police. How right the working classes are in their ‘materialism’! How right they are to realize that the belly comes before the soul, not in the scale of values but in point of time! Understand that, and the long horror that we are enduring becomes at least intelligible. All the considerations that are likely to make one falter – the siren voices of a Pétain or of a Gandhi, the inescapable fact that in order to fight one has to degrade oneself, the equivocal moral position of Britain, with its democratic phrases and its coolie empire, the sinister development of Soviet Russia, the squalid farce of left-wing politics – all this fades away and one sees only the struggle of the gradually awakening common people against the lords of property and their hired liars and bumsuckers. The question is very simple. Shall people like that Italian soldier be allowed to live the decent, fully human life which is now technically achievable, or shan’t they? Shall the common man be pushed back into the mud, or shall he not? I myself believe, perhaps on insufficient grounds, that the common man will win his fight sooner or later, but I want it to be sooner and not later – some time within the next hundred years, say, and not some time within the next ten thousand years. That was the real issue of the Spanish war, and of the present war, and perhaps of other wars yet to come. I never saw the Italian militiaman again, nor did I ever learn his name. It can be taken as quite certain that he is dead. Nearly two years later, when the war was visibly lost, I wrote these verses in his memory: The Italian soldier shook my hand Beside the guard-room table; The strong hand and the subtle hand Whose palms are only able To meet within the sound of guns, But oh! what peace I knew then In gazing on his battered face Purer than any woman’s! For the flyblown words that make me spew Still in his ears were holy, And he was born knowing what I had learned Out of books and slowly. The treacherous guns had told their tale And we both had bought it, But my gold brick was made of gold – Oh! who ever would have thought it? Good luck go with you, Italian soldier! But luck is not for the brave; What would the world give back to you? Always less than you gave. Between the shadow and the ghost, Between the white and the red, Between the bullet and the lie, Where would you hide your head? For where is Manuel Gonzalez, And where is Pedro Aguilar, And where is Ramon Fenellosa? The earthworms know where they are. Your name and your deeds were forgotten Before your bones were dry, And the lie that slew you is buried Under a deeper lie; But the thing that I saw in your face No power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst Shatters the crystal spirit. Written August 1942, Sections I, II, III, and VII printed in New Road, June 1943For the last several years, the popular media has been running story after story about college “hookup culture.” These articles argue that today’s youth are more sex-crazed than previous generations and that casual sex is largely replacing traditional dating and relationships. But is there any truth to these frequent claims? A closer look at trends in sexual behavior reveals that college students today are no more sexually active than students were a couple of decades ago. As some evidence of this, researchers from the University of Portland compared data collected as part of the General Social Survey at two different points in time: 1988-1996 and 2002-2010 [1]. Specifically, they looked at the sexual behaviors of 18-25-year-old adults in the U.S. during each of those eight-year periods. What they found was that students today were not having more sex or more partners than students in the 1980s and 90s. Among the 1988-1996 students, 65.2% reported having sex at least weekly during the last year. For the 2002-2010 students, the number was a bit lower, at 59.3%. The number of students who reported having more than one sexual partner during the last year was almost identical in each cohort (just under 32%). Likewise, the number who reported having more than two sexual partners since the age of 18 was also very similar (51.7% for the earlier group and 50.5% for the later group). The researchers also found that attitudes toward premarital sex did not differ between the cohorts. In fact, the only sexual attitude that changed significantly across time was increased acceptance of same-sex relationships in recent years. One notable way that sexual behaviors have changed somewhat is that today’s students were less likely to report having sex with a spouse or a steady sex partner (77.1% in the 2002-2010 group vs. 84.5% in the 1988-1996 group), but this likely reflects the fact that people are postponing marriage longer and longer and there is less social pressure to settle down at a young age. One other important difference is that today’s students were more likely to report having a sexual partner who was a friend (68.6%) than students from the past (55.7%), suggesting that modern students are more likely to attempt “friends with benefits” relationships. In short, despite popular media claims about the increased sexualization of modern college campuses, national survey data reveal that there have been relatively few changes in students’ sexual attitudes and behaviors in the past few decades. Students today do not appear to be having more partners or more sex. That said, it is indisputable that there’s a lot of sex happening in college; however, this started with previous generations, so we should stop pretending like it’s a new phenomenon. Want to learn more about The Psychology of Human Sexuality? Click here for a complete list of articles or like the Facebook page to get articles delivered to your newsfeed. [1] Monto, M., & Carey, A. (2013). A new standard of sexual behavior? Are claims associated with the “hookup culture” supported by nationally representative data? Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Image Source: iStockphoto.com You Might Also Like:The first to pack his knives and go on Top Chef season 13: a DC cheftestant. Garret Fleming of Barrel on Capitol Hill was sent home after Wednesday night’s premiere. In the episode, competitors were challenged to prepare something that represented who they were, and where they were from. Fleming’s Vietnamese and Italian-inspired noodle dish was a hit with Emeril Lagasse, but failed to impress hosts Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio. Fleming tried to assert himself as the intellectual of the bunch from the start. “My parents were academics,” he said. “We traveled all the time, we constantly cooked and were very scientific with each dish.” He also dropped phrases like “gustatory aesthetics” and the “cultural manifestation of cuisine.” All the highbrow talk didn’t help his cooking and he struggled from the beginning, failing a mise-en-place race, which disqualified him from a challenge that could have granted him immunity. The other two Washington chefs – Marjorie Meek-Bradley (Ripple, Roofers Union) and Kwame Onwuachi of the upcoming the Shaw Bijou – mostly flew under the radar in the premiere. In the elimination challenge, Meek-Bradley’s lamb tartar and Onwuachi’s pork-pineapple dish both received positive feedback from the judges, but not enough to land them in the top three. Both chefs seemed more humble than many of their competitors—especially Fleming. “Ten years ago I was a sixteen year old kid in the Bronx getting in trouble in school,” Onwuachi said. “Now I’m about to start my own restaurant and I’m on Top Chef. In my wildest dreams I could never have thought that would happen.” Meek-Bradley was previously chef de cuisine for restaurateur Mike Isabella, a repeat Top Chef contestant. Before heading out, Fleming had harsh words for Isabella, calling his cooking “one of the worst bastardizations of Italian food in the history of the world.” Isabella got thefinal word on Twitter. @chefgfleming karma is a bitch — Mike Isabella (@MikeIsabellaDC) December 3, 2015 The second part of the season premiere airs tonight at 10pm.Finally, it has happened Randy Savage is going to be in the WWE Hall of Fame. As a life long Randy Savage fan, you would think this would be a huge moment. It was but not as big a moment as it could and should have been for myself. After all Vince McMahon confirmed Savage would be in the Hall of Fame on the Stone Cold Podcast. TMZ also reported earlier in the day this was going to be announced which the WWE made clear during Raw. This all took away from the moment when Savage was officially put in the Hall of Fame.That was bad enough, but to hear that Hulk Hogan is presenting Savage for induction made me sick inside. It is no secret that Savage for many points in his life hated this man legitimately. Hulk Hogan claims that Savage had made peace with him for their differences. Hulk Hogan has lied about so many things and we are just supposed to believe him? I personally do not and am sickened that Hogan is trying once again to push his way into Savage’s moment. This is not unlike when Savage won the title at Wrestlemania 4.The recent Savage DVD promised answers to why Randy was not in the Hall of Fame. The DVD never really gets into other than vague speculation. In addition not one member of the McMahon Family was featured in this DVD.The urban legend is that Savage had some kind of affair with Stephanie McMahon. Something in interviews Savage’s brother Lanny Poffo when asked about it would not deny it and in fact vaguely confirmed it. If Lanny is behind this whole thing, the fact he has allowed Hogan to be involved in this moment I personally will never forgive him for as Savage Fan. Poffo unlike his brother has always loved Hogan for giving him in his mind his big break as “The Genius” fighting Hogan on a Saturday Night’s Main Event for the title. Which was Lanny’s only shot ever at a title in the WWE that I can recall.WWE has taken a moment that should be celebrated by all Macho Man fans, and WWE have found a way to take away from what should be a special moment. This moment was long overdue for Randy Savage and should have happened while he was alive. That fact alone was hard enough to deal with forget about adding Hogan to the mix.In the end, Randy Savage deserved this honor for well over a decade before it actually has happened. WWE has found a way to take a moment that should be celebrated, but have taken away from the joy that should be associated with this for longtime Savage fans.Savage’s true legacy is how many people Randy actually turned on to wrestling. Many wrestlers that got into this business did in part because of Randy Savage and all he did in this business that is his legacy. C.M Punk was one of those guys and he brought Savage to light for modern fans by doing his elbow drop in WWE as a tribute to Savage. He also wore Savage gear the week after his death on Raw. Jay Lethal is another guy who has taken on the Savage persona as a tribute to Randy as well.There are many people that would not be wrestlers and millions more that would not be fans of wrestling without Randy being part of professional wrestling.I celebrate the fact that WWE finally did the right thing by putting Savage in Hall of Fame. The whole process of putting Savage in the Hall of Fame is being ruined for me as a fan of his for years. WWE will no doubt look to cash in on the memory of Savage where ever and whenever they can now.Randy Savage deserved to live to have this moment in his life. WWE robbed him and us his fans of that moment. Nothing that happens in this induction can make up for that.Still it is nice that finally Randy Savage is where he has always belonged in the WWE Hall of Fame.Most women are infected with HIV through vaginal intercourse, and without effective vaccines or microbicides, women who cannot negotiate condom use by their partners remain vulnerable. How exactly the virus establishes infection in the female reproductive tract (FRT) remains poorly understood. A study published on October 9th in PLOS Pathogens reports surprising results from a study of HIV transmission in the FRT of rhesus macaques. Most studies of HIV transmission after vaginal exposure to date have been done in rhesus macaques and focused on the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that meets the vagina. Thomas Hope, Daniel Stieh, both from Northwestern University, Chicago, USA, and colleagues went beyond what they call "cervix-centric studies" to take a fresh look at the initial events taking place throughout the FRT that lead to HIV infection. To do this, they constructed an artificial virus (or vector) that can enter host cells and deliver so-called reporter genes that can label infected cells in the macaque FRT. The vector used the same mechanism of initiating infection in host cells as Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (or SIV, the macaque counterpart of HIV), but it was unable to multiply and spread. It was therefore present only in cells that were directly infected (or "transduced") after introduction of the vector into the vagina. Instead of generating new virus, the vector expresses two reporter genes, one coding for luciferase (a firefly enzyme that creates the glow of luciferin) and the other for a red fluorescent protein called mCherry. Having two different reporter proteins in infected cells makes it possible to first do a low-resolution scan of the tissue to hone in on areas with infected cells containing luciferase, and then use high-resolution microscopy to visualize the individual infected cells highlighted by mCherry. Within 48 hours after vaginal introduction of the vector into 8 macaques, the researchers detected infected cells -- mostly T cells -- throughout the entire FRT, including the vagina, cervix, ovaries, and local lymph nodes. Most animals had more than one site of infection. The most common sites were the vagina and outer cervix, followed by the ovary. Infection in the inner cervix and lymph nodes were each seen in one animal. Given the limited number of animals and varying stages of the menstrual cycle, the study can't quantify the risk of infection per specific location. However, it indicates that virus can travel throughout the reproductive tract and that sites of initial infection are not restricted to specific domains within the FRT. Based on their findings, the researchers conclude that "the entire FRT should be considered as potentially susceptible to HIV infection, and mechanisms for prevention of HIV acquisition must be present at protective levels throughout the entire FRT to convey protection." The presence of retroviral infection in the ovary also offers a possible solution to a long-standing mystery, namely how retroviruses can enter the human genome. The decoding of the genome revealed that retroviruses have infected our ancestors repeatedly over evolutionary time, including as recently as 100,000 years ago. Retroviruses are also present in the genomes of all other animal species. To be passed on to the next generation, the retroviruses have to infect germ cells (egg, sperm, or their cellular precursors). Michael Emerman, from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, USA, who studies the evolution of the human-retrovirus interaction, and was not involved in the study, commented, "The proof that retroviruses entered into the genome of humans repeatedly in the past is present in every cell in the body of every human. The ability of virus introduced into the vaginal tract to infect cells in the ovary reveals one possible mechanism of how retroviruses could have entered the germ lines of human ancestors."Living in Japan, you’re basically trapped in a tiny spaceship, peering down through clouds and picking up intermittent snippets of news floating skyward from earth. I first heard “Poker Face” in a smoky Shinjuku karaoke bar, when some girl belted out Mum mum mum mah. Some complicated lyrics, those. And I learned the results of the U.S. election in a similar joint in Oita prefecture. Okay, so I do a lot of karaoke. Beer helps. Anyway, what I mean is that it’s not easy keeping touch with Western culture, and even harder understanding why singers are now called Gaga and Presidents Trump. It’s like the world’s gone crazy, and English with it. For example: 1. White Privilege I take this to mean that white people enjoy advantages in countries where the majority is white. How is this even a thing? Not saying it’s right or whatever; only that it’s obvious. Here’s something else obvious: Yellow Privilege. In the nation of Japan, people who look “Japanese” have an edge over the “lesser races.” Japanese folks are welcomed in stores, spoken to as adults, can join teams and clubs without a second thought, and assume positions of power. It might be a while before the country, you know, gets a black President. Or a white police officer. Or much more than a half-Mongolian librarian. But we don’t need a special term to describe this reality. People who appear “non-yellow” expect to be treated differently. Just how, varies, although you can anticipate being treated like a child, an idiot, an amusing guest, a criminal, or perhaps just ignored. Of course, if you’re white, you might get the privilege of teaching second-graders. Or if you look “Indian,” maybe you can work in a curry restaurant. That’s Brown Privilege. 2. YOLO Ken Seeroi spent about two weeks trying to work this one out. Young Only Love Old? Yellow Orange Lavender Olive? Yurts Overseas Long Overdo? WTF? Look, I get that it’s helpful to use acronyms to shorten things you say all the time, like FBI, NSA, and USA, but how often could you possibly say YOLO? HOCYPSYOLO? Is it too much to ask for English-speakers not to use strange English? Is this your revenge for kanji? If so, well played. 3. Foodie Okay, tell me if I’ve got this right. Foodie is like when you watch too many episodes of Martha and Snoop and suddenly something snaps in your brain and you start believing you actually know dick about food. Or you dine out so much that the MSG finally clogs up your synapses and you spontaneously type out Yelp reviews with words like “infusion,” “squid ink,” and “ragout.” Of course, there’s a word for people who really do understand how produce is grown, prepared, and served. That would be “chef,” as in someone who went to cooking school and can actually make a meal that doesn’t involve a microwave. But I guess just deciding that you’re a foodie is easier than doing anything resembling actual cooking. And now apparently there’re even sushi foodies, who write about “amazing” American sushi bars and make readers in Japan want to throw our PCs off a high ledge. Seriously, the stuff you’ve got there tastes like you convinced a buddy in Tokyo to run down to the Japanese 7-Eleven with 500 yen, grab a pack of sushi, put it on a slow boat to the States, then hired an Asian dude to serve it to you for sixty bucks with a side of sake which almost nobody in Japan drinks anyway. But okay, if you really want to write about sushi, maybe you ought to at least be able to identify the ingredients. So take your tackle box down to the pier, catch a fish, determine what kind he is, then slice up his little silvery body into tiny pieces and eat him alive. You might want to raise a few varieties of rice while you’re at it. Repeat that for several years and then feel free to write all the sushi bar reviews you want. And by the way, if you look at what Japanese people have on their plates, it’s often not sushi, but sashimi. In a country where people are obsessed with fitting into their skinny jeans, nobody’s trying to slam a bunch of carbs before bedtime. 4. Active Shooter I’m trying to picture the situation in which somebody firing a gun is not active. Like, “We’ve got a passive shooter, arm-chaired and dangerous.” And the SWAT team crashes their tank through some dude’s trailer to find him in a Lazy Boy with an AR-15 going, “Aw man, I was gonna shoot more, but I had to take a nap instead. So sleepy.” Do you really need to say active shooter? Have you no sense of redundancy? The fact that you’ve even got an expression for all the times somebody goes ape-shit and shoots up a bunch of the citizenry does not speak well for your country. Just saying. 5. Tactical So I went online to buy a flashlight, in preparation for the next life-threatening earthquake. Can’t be too prepared in a nation full of volcanoes. And apparently now there are these things called “tactical” flashlights, which look just like, um, regular flashlights. Which begs the question—-what could possibly be tactical about a flashlight? And now it seems there’s all kinds of other “tactical” stuff: backpacks, tents, pens, hats. A tactical hat? Seriously? What does it do? Are you sure you’ve even got the right word? A tactic is like, “Hey, what tactic should we use to approach those hot girls at the bar?” And you’re like, “I don’t know, but I’ve got my hat, pen, and flashlight, so somebody’s getting laid tonight.” Yeah, good luck with that. 6. Fuckboy This question jumped out at me on Quora. “What is a Fuckboy?” Such deep questions are very helpful, because they remind me why I should stop reading Quora. But all right, my curiosity got the better of me, and I clicked the link. And now I’ve wasted two more minutes of my life. But from what I gathered in that time, Fuckboys are preppily-dressed, clean-cut young men. Are you sure you didn’t mis-type “frat boy”? The term sounds pretty derogatory, which is also perplexing. Does this mean American women don’t want young, attractive, well-dressed men? The whole thing’s confusing. Also, you know, not to nitpick your English, but doesn’t “boy” mean a person who’s like eight years old? Putting that together with “fuck” make you sound like a pedophile. Again, just saying. 7. Alt-Right At first, I thought this was a keyboard shortcut, then I found out it’s like a club. Who names their club after a keyboard shortcut? A bunch of angry people, apparently. What they’re angry about, I really don’t know, since I’m terrified of clicking any website associated with them. Ken Seeroi’s not trying to get flagged in some government database. Paranoia, now there’s a word I actually understand. Anyway, from what I can gather, the alt-right contingent really likes people who are “white.” Which makes me wonder: Are Italians okay? French people? Israelis? Russians? Help me out here, because— although the Japanese seem to have no problem with it—-skin color seems a wildly unreliable way of predicting who your friends are. Oh, and they don’t like some guy named Glenn Beck. I think because he’s too weepy. 8. Kardsashian This is all very confusing, but here goes. So there was this guy named Bruce Jenner, and he was the greatest athlete in the world, because he won a gold medal in a sport that was actually ten sports rolled into one. The fact that such a thing even exists should probably negate the entire Olympics, but well, there it is. And then a few years later—-get ready for it—-he decides to become a woman. I was like, Holy shit, is there nothing this guy can’t do? I mean gal, whatever. Still, way to live your dreams, man. So anyway, then there’s this other guy named Kanye West and apparently he’s a terrible driver, because he crashed his Lexus and it messed up his face. But he
,” she said. “You can’t come to class without your textbooks, and that’s been emphasized over and over and over again.” She ordered Howard to leave and return with his books. Howard later told Hopkins that no one had ever cared enough to make him do something like that. He was a promising athlete, and teachers had let him skate by. Teachers like Eure and Hopkins “made me realize that I didn’t have to major in the same thing all the athletes did,” Howard said. “I can go out and do something else, which I did. I majored in religion and minored in international studies.” Odom left in 2001, after Howard’s sophomore year. Wake Forest had collapsed that season, losing in the first round of the NCAA tournament after being ranked as high as fourth in the nation. Odom didn’t receive a contract extension, and he moved on to South Carolina. Skip Prosser, who had once coached David West at Xavier, replaced Odom. Howard had played with West at Hargrave and received word from West that Prosser was trustworthy. Upon receiving the job, Prosser drove Howard around Winston-Salem and laid out some expectations. “He made me realize it was more to life than just being a 3-to-6 guy who knew what time practice was,” Howard said. “He said if you want to accomplish more in life, you need to be a 6-to-3 guy outside of practice. It’s not just what you do at practice, but also outside of it. That always stuck with me.” Howard played well enough to declare for the NBA draft after his junior year, but decided to return to school. Eure again found him one day on campus early in his senior year and dispensed more advice. “Mr. Howard,” he began, as he always did, “you’re going to be the team captain, the person everyone looks up to. There’s going to be times on the floor when a call goes against you that you will know you didn’t do it, everybody knows you didn’t do it, but the referees don’t change calls. What you’re going to have to do is suck it up.” Howard went on to be the unanimous ACC Player of the Year. Before him, only Shane Battier had amassed 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 200 assists, 100 blocks, and 100 3-pointers in a season. Yet when it was time for the 2003 NBA draft, Howard fell to the end of the first round, when Dallas selected him with the 29th pick. “He was the best player left on the board, so it wasn’t a tough call,” Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wrote in an email response to Grantland’s questions about Howard’s career. Howard later wondered why he had lasted so long. Some of the teams that passed on him reportedly had concerns about his character and whether his game had any more upside. Eure came across Howard on the school’s running track after the draft. He saw that Howard was disappointed. He tried to put it all in perspective. “You were drafted in the first round of the NBA,” Eure told him. “Nobody can ever take that away from you. You were drafted by the right team. A lot of people who got drafted before you aren’t going to make it, but you’re going to make it.” Howard joined one of the Western Conference’s best and deepest teams in Dallas. “We needed a break there to take him,” said then–Mavericks coach Don Nelson. “We would have taken him as high as probably 12. We had him really high up on the board. The basketball gods were good to us.” Dallas had plenty of scoring during Howard’s rookie season, with Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Michael Finley, and Antoine Walker, so Nelson instructed Howard to focus on rebounding and defense. Howard gave the team exactly what Nelson wanted and was named a starter shortly into his rookie season. The following year, Nelson abruptly resigned a month after the All-Star break and named his protégé, Avery Johnson, head coach. Johnson asked Howard if he wanted to be a good player in the NBA. Howard, Johnson thought, did not always put in the work in practice to be elite, but with time, Johnson believed Howard could develop into one of the game’s better small forwards. Slowly, Johnson watched Howard mature as a player. The Mavericks were at their best in 2006, and Howard’s deadly midrange game was an important facet of their attack. He had perfected his pull-up jumper, suddenly stopping his dribble and timing his release in that split second when his defender had backpedaled a step too far to challenge his shot. Howard’s repertoire also included a feathery floater that preserved his body from the impact he would have absorbed if he had always tried to finish at the rim. Howard and Nowitzki combined for one of the game’s top forward duos. “They were great,” Cuban wrote. “Josh was our best first quarter scorer, which took pressure off of Dirk and the other guys to put points on the board early. Plus Josh had a toughness that we hadn’t had before.” “If I didn’t get those seven to 11 points in the first quarter, the tone would be off,” Howard said. “I knew we basically had a regimen. I was the party starter. Dirk, [Jason Terry], [Jerry] Stackhouse, and all those other guys, second through the third and even in the fourth, that was their thing. I just needed to get on defense and contribute rebounding.” Johnson remembers Howard as one of the best first-quarter scorers he’s ever seen. “There were games he would come out and get 12, 14, 16 points in the first quarter,” Johnson said. “It would set the tone for us for the rest of the game. He just had this energy and this bounce in his step early in the game unlike any player I’ve ever seen.” Dallas went 60-22 in 2005-06 and earned the fourth seed in an extremely competitive Western Conference. The Mavs beat Memphis in the first round before outlasting top seed and in-state rival San Antonio in seven games. Then they beat the run-and-gun Phoenix Suns, led by former Mav and reigning league MVP Nash, in the Western Conference finals. Flying back into Dallas after the win, the team’s plane circled the airport twice and Howard caught sight of the fans gathered on the ground. The scene sent chills up his spine. Miami awaited Dallas in the Finals, where the Mavericks seized a 2-0 series lead and appeared on their way to a championship. Parade plans were arranged. Dallas carried a 13-point lead midway through the fourth quarter of Game 3 and appeared on its way to a possible sweep before it all came crashing down. Dwyane Wade slashed and scored his way to 12 of Miami’s last 22 points. Howard was tasked with attempting to stop him. He tried to make Wade shoot jumpers, but the Miami guard’s play defied the scouting report. “He wasn’t a shooter, so give him a step and challenge the shot late,” Howard explained. “But he’d knock that shot down, and he’d get to the basket still.” As time was about to expire and Dallas trailed by two points, Nowitzki inbounded an alley-oop pass to Howard. Howard and Wade both leaped at the same time and Wade got a finger on the ball — just enough to prevent Howard’s catch and finish. “We were both right there, and that’s when I was a jumper,” Howard said. “For Avery to even trust me enough to draw up that play, you know, I put my all into it. I know Dwyane’s a hell of an athlete as well, but that’s what happens in basketball: It could all go one way or the other. I was probably pissed for about a month afterward. I had to bring myself back to knowing that, Shit, I did something most people won’t do in their life. Just be happy with it.” Dallas never recovered from the Game 3 loss. “I have blacked that all out of my mind,” Cuban wrote. They dropped the next three games, watching as Wade made trip after trip to the free throw line. “It slipped,” Howard said. “Honestly, it was like everything slipped out of our hands. We had the opportunity when were up 2-0. I think just the whole overall nature of the surroundings, our first time in the Finals, not knowing how to handle all that pressure — it got to us. We were hanging in there every game after that. We just couldn’t get over the hump.” “It was close, man,” Johnson remembered. “Sometimes when you make it that far, it’s a game of inches. Josh was a major part along with Dirk and the rest of the guys, making it as far as we did with such a young team. Every time I go back and look, we were young and we weren’t even experienced. Dirk had never been to the Finals. But those guys, Dirk and Josh, were one of the best one-two combinations at the small forward and power forward position. They had different personalities, but they had great chemistry on the court.” Dallas stormed back the following year, finishing with a league-best 67 wins. Howard played the finest season of his career to date and was named to the Western Conference All-Star team. But Dallas ran into the “We Believe” Warriors in the first round and suffered a shocking six-game upset. Nelson, the Mavs’ former coach, had by then resurfaced to take over Golden State, and he used the Warriors’ smaller, rangy defenders to slow down Nowitzki. Said Howard: “I knew that putting a guy my size like Stephen Jackson on [Nowitzki], I knew it would be tough for him, because Dirk needs one or two dribbles to get a shot off. If you’re right there messing with him, it’s going to be tough … Hell, I remember with me, they had me isolated to go one way and I’d spin, have another guy go right down my backside soon as I would spin. Coach Nelson had a hell of a game plan.” Nelson said his recent experience coaching the Mavs didn’t give Golden State a particular advantage. “We just went on a roll,” Nelson explained. “We were pretty good, and we had a lot of players that could play at a high level, and they did through that period of time … We thought we could beat them and we did. We thought we could beat Utah in the next series, but we didn’t.” As good as he was on the court, Howard’s off-court sound bites soon came to dominate his headlines. Howard’s grandmother had raised him to be proud and honest, so when Michael Irvin asked him in 2008 about using marijuana on his radio show, Howard didn’t mince words. “Most of the players in the league use marijuana, and I have and do partake in smoking weed in the offseason sometimes,” Howard told Irvin. “I mean, that’s my personal choice and that’s my personal opinion, but I don’t think that’s stopping me from doing my job.” It was uncommon to hear such a blunt, unvarnished statement from a high-profile pro athlete. Many fans and members of the media recoiled at Howard’s comments, not only because of their content but also their timing. The interview took place when Dallas was down 2-0 to Chris Paul’s New Orleans Hornets in the 2008 playoffs and the Mavericks were on the verge of yet another postseason disappointment. Howard made a bad situation worse the night of Game 4, when the Mavericks lost and fell into a 3-1 series hole and Howard passed out flyers for his birthday party in the postgame locker room. New Orleans went on to eliminate Dallas in the next game. “You were disappointed that something like that would come out in a playoff series,” Johnson said. “Everybody has made mistakes, and I think if Josh could do it all over again, he wouldn’t have made those comments.” Eure, Howard’s former professor, recalled a conversation they had after the controversy. Eure understood that Howard had wanted to stay true to himself — that he felt like he had no reason to be ashamed and no need to hide his recreational use of marijuana. But there should still be boundaries, Eure told Howard. “Telling a reporter that ‘I have no comment’ is not telling a lie,” Eure said. “It’s simply saying, ‘I’m not responding to you.'” He explained: “That’s a function of somebody not being educated enough in how to deal with the press to know when to say something and when not to say something. Saying, ‘I don’t have any comment,’ isn’t a lie, it just means It’s none of your damn business, so I don’t have to respond to that.” The angry public reaction surprised Howard. He apologized. “It was like, damn, I offended people,” Howard said. “I wanted to let these people know I didn’t say that to offend nobody. I was just saying it as a point. But having talks with people who’ve been in that situation, the first thing I heard was, Some things you keep to yourself.” Howard found himself embroiled in another controversy a few months later, when a video of him at a charity football game popped up on YouTube. “‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is going on right now,” Howard says to the camera. “I don’t even celebrate that shit. I’m black.” Howard had been joking among friends, but the video was posted online, where it went viral and inspired heated, angry reactions. Cuban came to Howard’s defense in the rush to judgment. On his blog, Cuban posted some of the hateful emails he had received from people about the Howard incident, highlighting the unfair aspects of the situation. “I wanted to point out the irony of them experiencing the onslaught of attention from suddenly and unexpectedly being placed in the (news) media spotlight from a throwaway comment,” Cuban wrote on his blog. Cuban told Grantland in his email, “I think Josh sometimes outsmarted himself.” He explained how Howard’s outspoken nature could sometimes work against him, even if he had a right to be heard: “He is a great guy. Good heart. But he seemed to find ways to sabotage himself at the wrong times. When he wasn’t happy, you knew about it. Or if he felt he wasn’t being heard, you knew about it. It was something he struggled with.” Looking back at it all, Howard somewhat agrees with Cuban. “I mean, anybody else would’ve voiced their opinion,” Howard said. “How do you cover up your anger or hold your tongue when you see something’s not right? They try to tell athletes to be quiet and not voice your opinion. If you have a guy that actually graduated from college, wasn’t a failure in what he did, he didn’t have nobody help him get through school, just because he can tell you he’s upset about not playing, what’s wrong with that? So, yeah, I take that with a grain of salt and just keep moving. If I didn’t outsmart myself, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’m glad I outsmarted myself. Shit, I’d do it again.” Athletes who offer bland quotes are considered boring. But those who offer honest opinions are often ostracized. It is a tight balancing act, one in which Howard teetered too far to one side. He went on to say he has a deep respect for Cuban. “I never fault Mark for anything,” Howard said. “That man gave me the opportunity to work, support my family, be comfortable. He could talk junk about me all day and I’d still love that man.” Still, followers of the NBA were beginning to develop a negative image of Howard. “I knew that wasn’t me,” he said. “It’s the perception without people even asking me. They just want to go off what they read or what they heard from somebody who thinks they know me.” A week before the 2010 trade deadline, Dallas sent Howard to Washington with Drew Gooden, Quinton Ross, and James Singleton for Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, and DeShawn Stevenson. “Of course I wanted to finish my career in Dallas,” Howard said. “What player wouldn’t want to finish their career where they started off? But I saw it as a new beginning as well.” Howard had left the stability of Dallas for the relative chaos of Washington. The Wizards were in disarray from the repercussions of the Gilbert Arenas–Javaris Crittenton locker-room guns incident. The franchise hoped to begin rebuilding around Howard, but he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee just minutes into his fourth game with the team. He twisted the knee while turning to receive an inbounds pass from Mike Miller. “I had seven points in the first seven minutes, getting ready to get nine and 10, and a guy pushed me from behind and my knee went one way and my body went the other,” Howard said. “That was it.” He had been injured before, but never this severely. The ACL tear would be the first in a series of debilitating setbacks that stopped Howard’s career in its prime. He played 22 games in a season and a half with the Wizards. Meanwhile, the Mavericks, including several of his former teammates, rallied to beat Wade, LeBron James, and the Miami Heat in the 2011 NBA Finals. “I feel like I helped them win that ring in 2011, which is a blessing,” Howard said. “Even though I got traded, that wasn’t a big deal because that’s part of the game. To see Dirk, Jason — guys that I went through the wars with — to see them finally get a ring, I was happy for them.” After Washington, Howard signed a one-year deal with the Utah Jazz, where head coach Tyrone Corbin remembered Howard from his Dallas prime. “Oh, he was absolutely a nightmare because of the way he could cut in the lane,” Corbin said. But Howard’s game had changed. “He was coming off the injury and wanted to try and rebound his career,” said Corbin, now an assistant in Sacramento. “He did a great job with us, being in shape and playing with his veteran leadership to help us have a chance to get better.” Howard enjoyed his time in Utah and managed to fight through a meniscus tear in his left knee. He played like a veteran now, relying less on his athleticism and more on his court smarts and experience. Corbin even started Howard the first three games of Utah’s 2012 playoff series against San Antonio. “A lot of people think Utah is a bad place to play, but hell nah,” Howard said. “That fan support is so crazy up there. You have a home-court advantage there, a serious one.” He signed in Minnesota the next fall, but his time there was short-lived. One month into the season, he tore the ACL in his right knee and the Timberwolves released him six days later. “They did the MRI and it came back torn,” Howard said. “I was like, Damn, man. I didn’t have no swelling, no atrophy, nothing. [The doctor] told me it was torn. He showed it to me. It was just hanging. I’ll never forget: I started crying. When those tears dried up in maybe like two minutes, I thought it was going to be over as far as the knee thing.” As coach of the Development League’s Austin Toros, Ken McDonald likens training camp to the first day of college. Everyone is trying to feel out everyone else. He didn’t know what to expect of Howard when the player arrived in Austin last fall. Howard had signed with the Toros after spending part of camp with the San Antonio Spurs, and he wanted to stay close to the organization and his home in Dallas. He simply told McDonald that he would do whatever the coach expected of him. Howard could have retired. His body had been ravaged by injuries. He had made a small fortune off basketball. Only a few years earlier, he had earned $10 million a season, flown on chartered planes, and enjoyed Dallas’s state-of-the-art locker room. With the Toros, Howard settled for $25,000, commercial flights with connections, and practices at a community center with a locker room so cramped that the team often found more room to change in a closet. Howard played because he still enjoyed the game — it still gave him peace like it did when he was a kid sneaking away to the recreation center to avoid his household chores. But to keep his career alive, Howard had to prepare himself mentally to return to the court. “You’re always thinking, Damn, am I going to fall in that same position?” Howard said. For the first half of the season, his body cooperated. Howard played well and mentored the team’s young players, only to be saddled with a new injury. A sports hernia in late February made for another truncated season. Now, the jump in Howard’s step is gone, but he’s still working to regain a foothold in the league. “I want to show these guys I still have my legs, I still have my work ethic, and I’m 34,” Howard said after suiting up for the New Orleans Pelicans in a game in last month’s NBA summer league. “I’m still out here running around with these 24-year-olds.” After a strong opening performance in Las Vegas, his playing time dwindled until it disappeared. The New Orleans coaching staff knew what Howard could do and wanted to look at younger players. Even if Howard does make it back onto an NBA roster for next season, the league he’ll be rejoining has transformed since he starred in it with Dallas. The influence of advanced statistics in NBA front offices and coaching staffs has placed a premium on high-efficiency shots near the rim and behind the 3-point line. The midrange game, Howard’s specialty, has been devalued. But Howard believes the NBA will always need players like him. “You still need to be conventional,” he said. “You can guard anybody if you take somebody off the 3-point line. If they can’t drive and they don’t have no pull-up game, then what they out there for? If you can have somebody going out in one direction real hard and you can stop on a dime and pull up and you can make it? That’s saving your legs. That’s saving fouls.” Many fans believe that Howard’s career — along with his reputation — cratered after the controversies his comments created. But that may be a misconception, an easy narrative to believe about a player who has been portrayed as a troublemaker. Howard believes he could have been a perennial All-Star had he never suffered the knee injuries. “It’s funny that people still bring up [the viral video] and that that’s the only thing they know me for,” Howard said. “Well, that’s not the only thing they know me for. Shit, even [in Las Vegas], people run up to me and ask for autographs and stuff. So I knew it was part of my history, but it ain’t what defines me. Like every athlete, somebody had a bump in the road, nobody has a straight, fresh, great career. It’s something that’s just a part of my career.” Others believe him. “There was never any question about his love of the game,” Cuban told Grantland. “And Josh is a smart guy. But like all of us, it takes time to grow up. We aren’t the same person we are at 32 that we were at 22. We learn life’s lesson … I think if his body hadn’t betrayed him, he would still be an all-star.” Meanwhile, plenty of Howard’s former coaches rooted for him at summer league. “I’ve got nothing but total respect for Josh,” Odom said. “I am so proud of everything that he’s done to get to where he is now … Part of life is meeting adversity head-on and continuing to try to knock the door down. If you say anything at all about Josh Howard, you’ve got to say that’s what he’s doing. He’s not running away from bad luck or disappointment.” And Howard still keeps in touch with Eure. “Given how he grew up, he has come from A to Z,” Eure said. “Does that mean he’s perfect? No, it doesn’t. But this is a quality young man who has worked very hard and has made a good life for himself.” Even though he’s fighting to extend his basketball career, Howard has already begun looking into the next chapter in his life. For years, he has wanted to open a day-care center that won’t just watch over children while their parents are at work, but will also introduce them to positive role models. “Even with me walking through day cares, touring and having kids walk up to me like I’m their dad,” Howard said, “that touched my heart and made me realize a lot of these kids have been looking for that male companionship.” He may also give coaching a shot, or even scouting. Who knows, perhaps he’ll spot another raw talent like he once was. “I sit back and think about my career and I wouldn’t change it, outside of the bonehead stuff I did,” Howard said. “If I could change anything, it would be the injuries. I feel like I could still be an All-Star, and I feel like I still have a lot in the tank left. But if it’s not for me to leave it out there on the court, hopefully I can get a chance to coach and get whatever is left out of me [and] into somebody else.”Update May 25 KST: Oh My Girl is showing off their comeback concept in newly released individual teasers! Update May 24 KST: The members of Oh My Girl look stunning as usual in a new group teaser pic! Update May 23 KST: Oh My Girl has now shared their first group teaser image for their comeback, as well as their teaser video for “Windy Day”! Original: Girl group Oh My Girl will be making a comeback soon. On May 18, an affiliate of Oh My Girl’s agency, W Entertainment, stated, “It is true that Oh My Girl is making a sudden comeback with a repackaged album. The title song of the repackaged album will be ‘Windy Day,’ and it will be released on May 26 at midnight.” According to the affiliate, Oh My Girl has already finished filming the music video in Jeju Island for their comeback. The repackaged album will have eight songs in total, including the title song “Windy Day,” “Stupid In Love,” the Chinese version of “Liar Liar,” and five others. The affiliate added, “The songs will match well with the spring weather.” Are you excited for their comeback? Source (1)Kotaku East East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. In Japanese, they're called "kawari kabuto" (変わり兜), which is often translated as "unusual helmets." They're some of the most interesting head armor you'll ever see. Today, I got out my sons' miniature samurai armor (鎧 or yoroi) and helmet (兜 or kabuto) to display for Children's Day, which is on May 5. The armor measures about two and a half feet high—maybe slightly less. You wear little white gloves while setting up the armor and use a feather duster to keep the set clean. The helmet's design is modeled after stag beetles. It's hardly unusual. The unusual helmets started in the 16th century and were used to help high-ranking officials stand out in the fray. While they looked unusual, the helmets were battle-ready. The customization could help these samurai strike an intimidating figure in a fight. The helmets might look heavy, but the elaborate decorations added to the helmet were light, as not to make them too cumbersome. Advertisement Here are some of the most interesting ones from over the years: [Photo: Imaga] Advertisement [Photo: Yoshidenki] [Photo: Naver] Advertisement [Photo: Rakuchu] [Photo: Akiou] Advertisement [Photo: Imaga] [Photo: Cobalt] Advertisement [Photo: Tokyo Fuji Art Museum] [Photo: Naver] Advertisement [Photo: Akiou] [Photo: Imaga] Advertisement [Photo: Naver] [Photo: Sabancenter] Advertisement [Photo: KJ Club] [Photo: Wiki] Top photo: Wiki To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. AdvertisementA controversy has erupted today because San Francisco 49er’s Quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand up during the playing of the national anthem. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” ~ Colin Kaepernick So what exactly is going on. Well, there’s a little more to the story than most are willing to accept. The media and the NFL will avoid these discussions like the plague, but what the heck – the Truth Has No Agenda. During the off-season Colin Kaepernick converted to Islam. Colin Kaepernick is also engaged to Black Lives Matter activist and hip-hop radio personality DJ Nessa Diab. Black Lives Matter as an activist group is synonymous with promotion of authentic Islam. In the social justice arena, there is no daylight between the various BLM activism groups, and activist Islam. They are interwoven amid every controversial eruption over the past six years. We have tried to draw attention to it numerous times, but many don’t fully grasp the scope of the relationship between radical Islam and Black Lives Matter. It’s a symbiosis, a complete synergy in activism and intent. We are under attack! It's clear as day! Less than 24 hrs later another body in the street! https://t.co/2wlxtVkwmv — Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) July 7, 2016 According to NFL players who are friends with Kaepernick, Colin and NessA Diab are going to have a traditional Muslim wedding. It is not accidental that Nessa Diab -a BLM/Islam activist- and Colin Kaepernick cross paths, and meld ideological interests, especially when you consider the geography, the San Francisco area. Nessa also attended the University of California, Berkeley. Nessa began her career in San Francisco as the night time on-air personality before she was offered the position at Hot 97 in New York City. (link) From Kaepernick’s Instagram during his conversion: Remember the San Bernardino terror attack by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik? Who was the corrupting influence in that radical relationship? [ Hint, it wasn’t the guy. ] Think this analysis is nuts? Think it’s off the mark? Go scroll through Colin Kaepernick’s Instagram account HERE (while you still can), and you can visibly identify the evolution of his conversion… or could that more aptly be called the “radicalization” of him? You decide. ♦ Nessa Diab: Twitter Acct. Instagram Acct. Radio Hot97. Business ♦ Colin Kaepernick: Twitter Acct. Instagram Acct. Here's #Colin_Kaepernick being Oppressed by White ppl WAIT that's just his Parents Anothr $19million a yr #Hypocrite pic.twitter.com/peK53PtFD2 — USA VOTE (@TalentsMomMLG) August 27, 2016 It’s a big boost in the conversion bona-fides for BLM promoter Nessa Diab: It is said she has two brothers. Who are they? AdvertisementsThere is a stark difference in how the media portrays black and white families. According to a study by non-profit civil rights advocacy group Color of Change and Family Story, an organization that advocates for families today, which looked at more than 800 local and national US news stories and opinion pieces between January 2015 and December 2016 (published online, in print, and on TV), the media overwhelmingly depicted black families as poor and dependent on welfare, black fathers as absent, and consistently overhyped the link between black families and criminality. However, when it comes to white families, the picture painted is often of social stability. In the US, black families represent 59% of the poor in the media, but make up just 27% of the poor of the general population, says the study. White families, on the other hand, represent 17% of the poor in media, but make up 66% of the poor across the country. The report notes that since the 1980s, conservatives racked up attacks against so-called “welfare queens”—a stereotype that presents black women as having children in order to receive bountiful welfare assistance from the government. Researchers concluded that such portrayals were rife in the media and led to the perception that black people not only benefited the most from government aid, but were far more likely to cheat the system than white people. This is despite the fact that white working families are the biggest beneficiaries of welfare. In 2014, government assistance and tax credits lifted 6.2 million working-class whites out of poverty—more than any other racial group. The study also analyzed the depiction of black fathers. Media reports suggest black men often abandon their children and families, though there’s no evidence they do so at higher rates than white fathers: The misrepresentation of Black fathers as “absentee” stems, in part, from the common but incorrect use of non-marital birthrates as a proxy for parental involvement, falsely leading to the assumption that Black fathers who are not married to the mothers of their children must not be involved parents. A 2013 report (pdf) by the Centre for Disease Control found that black fathers were more likely to have bathed, dressed, or helped their children use the toilet every day compared with white fathers; black fathers were more likely to take their children to or from activities every day compared with white fathers; and a larger percentage of black fathers helped their children with homework every day in the last four weeks compared with white fathers. The study also found that the media overrepresented the link between black families and criminality and underrepresented it for white families. Researchers pointed out that black family members represented 37% of criminals in the media, but made up 26% of family members arrested for criminal activity, according to crime reports. White families members represented 28% of criminals in the media, but made up 77% of those arrested for criminal activity. In conclusion, researchers called for more black journalists in newsroom to help set a better standard and emphasized the need journalists to reach out to black experts to provide accurate social and historical context.Learned helplessness is behavior that occurs when the subject endures repeatedly painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape from or avoid. After such experiences, the organism often fails to learn or accept "escape" or "avoidance" in new situations where such behavior is likely to be effective. In other words, the organism learned that it is helpless. In situations where there is a presence of aversive stimuli, it has accepted that it has lost control and thus gives up trying, even as changing circumstances offer a method of relief from said stimuli. Such an organism is said to have acquired learned helplessness.[1][2] Learned helplessness theory is the view that clinical depression and related mental illnesses may result from such real or perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.[3] Foundation of research and theory [ edit ] Early key experiments [ edit ] American psychologist Martin Seligman initiated research on learned helplessness in 1967 at the University of Pennsylvania as an extension of his interest in depression.[4][5] This research was later expanded through experiments by Seligman and others. One of the first was an experiment by Seligman & Maier: In Part 1 of this study, three groups of dogs were placed in harnesses. Group 1 dogs were simply put in a harnesses for a period of time and were later released. Groups 2 and 3 consisted of "yoked pairs". Dogs in Group 2 were given electric shocks at random times, which the dog could end by pressing a lever. Each dog in Group 3 was paired with a Group 2 dog; whenever a Group 2 dog got a shock, its paired dog in Group 3 got a shock of the same intensity and duration, but its lever did not stop the shock. To a dog in Group 3, it seemed that the shock ended at random, because it was his paired dog in Group 2 that was causing it to stop. Thus, for Group 3 dogs, the shock was "inescapable". In Part 2 of the experiment the same three groups of dogs were tested in a shuttle-box apparatus (a chamber containing two rectangular compartments divided by a barrier a few inches high). All of the dogs could escape shocks on one side of the box by jumping over a low partition to the other side. The dogs in Groups 1 and 2 quickly learned this task and escaped the shock. Most of the Group 3 dogs – which had previously learned that nothing they did had any effect on shocks – simply lay down passively and whined when they were shocked.[4] In a second experiment later that year with new groups of dogs, Overmier and Seligman ruled out the possibility that, instead of learned helplessness, the Group 3 dogs failed to avert in the second part of the test because they had learned some behavior that interfered with "escape". To prevent such interfering behavior, Group 3 dogs were immobilized with a paralyzing drug (curare), and underwent a procedure similar to that in Part 1 of the Seligman and Maier experiment. When tested as before in Part 2, these Group 3 dogs exhibited helplessness as before. This result serves as an indicator for the ruling out of the interference hypothesis. From these experiments, it was thought that there was to be only one cure for helplessness. In Seligman's hypothesis, the dogs do not try to escape because they expect that nothing they do will stop the shock. To change this expectation, experimenters physically picked up the dogs and moved their legs, replicating the actions the dogs would need to take in order to escape from the electrified grid. This had to be done at least twice before the dogs would start willfully jumping over the barrier on their own. In contrast, threats, rewards, and observed demonstrations had no effect on the "helpless" Group 3 dogs.[4][5] Later experiments [ edit ] Later experiments have served to confirm the depressive effect of feeling a lack of control over an aversive stimulus. For example, in one experiment, humans performed mental tasks in the presence of distracting noise. Those who could use a switch to turn off the noise rarely bothered to do so, yet they performed better than those who could not turn off the noise. Simply
police personnel. Passengers were engaged in shooting videos with their mobile phones as the train arrived. Most of them, including families and groups of young boys and girls, got down smiling and expressed their happiness at the service. Many were busy taking pictures. Many people from the Capital Complex had arrived at the station to be part of the historic event. Former railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan after inaugurating the passenger's reservation system here on May 20, 1997 had announced the Harmuti-Naharlagun railway line, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced train service in his massive package for the state on January 31, 2008. Informing about the arrival of the train, Chief Minister Nabam Tuki during his road rally at Itanagar on Sunday had announced that Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express would be introduced soon to link Arunachal to national capital Delhi. The ambitious railway line project, estimated to cost Rs 156 crore (re-estimated at Rs 371.33 crore by the Railway Board on July 7, 2009), had missed its target of December 2011 repeatedly. The railway engine made its maiden trial run from Harmutty to Naharlagun terminus on January 14 last while a high level team led by Planning Commission Member (North East and Power) BK Chaturvedi had inspected the Harmutty-Naharlagun on January 17 last. It may be recalled that Chaturvedi, before inspecting the railway track, had said that the NE, particularly Arunachal Pradesh, is an important part of India and is under the special focus of New Delhi, as its development would help other parts of India. Rajdhani Express would be introduced between Itanagar and the national capital as a policy but in a phased manner, he had assured, adding that railways brings prosperity by boosting trade and commerce wherever it brings connectivity, and that equal benefits would accrue Arunachal Pradesh with quick transportation at reasonable rate. ANIEric Blair Activist Post In February of this year, the S&P warned that student loans may be the next bubble to burst in US economy. Moody’s also issued a similar warning in 2011. With the interest on student loans set to double on July 1st, will it pop the student loan bubble, or is it the necessary medicine to slow down the growth of the bubble? It seems we won’t have that debate because politicians in Washington, including both Obama and Romney, agree that raising the interest on student loans will be an “enormous burden that threatens the economic recovery.” In other words, keep the bubble going to win middle-class votes and avoid any pain. In either case, students are already suffering from having to paying back massive principal balances because the cost of attending college has increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, and even more since then. Meanwhile, during that same period, median family income only rose 147 percent. If those numbers weren’t ugly enough, CNBC reports that the total student loan debt in the U.S. is $870 billion, surpassing credit card debt, with two-thirds of it being owed by citizens under 30 years old. What’s more, this interest-rate increase comes just when it was reported that over half (53%) of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. All of these numbers seem to ensure that all recent grads face a lifetime of debt servitude, especially since student loans cannot be canceled in bankruptcy. Through no fault of their own, students have been lulled into believing that they must attend college to be successful. This myth is the engine of the college bubble, while cheap, easy, low-interest money from the government has been the fuel that has caused the cost to soar far beyond the rate of inflation. An increase in interest payments would be even more catastrophic for already over-burdened college graduates. Yet, unfortunately, it may be just what is needed to slow down the growth of the bubble and save a few young people from the prison of debt. As such, it is just one more of the many reasons not to attend college. Read more articles by Eric Blair here.Bug Description I recently installed Kubuntu Jaunty on a new drive, using Ext4 for all my data. The first time i had this problem was a few days ago when after a power loss ktimetracker's config file was replaced by a 0 byte version. No idea if anything else was affected.. I just noticed ktimetracker right away. Today, I was experimenting with some BIOS settings that made the system crash right after loading the desktop. After a clean reboot pretty much any file written to by any application (during the previous boot) was 0 bytes. For example Plasma and some of the KDE core config files were reset. Also some of my MySQL databases were killed... My EXT4 partitions all use the default settings with no performance tweaks. Barriers on, extents on, ordered data mode.. I used Ext3 for 2 years and I never had any problems after power losses or system crashes. Jaunty has all the recent updates except for the kernel that i don't upgrade because of bug #315006 ProblemType: Bug Architecture: amd64 DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04 NonfreeKernelMo dules: nvidia Package: linux-image- 2.6.28- 4-generic 2.6.28-4.6 ProcCmdLine: root=UUID= 81942248- db70-46ef- 97df-836006aad3 99 ro rootfstype=ext4 vga=791 all_generic_ide elevator= anticipatory ProcEnviron: LANGUAGE= LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash ProcVersionSign ature: Ubuntu 2.6.28-4.6-generic SourcePackage: linuxA new Australian ISP is integrating geo-blocking circumvention into its broadband service, allowing customers to access streaming services like Hulu, Netflix USA, BBC iPlayer and Amazon Prime. When Yournet launches in August, customers will be able to sign up for broadband that allows users to instantly change the country they are supposedly surfing from. "On our client website there will be a region-switching option," founder Raj Bhuva told CRN. The ISP expects USA and United Kingdom to be popular options, but will also offer the ability to choose Canada, New Zealand, France and Germany. [Want more like this? Sign up for our free newsletter] The service means customers won't need to purchase a separate VPN or DNS manipulation service on top of their broadband connection. "[Yournet] is definitely not a VPN… We're importing the technology in from New Zealand and the technical details I can't go into too much." Bhuva said. "But it's more advanced than a smart DNS and won't easily be blocked by anyone." The Sydney entrepreneur said that the service has performance advantages compared to methods curently used by many Australians to watch overseas content. "[Performance] is one of the big advantages. It won't affect your internet connection whatsoever. VPN routes your traffic to the other side of the world – we're not doing that." With the only available plan costing $129.95 per month, the Yournet service is not cheap, but the company is targetting heavy video users craving overseas streaming. "We're aiming for the premium end of the market," Bhuva said, adding that the $129.95 plan includes unlimited data, free geographic switching and superior performance. "Because we've designed this network for the current age of internet content and video streaming, our contention issues are significantly lower than the [rest of] the market out there," he said. "So you shouldn't get any dropouts, buffering or pixelation. And you can have multiple devices streaming and surfing the web at the same time." Bhuva is a British ex-patriate who currently works as a senior technology manager for Sydney ISP Alpha Dot Net Australia. Although his employer has invested in Yournet, the venture is his own, with the technology licensed from New Zealand's Global Mode. [Want more like this? Sign up for our free newsletter]HAMILTON, Ont. — Angelo Musitano, a scion of an entrenched Mafia family, was gunned down in the driveway of his suburban Hamilton home Tuesday afternoon. Police cordoned off Chesapeake Drive in a neighbourhood of detached, new-build homes in the community of Waterdown after a shooting around 4 p.m., Tuesday. The homicide unit has been called in and is investigating, said Staff Sgt. Chris Hastings. Police did not immediately release the name of the victim, but a long-time business associate of the Musitano family confirmed it to the National Post. He was married with three young children. He was 39 years old. “This is an obvious tragedy for the family,” said the associate who did not wish to be named. “Who? Why? We don’t know yet.” On Wednesday, police confirmed Musitano was the victim, saying he had been shot numerous times while in his pick up truck in the driveway of his home. He died from his injuries in Hamilton General Hospital. “Homicide detectives believe this was a targeted attack and there is no immediate threat to the general public,” said Det.-Sgt. Peter Thom. He described the suspected gunman as a stocky man wearing a dark toque, black jacket, grey pants and dark shoes. A dark coloured, four-door sedan was seen leaving the scene. The Musitano name is one of the best known in the colourful history of Hamilton’s vibrant underworld. A new branch of the long-time Mafia crime family took root in Canada in 1937 when Musitano’s namesake great-uncle fled Delianova, Italy, a village in Calabria, the toe of the boot-shaped map of Italy. The elder Angelo Musitano garnered the sobriquet “The Beast of Delianova” by dragging his sister, whom he accused of dishonouring the family, through the town’s streets to her lover’s home, where he killed her on his front steps with a dagger. That great-uncle settled with family in Hamilton, where he inculcated two nephews into the outlaw tradition, including Musitano’s father, Dominic, who built a crime family that vied for power in Ontario’s active criminal milieu. Pat Musitano, Dominic’s eldest son, was seen as heir to his father’s mob boss mantle after his father’s sudden death from heart failure in 1995. Musitano, however, also grew up studying the family trade. In school, his last name was notorious, and he sometimes taunted teachers with it. He drove a nice car and played the stereo loud in the school parking lot, drawing admiration and ire in equal proportion. “He was a happy kid who liked to joke. He had an easy laugh. His dad was a lot like that. His dad also was a guy with a good sense of humour,” said a long-time family friend. Given his upbringing, though, Musitano’s jokes could be deeply dark. Once when he was a youngster, after a family pet died, he was going with his father to dispose of the pet’s body. With a wry look in his eye, Musitano quipped: “I’m going for my first ride.” He knew, and those around him knew, that “going for a ride” was a mob euphemism for bumping someone off. The joke displayed his keen understanding of his family lineage. Of all the boys in that family, Angelo was probably the one who was the most charming He could also fight. Despite his family genes pulling him towards the rounder side, he was tough and often underestimated. Once, Musitano and his father took on a group of three or four young men who didn’t realize who they were and tried to mess with them. His father grabbed one by the throat and lifted him off the ground onto the roof of a car. The son dished it just as good. They were both proud of that scrap. “Of all the boys in that family, Angelo was probably the one who was the most charming, partly because of his smile. “He had a mix of charm and cruelty,” said an old friend. Police investigated many arsons and bombings linked to the Musitano family over the decades. In 1998, police detectives arrested Musitano and his brother Pat, charging them with ordering the high-profile murder of John “Johnny Pops” Papalia, the top-ranked Mafia boss in the province who was known as the Enforcer for his fearsome power and demeanor. In 2000, the Musitano brothers were sentenced to 10 years in prison under a plea deal that saw them plead guilty, instead, to conspiring to murder Papalia’s right-hand man, Carmen Barillaro of Niagara Falls, who was shot by the same hit man. The charges in Papalia’s death were dropped under the deal. Musitano was released from prison in 2007. His freedom caused such concern that Hamilton’s police chief publicly promised he would be closely monitored. True to his word, police re-arrested Musitano five months later for meeting with someone he was forbidden to contact. At a parole hearing, police said phone numbers on Musitano’s cellphone, the amount of high-denomination cash he was carrying when re-arrested, and informants who said he was into extortion suggested he had reactivated a life in crime. Musitano offered innocent explanations for it all. “You deny any criminal activity while on release and no persuasive information has been provided to corroborate the informants’ claims in this regard,” the parole board said. He was released again on parole. He has since been off the radar, at least publicly. This month, however, marks the 20th anniversary of Papalia’s murder. • Email: ahumphreys@nationalpost.com \| Twitter: AD_HumphreysLooking for a magic eight-ball to decipher the quickly decaying election narrative? Look no further than Wiekus Kotze, Julius Malema’s White Economic Freedom Front Guy. RICHARD POPLAK paid him a visit. The 2014 election narrative has so quickly slid out of the realm of intelligibility that I figured in order to make sense of things, I should probably go in search of its original meme. So I drove south, deep into DA territory, past Alberton, past Albertsdal, and stopped at the booms blocking entry to Meyersig Estates. A sea of ticky-tacky exurban homes, straight out of a misinterpreted version of the America Dream, circa 1950. Within, a dude named Wiekus Kotze. On the first Saturday following the Christmas break—just as South Africans were rubbing December’s beach sand or MDMA residue or tear gas from their red-rimmed eyes—the Saturday Star broke the story of an “Afrikaner who is fighting for Malema”. Wiekus Kotze stared up from the paper’s front pages, round face and regulation mustache squeezed into a red beret. The story was the incongruities—here was an Afrikaner stumping for a politician who has Robert Mugabe tattooed on his butt cheeks, and whose favourite Karaoke number is “Shoot the Boer”. Kotze came off as a slightly confused buffoon with a chronic case of jungle fever—he was married to an “African queen”, he told the papers—at war with die volk, all of whom wanted to see him swinging from the nearest blue gum. But Wiekus Kotze is not a buffoon. When he emerges from his house to greet me, he moves with the brisk efficiency of a high school principal. At 40, he has grown soft and wide, but there is a sharpness to his face that suggests his head has been Photo-shopped onto his body. His home is the sort of modest set-up that would be described as middle-middle-class if such designations still applied. When we enter, his three-year-old daughter Shiedre is on the couch watching cartoons. Sick day, she informs me. As most of the reports noted, Wiekus hails from a farming community that lies between Brits and Hartebeespoort Damn. “From birth,” he tells me, after we sit at a glass-topped dining table, “we were raised very well.” His parents were not directly involved in the Struggle, but harboured the odd political fugitive, and left chunks of the farm to long-term workers when the property was finally divested. His political activism began at the University of Pretoria. He arrived in 1992, slap-bang between the end of Apartheid and the first democratic elections, a fervid period if ever there was one. Tukkies has always been a complicated place, and folks like Wiekus Kotze complicated it further—radical voices immediately caught up in the intricacies of the CODESA dialogue, and drawn to the optimism of the ANC. Kotze signed up for Mandela’s party, and so began a 16-year-long affair that was destined to end tragically. “I was a big Zuma fan when he was down and out and dusted,” he tells me. (Kotze is a man, I should note, preternaturally attracted to leftist firebrands). “I went one day to a function where he was the keynote speaker. And I said to my comrades, ‘He’s gonna be president of South Africa. You watch.’ You get caught up quickly in his presence—he’s a people’s president. But obviously, it didn’t translate. He failed on every one of his promises, but especially on the ANC youth league.” Kotze believes that Julius Malema was thoroughly boned by the National Executive Committee when he was kicked out of the ANC Youth League in 2012, and he’s on record as opposing the decision at the time. “The ANC actually doesn’t make sense anymore, does it?” Kotze asks me, cocking his head, his eyes hardening. “At 102 years old, are they still relevant? I don’t think so. They won’t be in power in ten years, I don’t think. Two elections,” he says, holding up a representative number of boerewors-thick fingers, “and they’re gone.” One of the important things the early Kotze stories failed to emphasise is the fact that he has two decades of experience as an on-the-ground political organiser, working in Gauteng’s maligned communities both as a township teacher and a political operative. He understands cadres and structures and how power moves through a party down to community activists, who are critical in mobilising voters. He’s spent years in the trenches in Ekurhuleni politics, but eventually got chewed up by the rats. As if sent from the heavens, Mamphela Ramphele’s nascent Agang got in touch. “It took a lot of thinking, a lot of introspection,” he says, “but eventually I thought I’m going to throw my forces behind them.” He dug Ramphele’s bona fides, and she talked a good game. But the experience went south from the get-go. “If you don’t do things her way, you’re fired, finish and klaar,” Kotze tells me. “In building a party from the grassroots, you need smart politics. If you build structures without power, the whole house comes down. She did not want to decentralise power, even though we told her it would end in a train smash. She’s a dictator for me. She has absolutely no respect for the next person’s opinion.” In describing Agang, Kotze conjures up one of the more extreme political vanity projects in the course of human history. Ramphele, in his telling, comes off as an asshole in the Shakespearean sense of the term, although there are no discernable skills to go along with the tragic flaws. “She was the worst party leader alive,” says the man who has worked for both Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. “The money was spent on paying the salaries of useless people. I told her, this is not a business; it’s politics. In politics, you consult.” It wasn’t long before Kotze received his suspension notice via SMS, and minutes later, phone calls started coming in from comrades who’d moved over to Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Front. He went to a rally, and that was that. “On every single point, I agree with how they’re going to do it,” he says. It’s been a rollercoaster ride; he’s become a meme; the good people of South Africa send him death threats on very social media site created by man. “You must see at the EFF rallies,” he says. “People went nuts if they see me. My following is quite huge. Seems like I’m winning South African Idols.” In a sense, he is. “Look,” he says, “we have to change this country in a proper legislative way. Without people taking things for themselves. We are five minutes from an Arab Spring,” and now, five thick fingers are raised. “Five minutes. And people have died. People ask for water, and what they get is killed. So it’s become now violent.” Certainly. But how is Julius Malema helping, besides staging the usual acts of political theatre at which he is so adept? Isn’t he stoking the discontent and unrest? Kotze offers a vinegary smile. “Better for him to speak about it—the truth! Better that, than keeping quiet about it. And give the people an alternative.” The alternative being a 32-year-old tax-evading tenderpreneur with more ex-cons in his iPhone 5S contacts list than a mafia lawyer? “If you look at what happened with Malema and corruption charges,” he says, “the timing for me is very funny. Even the prosecution authority is confused on how to charge him. Their plan was to put this boy in prison before the elections. And they’ve failed.” Okay, but won’t the last laugh be on you, when your head appears on a pike as a prelude to the genocide of South Africa’s whites? I mean, isn’t this literally written into the EFF narrative, as per Andile Mngxitima, the sharp end of EFF’s intellectual spear—a Black Consciousness radical who acknowledges the “impossibility of reconciliation”? “You must know that when Andile talks,” says Kotze, “it comes from deep psychological scars. People are struggling to buy a loaf of bread in this country, and you’re crying about getting killed on farms?” he asks of his imaginary kinfolk. Kotze has not seen any attempt in the mainstream Afrikaans community to deal with the wrongs of the past. “You see, they have to admit that it was wrong. When they do that, then they can come to the party, and say, ‘What can we do to help resolve the problem?’” If that doesn’t happen, says Kotze, and the discourse continues as it has, he’s willing to empathise with his more radical comrades. “Even me, I’d say chop their damn heads off.” Time to shake the magic eight-ball, and get a prediction. The way Kotze sees it, 2014 is the hinge on which the future of the country swings. The ANC will drop below 55 percent. The DA will pick up votes; EFF will have an impressive—perhaps even shocking—showing. In Gauteng, Malema and Company will be kingmakers, and the ANC will have to crawl over, tail between legs, in order to form a governing coalition. “That’s politics,” he tells me. “No one is friends forever, and no one is enemies forever.” I point over to Shiedre, a mixed race child who is the physical embodiment of reconciliation, if you’ll permit me to get as Disneyfied as the Mickey cartoon she’s watching. What about her in all this? Kotze takes a long moment to answer. “In every generation, there has to be a group of people standing up for what’s right. I’m living nicely. I don’t have to do this rubbish. But I do it for her, for my kids.” And so Wiekus Kotze will go to war for the EFF. But if the scowling neighbours who offer a hard stare as we walk back to my car are any indication, it’s going be a rough ride. Funny thing about winning Idols. Not everyone ends up a lifelong fan. DM Photo: Wiekus Kotze – a screen-grab from an SABC programme. Are You A South AfriCAN or a South AfriCAN'T? Maverick Insider is more than a reader revenue scheme. While not quite a "state of mind", it is a mindset: it's about believing that independent journalism makes a genuine difference to our country and it's about having the will to support that endeavour. From the #GuptaLeaks into State Capture to the Scorpio exposés into SARS, Daily Maverick investigations have made an enormous impact on South Africa and it's political landscape. As we enter an election year, our mission to Defend Truth has never been more important. A free press is one of the essential lines of defence against election fraud; without it, national polls can turn very nasty, very quickly as we have seen recently in the Congo. If you would like a practical, tangible way to make a difference in South Africa consider signing up to become a Maverick Insider. You choose how much to contribute and how often (monthly or annually) and in exchange, you will receive a host of awesome benefits. The greatest benefit of all (besides inner peace)? Making a real difference to a country that needs your support. Richard Poplak Follow Save More Comments Please or create an account to view the comments. To join the conversation, sign up as a Maverick Insider.BERLIN (AP) — Volkswagen says it will appeal a court ruling that it must buy back a German customer’s diesel car rigged to cheat on emissions tests. Nicolai Laude, a VW spokesman, said Wednesday that the company expects the verdict by the court in Hildesheim in northern Germany to be overturned. Volkswagen noted that other courts had reached opposite decisions in previous cases. In its verdict Tuesday, the regional court ruled that the plaintiff was entitled to receive the full purchase price of 26,499 euros ($28,312) he paid for a Skoda Yeti 2.0 TDI in 2013. A buyback is a much more expensive solution than the fixes proposed by Volkswagen, given the number of cars involved. The company has admitted that it installed software that could detect when diesel cars were on test stands so they could evade U.S. emissions standards for nitrogen oxides, a pollutant that can harm people’s health. The software turned emission controls on during testing and off during everyday driving, improving engine performance but emitting more than 40 times the U.S. limits. The judges said the automaker had acted “indecently,” and compared Volkswagen’s deceit to past cases of wine makers mixing antifreeze in wine or companies putting horse meat in lasagna. Volkswagen agreed to buy back up to 500,000 cars in the U.S. under a $15 billion settlement agreed with U.S. authorities and car owners in federal court in San Francisco. U.S. authorities have brought criminal charges against seven Volkswagen employees, one of whom has already pleaded guilty. Some 11 million cars worldwide have the deceptive software, 2.6 million of them in Germany. When it comes to the case of the Skoda sold in Germany, Volkswagen argues that the cars equipped with the software are still roadworthy under European emissions standards and have not lost resale value. It has said it plans to fix the cars — a far cheaper solution than buying them back. The Hildesheim court said a fix wasn’t good enough and did not cover the risk of future costs from higher maintenance costs and premature motor damage. It criticized what it said was Volkswagen’s failure to say how and by whom the decision was made to install the software, saying that “one can hardly assume that it was made by a developer at the lower end of the chain of authority.” The decision comes ahead of a scheduled appearance Thursday by former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn before a parliamentary committee investigating the scandal. Winterkorn resigned after the scandal broke in September 2015; he said then he was not aware of any wrongdoing on his part.The University of Newcastle’s (UON) Confucius Institute has received global recognition for its success in teaching Chinese language and culture in Australia and Oceania. Named a 2016 Confucius Institute of the Year by the People’s Republic of China, the prestigious annual award is only offered to a select few institutes worldwide and solidifies the Institute as a leader in its field. Hosted by UON, the Institute is operated in partnership with Central China Normal University in Wuhan, China. Actively involved in the community, the Confucius Institute supports principals, teachers and school communities to create opportunities for students to engage with Chinese culture and improve their literacy skills. Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International and Advancement), Mrs Winnie Eley, emphasised the importance of promoting cultural awareness at both a global and regional level, in order to enhance cross-cultural appreciation and understanding. “With over 500 Confucius Institutes in 134 countries, the achievement is wonderful recognition of the outstanding work being undertaken to deliver high quality Chinese literacy programs in the Hunter, the Central Coast and regional NSW. “Now a proven leader on a global scale, we can further celebrate excellent performance promoting Chinese language and culture to our region, as well as enhancing Australia-China relations through education to trade, together with our community partners. A special note of thanks goes to the two directors of the Confucius Institute, Mr Jonathan Yi and Mr Rhys Palmer. “I am very proud to be a part of UON, which plays its academic and social citizen role in our communities by raising awareness and embracing the importance of international culture through language teaching and cultural programme in the communities,” Mrs Eley said. Established in 2011, the UON Confucius Institute is one of 14 institutes in Australia as part of the global Confucius Institute program. As part of the University's International and Advancement Division, the Institute also plays a major role in UON’s engagement with China. UON proudly supports the Institute’s ongoing relationships with communities, volunteers, supporters and partners in the annual Newcastle China Festival, Newcastle Grammar School and Whitebridge High School. Mrs Eley accepted the award on behalf of UON at the 11th Global Confucius Institute Conference, held in Kunming, China.How Brexit Was Engineered By Foreign Billionaires To Bring About Economic Chaos – For Profit By Graham Vanbergen: In this truly alarming story I connect three significant articles to show that Brexit, far from being the result of representative democracy, is in fact a campaign of covert intervention by foreign billionaires to bring about economic chaos in Britain in order create the circumstances for making huge profits. This is not the stuff of mere conspiracy theories. Clear evidence has emerged that Brexit was engineered and is already proving to be a catastrophe, as confirmed by the mainstream media frenzy over Theresa May’s political mis-management of the greatest post-war challenge of our time. In part-one (by left leaning, The Guardian newspaper) we see how Brexit really came about and who influenced it. In part-two (by centre newspaper The Independent) we see how opaque and deceptive think tanks have heavily influenced Brexit and in part-three (by right leaning EUReferendum) we see that economic chaos is being planned in a post-Brexit era, who is involved and why. These articles identify the actors behind the current attack on Britain and what has happened to date so far. At the end, the reader should get a sense of the impending disaster being constructed by the super-rich against the people of Britain purely for profit. Just as oil speculators pushed up global energy prices to $145 a barrel just prior to the financial crash in what was termed the London Loophole, and then profited from short bets on the way down – Britain is being set up for a fall where those with big money will ultimately clean up. PART ONE: Carole Cadwalladr from The Guardian wrote a searing piece last May on what really happened in Britain’s EU referendum vote. Her first sentence led the reader into a 7,000 word setting of foreign actors and corporations intent on usurping democracy in Britain. “A shadowy global operation involving big data, billionaire friends of Trump and the disparate forces of the Leave campaign influenced the result of the EU referendum.” The article entitled “The Great British Brexit Robbery: How Our Democracy Was Highjacked” is now the subject of a bitter legal battle between the accused; Cambridge Analytica LLC and SCL Elections Limited and The Guardian newspaper. Several amendments to the article have been made since the original publication in a climate of legal threats. The stakes are very high just for reporting it. The article went deeply into how technology and data was illegally used in Britain’s EU referendum voting process. One former employee of the main company involved, Cambridge Analytica, confirmed that they were using psychological operations – the same methods the military use to effect mass sentiment change. It’s what they mean by winning ‘hearts and minds’. “We were just doing it to win elections in the kind of developing countries that don’t have many rules.” Except they were doing it in Britain, and at a historical moment for its future. Get Briefed, Get Weekly Intelligence Reports - Essential Weekend Reading - Safe Subscribe Leave this field empty if you're human: As the reader continues, names like Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, Facebook, Google, MI5 and other vested interests such as hedge funds and banks litter the story. It is clear from Cadwalladr’s investigation that British democracy was subverted through a covert, far-reaching plan of coordination enabled by US billionaires and she shows how Britain is in the midst of a massive land grab for power by them. These determined individuals bypassed Britain’s electoral laws and swung the margins in favour to Brexit. She also highlights some political activities much closer to home – note the involvement of the DUP, now the balance of power in Theresa May’s government. “Vote Leave (the official Leave campaign) chose to spend £3.9m, more than half its official £7m campaign budget. As did three other affiliated Leave campaigns: BeLeave, Veterans for Britain and the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), spending a further £757,750. “Coordination” between campaigns is prohibited under UK electoral law, unless campaign expenditure is declared, jointly. It wasn’t”. The story gets darker as it accuses the British military-industrial complex, old-school Tories, a former parliamentary under-secretary of State for Defence procurement, director of Marconi Defence Systems, and David Cameron’s pro-Brexit former trade envoy – of involvement. Allegations are made that the head of psychological operations for British forces in Afghanistan are in on the game. One alarmingly frank quote says: “SCL/Cambridge Analytica was not some startup created by a couple of guys with a MacBook. It’s effectively part of the British defence establishment” using “military strategies on a civilian population.“ Data, algorithms, micro-ads, emotional manipulation, voter engagement/disengagement, and psyops strategies are just some of the buzz words in use to ensure enough votes go the right way. These strategies are all connected to names such as the aforementioned Cambridge Analytica, but also Robert Mercer, Steve Bannon, AggregateIQ, Leave.EU, Vote Leave, Nigel Farage, the DUP and big financial donors. “We are in an information war and billionaires are buying up these companies, which are then employed to go to work in the heart of government. That’s a very worrying situation.” David Miller, a professor of sociology at Bath University and an authority in psyops and propaganda, says it is “an extraordinary scandal that this should be anywhere near a democracy. It should be clear to voters where information is coming from, and if it’s not transparent or open where it’s coming from, it raises the question of whether we are actually living in a democracy or not.” This all conjures up the characteristics of a great novel, a story that helped to bring about the biggest constitutional change to Britain in a century. In the end, the article concludes that “we, the British people, were played.” This conclusion is best described by Cadwalladre’s final words. “This is Britain in 2017. A Britain that increasingly looks like a “managed” democracy. Paid for by US billionaires. Using military-style technology. Delivered by Facebook. And enabled by us. If we let this referendum result stand, we are giving it our implicit consent. This isn’t about Remain or Leave. It goes far beyond party politics. It’s about the first step into a brave, new, increasingly undemocratic world.” Unfortunately, Cadwalladr’s article is not a work of fiction or theory. And if you think that is depressing – that foreign billionaires can usurp Britain’s democracy at will, then it does in fact, get much worse, because obviously there must be reasons why so much time, effort and money has gone into such a dangerous high stakes game in the first place. PART-TWO – In February 2016, The Independent newspaper published an article about the role of think tanks and Brexit entitled: “EU referendum: Think-tanks conducting ‘independent’ research to support Brexit have close links to Vote Leave.” Their conclusions revealed that there was a network of right-wing organisations whose staff, board members and even offices were linked to one of the main Leave campaigns, in fact, Vote Leave. Dr David Green, the chief executive of think tank Civitas, and Ryan Bourne, head of public policy at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), are both listed as supporters of Economists for Britain, a group that was run by Matthew Elliott, who was chief executive of the Leave Campaign (all names you will read about in Part-Three). Elliot is described as a ‘political strategist and lobbyist’ who was also co-founder of right-wing The Taxpayers Alliance, was campaign director for the successful NOtoAV campaign in the 2011, which left the UK as one of very few modern democracies left with its archaic First-Past-The-Post electoral systems. Elliot was the subject of a lengthy Guardian investigation who described TPA as a right-wing lobby group with close links to the Conservative party. Vote Leave ultimately garnered the support of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove for the Brexit campaign. Mark Littlewood, the director general of the IEA, was on the editorial board of “Change or Go” – Business for Britain’s 1,000-page “bible” on the case for Brexit. The multimillionaire hedge fund boss Sir Michael Hintze is a trustee of IEA, and is also on the advisory council of Business for Britain. He has also been linked to Vote Leave. Vote Leave used reports generated by these think tanks to heavily promote the case for Brexit. Both Civitas and the IEA insisted that their work was entirely independent of the Brexit campaigns and their organisation reflected a wide range of views. Daniel Bentley, editorial director at Civitas, said: “Civitas is an independent think-tank which conducts its research without fear or favour. We have no formal
* Please reply Korean ones too cries Jun: Alright ~~~~ cr: jia @ what17says © take out only with creditsDebatt Vi är många, både jägare och andra, som uppskattar Svenska Jägareförbundets initiativ för ensamkommande flyktingbarn. Runt om i landet ordnas aktivitetsdagar där asylsökande barn och unga får komma ut i skogen, träffa jakthundar, snickra fågelholkar, pröva luftgevär och lära sig om allemansrätten. Glädjestrålande flickor Verksamheten har uppmärksammats både i Svensk Jakt och andra media. En bild i Östersunds-Posten (se ovan) visar hur glädjestrålande flickor i hijab och lika glada jägare skojar med vorstehhundar. Det är svårt att tänka sig ett bättre integrationsarbete än Jägareförbundets välkomnande av flyktingar till något av det mest typiskt svenska som finns, friluftsliv i skog och mark. När Svensk Jakt la ut en artikel om jägarnas flyktingverksamhet på Facebook avstod jag dock från att uttrycka min glädje i kommentarsfältet. Av smärtsam erfarenhet vet jag vad man kan dras in i om man skriver något på nätet som riskerar att provocera rasister. Hota och ljuga Tyvärr utlöste artikeln en ström av illvilliga främlingsfientliga kommentarer. Vad är det som gör att vissa svenskar fullständigt tappar all känsla för normal anständighet när flyktingar kommer på tal? En sak är att diskutera hur Sverige kan få en bättre migrationspolitik. En helt annan sak är att okväda, hota, ljuga och sprida demoniserande myter. En omhuldad myt är att ”invandrare inte vill anpassa sig till Sverige”. Texten visar inte bara att immigranter visst vill anpassa sig till Sverige, exempelvis då genom utomhusliv i skog och mark oavsett väder. Den visar också att ensamkommande flyktingbarn är just barn, inte ”vuxna som låtsas vara barn”, en främlingsfientlig favoritlögn. Rasister ljuger Den visar att typiska vanliga svenskar – älgjägare i Jämtland, inte alls får sina liv förstörda av invandrare. Bilden i Östersunds-Posten på vorsteh och flickor i hijab, visar dessutom att rasister ljuger när de påstår att ”muslimer vill förbjuda hundar”. Troligen känns det otryggt för en rasist när den egna världsbilden krackelerar. Det kan vara oerhört provocerande att få sin världsbild förstörd, men frågan kvarstår: Varför detta oproportionerliga hat? Jag vägrar gå med på att jägare skulle vara mer hatiskt rasistiska än andra svenskar. Svenska Jägareförbundets initiativ tyder väl snarast på motsatsen. Jägare borde veta bättre Främlingsrädsla är tämligen jämnt fördelad över alla samhällsgrupper, men just jägare borde kanske veta bättre än att näthata, eftersom de tillhör en grupp som själva drar på sig ogrundat demoniserande hat. Jägare beskrivs av okunniga människor som blodtörstiga som älskar att döda. Att systematiskt utsättas för sådana orättvisa påhopp är inte roligt. Borde det därmed inte stämma till eftertanke innan jägare skriver liknande demoniserande saker om andra och sen klickar på sänd? Maria KüchenFollowing a storm of criticism relating to a creepy-sounding privacy policy covering its smart TVs, Samsung has today published a rebuttal and a more detailed explanation of the workings of its under-fire voice recognition feature. It has also edited the wording of its privacy policy to avoid sounding quite so eerily similar to George Orwell’s 1984 dystopia. The original policy, which has been in place for some months, warned users of Samsung’s Internet-connected TVs: Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition. Which sounded very much as if Samsung were asking its customers to self-censor their conversations when sitting in front of their own TVs in their own homes. An impression that was compounded by the lack of clarity about how exactly Samsung’s voice-recognition feature worked — in terms of when and how it is switched into ‘listening’ mode (so when it’s sending your spoken words to the cloud for other companies to process). In today’s blog, Samsung stresses that its SmartTVs “do not monitor living room conversations,” and has edited the wording of the policy to excise the offending Orwellian paragraph about sensitive info being snooped upon. Instead it now stresses that user agency is required to trigger the listening feature. The policy includes the following section explaining the workings of the voice recognition, and also specifying that the third-party processing user voice data is, in this instance, Nuance Communications (I highlighted Samsung’s policy changes in bold): If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some interactive voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service provider (currently, Nuance Communications, Inc.) that converts your interactive voice commands to text and to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Samsung will collect your interactive voice commands only when you make a specific search request to the Smart TV by clicking the activation button either on the remote control or on your screen and speaking into the microphone on the remote control. It’s certainly welcome that Samsung has made it plainer that its TVs do not in fact squat in the corner recording your every utterance. And provided clarity that the full-fat voice recognition feature does not remain on by default but requires a specific user trigger each time it’s used — by the pressing of an activation button. However, the policy is still rather circumspect, referring somewhat vaguely to “some interactive voice commands” that “may be transmitted.” This vagueness is compounded by the fact that the TV can also process basic “voice commands” without having to resort to a third-party cloud service provider — yet the policy is still fuzzy on the distinction between basic voice commands and more complex speech commands. The difference between plain old “voice commands” and “interactive voice commands” — in the Samsung SmartTV universe — is in fact clarified by the company in its blog. Here it notes voice recognition takes place in two ways: one being local to the device, with no cloud-processing (and so no third-party data-privacy concerns), and with support for only “simple predetermined TV commands such as changing the channel and increasing the volume”; while the second type of voice recognition supports more complex voice commands, such as the ability to ask the TV to recommend a movie, and does involve data being sent off-site to a third party (Nuance) for processing. There are also two microphones involved — one in the TV does the basic voice commands (which Samsung says does not record, track or store what it hears, listening only for commands to be spoken to trigger set TV actions); while a second mic, located in the remote control, opens the recording gateway to the cloud. Its blog notes: Voice recognition takes place in two ways: The first is through an embedded microphone inside the TV set that responds to simple predetermined TV commands such as changing the channel and increasing the volume. Voice data is neither stored nor transmitted in using these predetermined commands. The second microphone, which is inside the remote control, requires interaction with a server because it is used for searching content. A user, for example, can speak into the remote control requesting the search of particular TV programs (ex: “Recommend a good Sci-Fi movie”). This interaction works like most any other voice recognition service available on other products including smartphones and tablets. As I wrote earlier, the bottom line here is that companies building ‘smart’ services need to be thinking about privacy by design — at the very front and centre of the devices and services they are building — not tacking on auxiliary clauses to catch-all privacy policies which are designed to fly under users’ radars anyway. Relying on vague wording to obfuscate function and keep users in the dark as to how their technology really operates does no one any favors. It breeds mistrust and triggers overblown concerns. If the privacy policy sounds creepy, the implication is the service provider is also doing something creepy — or at the very least trying to hide its activity from plain sight. Which makes people naturally suspicious. A further problem here, which Samsung has still not addressed in today’s updates, is that users of its voice-recognition feature also — presumably — become subject to a third-party (Nuance’s) privacy policy. That is not made clear in Samsung’s amended privacy policy. Nor is there a link to Nuance’s privacy policy (which notes, for instance, that Nuance may use information gathered by use of its services for “advertising and marketing”). We’ve asked Samsung about this omission and will update this post with any response. As the smart home takes shape, consumers are going to be asking increasingly probing questions about what previously-innocuous-but-now-connected-to-the-cloud home gizmos are actually doing with the data they’re sniffing. To keep buyers on side, device makers will not only need great services; they’ll need sparkling privacy and spectacular security too. A core part of the solution will be privacy by design, and privacy policies written in plain language that are displayed proudly, as an asset, held up in plain sight. But even those are only partial fixes if the transparency peters out at the gateway to the cloud. It’s not good enough for device makers to pass the baton and the buck to any third-party entities they have looped into processing user data off-site. The parameters of associated third-party operations also need to be made clear to the user. Or that’s just a whole new layer of transparency failure inviting censure.The inspiration for the origami series comes from my childhood. As a child, I would fold all sorts of origami figurines. I'm trying to convey a feeling of serenity, fleeting, and calm.This painting is named "Rocinante", after Don Quixote's horse.°º©©º°¨¨¨¨¨¨°º©©º°¨¨¨¨¨¨°º©©º°¨¨¨¨¨¨°°º©©º°¨¨¨¨¨¨°º©©º°¨¨¨¨¨¨▓▓▓ 【WHY BUY A PAINTING】▓▓▓Because a painting can be a unique Anniversary, Christmas, Birthday, or Wedding gift, which can also be considered a long-term investment.orBecause you love the painting and admire the devotion it took to create it.Remember: this is an original painting, which means that if you buy it, this is the only piece exactly like this in the whole world! There is only ever one original and it can be on your wall.I am a passionate artist and painting is my life. You are welcome to visit my shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChambersFineArts ▓▓▓ 【ITEM INFORMATION】▓▓▓*PAYMENT PLANS ARE AVAILABLE!I use traditional techniques on my oil paintings. The time devoted to each painting ranges from 10 hours to 40+ hours.Oil on Board, finished with a removable UV protective satin varnish which arrives FRAMED and ready to hang.Original oil paintings come with a certificate of authenticity. Each painting is signed and dated on the front.Oil paintings are made from environmentally friendly archival materials. The pigments in oil paint are composed of various minerals, the oil itself is made from crushed seedsOil paintings can last multiple generations if properly cared for.※Please note that artwork for sale on Etsy is not being shown at a gallery, out of respect for galleries and gallery owners.▓▓▓ 【WHY BUY A PRINT?】▓▓▓※ Because prints are seen as a low-cost collector's item.※ I use non-glossy thick 240 gsm paper, which is three times thicker than normal printing paper.※ I make my prints with Claria(™) ink which is archivable up to 200 years or more.※ The paper I use is made from cotton pulp instead of wood pulp, which increases the archivability even longer.※ Dye-based printers have a huge color "gamut", thus my prints are 100% color accurate.▓▓▓ 【SHIPPING/DELIVERY TIME 】 ▓▓▓Processing takes 1 day after completed payment, shipping takes 3-5 business days. Tracking information will be provided with each purchase.▓▓▓ 【LAYAWAY/MULTIPLE PAYMENTS 】 ▓▓▓Do you accept Mulitple Payments?Yes. Etsy allows multiple payments as long as the buyer and seller agree. Simply purchase the listing you are interested in and leave me a message.▓▓▓ 【SATISFACTION GUARANTEE】▓▓▓If you are not satisfied with your work for any reason at all, please feel free to contact me.°º©©º°¨¨¨¨¨¨°º©©º°¨¨¨¨¨¨°º©©º°¨¨¨¨¨¨°°º©©º°¨¨¨¨¨¨°º©©º°¨¨¨¨¨¨I have a large body of work, I display my current exhibitions and artwork on my website listed below.http://www.cedricchambers.com/Thank You For Looking! :)Hot and not Sam Bennett, Calgary Flames Bennett has broken out of a slump in a big way. After going 18 games without a goal, he has five in his past two. That includes four goals (three in the first period) in Wednesday's 6-0 whipping of the Panthers. Roberto Luongo, Florida Panthers A nine-game winning streak has come to a screeching halt for Luongo, who allowed four goals on 15 shots in the loss to the Flames and was pulled after the first period. The loss makes two in a row for Luongo after that nine-game run. Are the Flyers a real threat to make the playoffs? @ESPN_Burnside: All of a sudden, the Philadelphia Flyers are making themselves known in the Eastern Conference playoff discussion. Most of the news surrounding the Flyers this season has been the ongoing work by GM Ron Hextall in digging the Flyers out of salary-cap hell. Hextall most recently managed to unload Luke Schenn and Vincent Lecavalier on the Los Angeles Kings. But under rookie head coach Dave Hakstol, the Flyers have developed a never-say-die attitude, which was on display Wednesday night in a hard-fought 3-2 win over the slumping Boston Bruins. The Flyers still can't score (they rank 28th in goals per game at 2.27) and their power play stinks (29th, 15.4 percent), but the win was Philadelphia's fourth in a row. Jakub Voracek contributed just his fifth goal of the season, and it's just a little mind-boggling that a guy who signed an eight-year, $66 million contract last summer is on pace for a 10-goal season. Voracek also had two assists, though, as the Flyers pulled to within two points of Boston, which currently owns (rents on the short-term?) the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. The Flyers also have a game in hand. So, is this sustainable from the plucky Flyers, or is this another case of a team raising its head briefly and then sinking out of sight as the second half moves along? @CraigCustance: I liked Pierre's comparison, made during our Hockey Today podcast this week, of the NHL standings to a crushed beer can. We're at the point where any team that strings together a few wins gets swept up in the idea that it is knocking on the postseason door. I guess that's how the system is designed, even though the Flyers still would have to leapfrog four teams to get into the final wild-card spot. The impressive part of the Flyers streak is that it was done against four teams that are likely playoff teams. That's a good sign. And I applaud the effort turned in by Hakstol's team. We've seen no quit in non-playoff teams like Philly, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Carolina Hurricanes this year, a credit to those players and coaching staffs. The Flyers are probably a year away from being a team I'd consider a real threat to make the playoffs. That takes nothing away from the fantastic work turned in by Hextall and his staff to clear salary space while piling up prospects. Hextall has shown a nice combination of patience and creativity, and it won't be long until Philadelphia has one of the best young defenses in the league. It's just not there yet. @ESPNJoeyMac: In past seasons, any time we've discussed the Flyers it always comes down to goaltending, and that could be the case again in 2015-16. Hakstol has done a fantastic job with this team and with its recent success, it's evident that confidence is growing and the players are finally comfortable with the new system. Are the Flyers a threat to reach the playoffs? Sure, any team on the bubble, especially in the Eastern Conference, has a chance, including the Flyers. However, I think it'll come down to goaltending again. Michal Neuvirth and Steve Mason are a solid pair between the pipes, even though their records may not indicate that, so to Craig's point, I agree that the Flyers are not there yet. Unless Neuvirth or Mason can step up and carry the team themselves the rest of the way. @Real_ESPNLeBrun: Parity, parity, parity! No one is out in this year's NHL derby. And that includes the Flyers. The guy who has impressed me this year for the Flyers is center Sean Couturier. He's taken his game to another level, and that has taken a little pressure of Claude Giroux's top line on some nights to do it all. Couturier has long been a very good defensive player, but he's found a little bit more jam in his offensive game this season. That's an important development for the Flyers. Around the leagueGen. John F. Kelly, the retired four-star Marine general sworn in Monday as White House chief of staff, has new orders from the commander-in-chief: Instill discipline in a White House plagued by leaks and infighting. Kelly, an Irish Catholic, had a brief stint as secretary of Homeland Security. Before he headed DHS, he had recently ended a long and distinguished career in the military. Last February, he retired after serving four decades in the Marines. His last post was as head of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees Latin America and the Caribbean. "I have been fortunate to have served my country for more than 45 years - first as a Marine and then as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security," Kelly said in a statement Friday. "I am honored to be asked to serve as the chief of staff to the president of the United States." In a tweet late Friday, Trump tweeted that Kelly "has been a true star of my administration." “He is a great American and a great leader,” Trump said. Kelly, who vehemently defended Trump’s travel ban, has grown close with the president the past few months. The Washington Post said Trump is “drawn to the discipline that Kelly and his other advisers who are former military officers bring to their roles.” He is also allegedly close to both White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, and liked by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. He’s described as low-key and a good collaborator. His selection Friday was greeted with praise on Capitol Hill. “Secretary Kelly is one of the strongest and most natural leaders I’ve ever known,” said South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has sparred with the president in the past. “As a Marine Corps officer, he instilled loyalty, respect and admiration from all who served under him.” Speaking to reporters, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited Kelly’s role at the Department of Homeland Security in working to reduce illegal immigration. “He has helped seal the border and reduced illegal immigration by 70 percent,” Sanders said. “He is respected by everyone, especially the people at the Department of Homeland Security.” A profile in the Boston Globe when he was chosen by Trump to head DHS mentioned a powerful speech he delivered in Massachusetts honoring service members in the state killed since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. He spoke to the crowd but never mentioned that his own son was killed in Afghanistan three weeks prior. "He was probably torn up inside," Chris Lessard, a Newton firefighter and Marine veteran, told the Globe. "That was my first impression of General John Kelly. Could you find a classier person? He's a great man."While studying abroad in Florence during the spring, Chapman University film student Sam Furie tried to keep informed about what was going on back home. Suddenly, he realized that drought articles were becoming more and more prominent. Upon returning to the United States, he contacted his old friend, Jacob Morrison, who is studying film at the University of Southern California with the idea of creating a documentary about the drought, called “Rivers’ End.” “Our interest in water conservation and the drought started with this film. Since we started working on this film, we’ve been becoming incredibly involved,” Morrison says. The two put together a group of film students, mostly Jewish, including Tucker Cowan and Brian Weisboard. Furie, who is producing the film, explained that he was already environmentally conscious and that he and Morrison had had the value of tikkun olam (repairing the world) instilled in them in Jewish day school, so they are implementing this value in their film. All of the people involved in making this film have a personal connection to the drought and a love for nature, according to Furie. He said that “Rivers’ End” is “combining two of our passions,” referring to film and nature. “We realized that there’s stuff happening that’s sort of beyond our reach that we never knew about,” Furie says. “These rivers being depleted of water and ecosystems being destroyed and I think that sort of stuck out to us and that’s why we want to raise awareness and help and provide solutions for it.” They began their research via Google, articles online, and books, but claim that their interviews with different sources give them more information than 100 articles, because their sources “know more about the drought than anyone, ” according to Morrison. They are currently working on getting interviews with politicians, college professors, water companies, and people that are affected by water shortages, among others. According to Morrison, since there are so many aspects of the drought, they had to choose a focus. He joked that if he didn’t, the film would be 50 hours long. After various interviews, they have decided to focus on the San Joaquin river delta and the effects of taking water from it on the ecosystem around it. One of the major issues they will include is a discussion on the twin tunnels project, which Gov. Jerry Brown proposed in order to create two 35 mi. long tunnels to bring water from the San Francisco area to Southern California. They will also cover the question of water usage in the film. According to Morrison, 20 percent of California’s water use comes from cities and 80 percent is used in agriculture. Of the 20 percent of water used in cities, 10 percent is used for landscaping, while the other 10 percent is used indoors. Morrison explains that people can conserve 400 to 500 gallons of water just by taking short showers or not eating meat, since raising cattle uses so much water. “It’s not just about conserving water in your home, it is about learning about the big issues and thinking big,” Morrison says. “People will leave the film having an idea of what they can do,” Furie adds. These students don’t only talk-the-talk, they walk-the-walk. During the film-making process, they are using sustainable methods. Besides the regular water conservation methods like taking short showers, they are also driving a Prius around California for their interviews, decreasing their carbon footprint. “There’s no one on the team that doesn’t feel responsibility to take action for the drought personally,” Furie says, “so one of the ways we try to conserve is by trying to be mindful of the way that we use our environment.” Furie reflects on his experience making “Rivers’ End” so far: “One of the most interesting parts has been the knowledge that we’ve accumulated. Prior to this, I pretty much knew little to nothing about where my water came from and how much I used and I was environmentally conscious and stuff and I never wasted water, but I never knew the details.” When asked about future plans for the film, Furie says “we need to focus on making the best film we can and then do our best to get it out there.” Because the drought is such a timely topic, the crew is already talking to different tv companies about broadcasting their film. They also plan to post it online at some point. According to Furie and Morrison, they have a few more months of filming left and then a few months of editing before the film is ready for distribution. They expect to release “Rivers’ End” between January and April. So far, funds “Rivers’ End” have come through grants from the University of Southern California and Chapman University, however, they have started a Kickstarter to raise money for the rest of the film’s expenses. You can donate to “Rivers’ End” by visiting https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1184773314/rivers-end-californias-latest-water-war. Their goal is to raise $10,386 by July 25. For more information about “Rivers’ End” visit http://www.riversendfilm.com.Stitching together 10,000 photos is not a task for everyone. The team at Oddviz spent a week photographing every corner of an art hotel in downtown Istanbul. Then, over the course of two weeks, they used a process called photogrammetry to stitch the images together, creating a 3D photographic model of the building. These models allow for viewers to simultaneously view the interior and exterior of a structure, explains Oddviz member Erdal Inci, providing an improved perception of the building. “You look at a chestnut and you know the inside of a chestnut but you don’t know really what is in there,” he says. “It’s the same for a building, if you are on the outside you can only imagine the inside. If you enter the building your environment is limited to one room.” Test it out for yourself by hovering your mouse over the hotel model below and using the scroll wheel on your mouse to zoom in and out. Each room is the result of 100 to 150 combined images. This approach allows for most of the surfaces to be modeled while leaving parts of each room unmapped. Erdal welcomes this part of the aesthetic. “It doesn’t need to be perfect,” he tells TIME. “In this way it looks more like a painting. Imperfect structures are more interesting to me.” To perfectly capture each room would require around 1,000 photos per room and take about a year to complete. The Oddviz collective is made up of photographer Erdal Inci, architect Cagri Taskin and environmental scientist Serkan Kaptan. Each skill sets is integral for the photogrammetry process. One of the collective’s early photogrammetry projects was photographed with a drone. With only 400 images shot over the course of two drone flights, they were able to recreate the ancient village of Mardin, Turkey. View it by hovering your mouse over the model below and using the scroll wheel on your mouse to zoom in and out. Oddviz will next turn its attention to factories and abandoned structures. “I think photogrammetry will work well to preserve areas that will no longer exist,” says Erdal. Josh Raab is a multimedia editor at TIME. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter. Contact us at editors@time.com.We all have things that we want to achieve in our lives — getting into the better shape, building a successful business, raising a wonderful family, writing a best-selling book, winning a championship, and so on. And for most of us, the path to those things starts by setting a specific and actionable goal. At least, this is how I approached my life until recently. I would set goals for classes I took, for weights that I wanted to lift in the gym, and for clients I wanted in my business. What I’m starting to realize, however, is that when it comes to actually getting things done and making progress in the areas that are important to you, there is a much better way to do things. It all comes down to the difference between goals and systems. Let me explain. The Difference Between Goals and Systems What’s the difference between goals and systems? If you’re a coach, your goal is to win a championship. Your system is what your team does at practice each day. your goal is to win a championship. Your system is what your team does at practice each day. If you’re a writer, your goal is to write a book. Your system is the writing schedule that you follow each week. your goal is to write a book. Your system is the writing schedule that you follow each week. If you’re a runner, your goal is to run a marathon. Your system is your training schedule for the month. your goal is to run a marathon. Your system is your training schedule for the month. If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal is to build a million dollar business. Your system is your sales and marketing process. Now for the really interesting question: If you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your system, would you still get results? For example, if you were a basketball coach and you ignored your goal to win a championship and focused only on what your team does at practice each day, would you still get results? I think you would. As an example, I just added up the total word count for the articles I’ve written this year. (You can see them all here.) In the last 12 months, I’ve written over 115,000 words. The typical book is about 50,000 to 60,000 words, so I have written enough to fill two books this year. All of this is such a surprise because I never set a goal for my writing. I didn’t measure my progress in relation to some benchmark. I never set a word count goal for any particular article. I never said, “I want to write two books this year.” What I did focus on was writing one article every Monday and Thursday. And after sticking to that schedule for 11 months, the result was 115,000 words. I focused on my system and the process of doing the work. In the end, I enjoyed the same (or perhaps better) results. Let’s talk about three more reasons why you should focus on systems instead of goals. 1. Goals reduce your current happiness. When you’re working toward a goal, you are essentially saying, “I’m not good enough yet, but I will be when I reach my goal.” The problem with this mindset is that you’re teaching yourself to always put happiness and success off until the next milestone is achieved. “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy. Once I achieve my goal, then I’ll be successful.” SOLUTION: Commit to a process, not a goal. Choosing a goal puts a huge burden on your shoulders. Can you imagine if I had made it my goal to write two books this year? Just writing that sentence stresses me out. But we do this to ourselves all the time. We place unnecessary stress on ourselves to lose weight or to succeed in business or to write a best-selling novel. Instead, you can keep things simple and reduce stress by focusing on the daily process and sticking to your schedule, rather than worrying about the big, life-changing goals. When you focus on the practice instead of the performance, you can enjoy the present moment and improve at the same time. 2. Goals are strangely at odds with long-term progress. You might think your goal will keep you motivated over the long-term, but that’s not always true. Consider someone training for a half-marathon. Many people will work hard for months, but as soon as they finish the race, they stop training. Their goal was to finish the half-marathon and now that they have completed it, that goal is no longer there to motivate them. When all of your hard work is focused on a particular goal, what is left to push you forward after you achieve it? This can create a type of “yo-yo effect” where people go back and forth from working on a goal to not working on one. This type of cycle makes it difficult to build upon your progress for the long-term. SOLUTION: Release the need for immediate results. I was training at the gym last week and I was doing my second-to-last set of clean and jerks. When I hit that rep, I felt a small twinge in my leg. It wasn’t painful or an injury, just a sign of fatigue near the end of my workout. For a minute or two, I thought about doing my final set. Then, I reminded myself that I plan to do this for the rest of my life and decided to call it a day. In a situation like the one above, a goal-based mentality will tell you to finish the workout and reach your goal. After all, if you set a goal and you don’t reach it, then you feel like a failure. But with a systems-based mentality, I had no trouble moving on. Systems-based thinking is never about hitting a particular number, it’s about sticking to the process and not missing workouts. Of course, I know that if I never miss a workout, then I will lift bigger weights in the long-run. And that’s why systems are more valuable than goals. Goals are about the short-term result. Systems are about the long-term process. In the end, process always wins. 3. Goals suggest that you can control things that you have no control over. You can’t predict the future. (I know, shocking.) But every time we set a goal, we try to do it. We try to plan out where we will be and when we will make it there. We try to predict how quickly we can make progress, even though we have no idea what circumstances or situations will arise along the way. SOLUTION: Build feedback loops. Each Friday, I spend 15 minutes filling out a small spreadsheet with the most critical metrics for my business. For example, in one column I calculate the conversion rate (the percentage of website visitors that join my free email newsletter each week). I rarely think about this number, but checking that column each week provides a feedback loop that tells me if I’m doing things right. When that number drops, I know that I need to send high quality traffic to my site. Feedback loops are important for building good systems because they allow you to keep track of many different pieces without feeling the pressure to predict what is going to happen with everything. Forget about predicting the future and build a system that can signal when you need to make adjustments. Fall In Love With Systems None of this is to say that goals are useless. However, I’ve found that goals are good forplanning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress. Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win. Having a system is what matters. Committing to the process is what makes the difference. **In 2001, the Lebanese visual artist Ricardo Mbarkho has decided unilaterally that a new celebration would be the National Tabbouleh Day. On Wednesday April 4, 2001, he sends from France an email to Allam Sleiman (computer programmer, Lebanese, in Lebanon) telling him about the idea of initiating a National Tabbouleh Day where the Lebanese and their friends will celebrate a common identification that links them together: the Tabbouleh.Two days later, on Friday April 6, 2001, during a chat session on the Internet between Ricardo and Allam, they wrote the first communiqué fixing this new celebration for every first Saturday of the month of July. Right after, about 20000 Lebanese were informed by email and are invited to transfer the message everywhere to the world... The snowball starts! The Lebanese and foreign press mobilizes with articles announcing the news. The Biennial of Paris presents the editions of the National Tabbouleh Day since 2006. The Lebanese Ministry of Tourism officially gives its approval and its patronage for this new Day. Private and public gatherings took place in Lebanon and abroad! The National Tabbouleh Day is henceforth a giant celebration for the whole humanity, and particularly for the Lebanese! « Each house taking part in this national day transforms into an art gallery promoting the Celebration Art », says Ricardo Mbarkho.Image: Intel Intel's RealSense technology is finally ready for prime time after Intel's Haifa-based Israel team integrated the 3D tech with Google's Project Tango. RealSense, the new iteration of Perceptual Computing, is Intel's contribution to the growing number of 3D and virtual reality platforms that developers can integrate into devices and applications, based on a library of pre-programmed routines that can be used to take advantage of the capabilities of 3D cameras. Project Tango does 3D motion and depth sensing, enabling cameras to see the world in a far more advanced - and human-like - manner than 2D cameras. Together, the two technologies will deliver a camera that will let users to experience their surroundings in 3D,
who is in rehab. And he insisted he did not interfere in the selection of Manziel last May. "The organization agreed they were going to pick a quarterback," Haslam said. "Johnny was the highest-rated quarterback on the board at the time." He termed the draft story told by former quarterback coach Dowell Loggains -- the "wreck this league" version -- as "inaccurate" but did not elaborate. When asked why the team didn't know more about the off-field issues that led Manziel to rehab, Haslam said this: "I don't know how much of Johnny's personal life was known by everybody, and then I don't know how much is known now. I'll go back to what I was saying: prolific college career, and by almost everybody rated as a first-round pick." The team later clarified via Haslam that he believes the team did its work, knew the background and chose Manziel based on all the knowledge it had. Haslam said the team "absolutely" believes Manziel can succeed, and he believes the team has the right people running the team. He called a three-day summit meeting with Brown, Scheiner, Pettine and Farmer the best week he's had as a Browns owner. From that meeting came firm resolve to move forward with the people and structure in place. "You just have to fight through it," Haslam said. "Do I wish there was no news? Of course I do."Coming Soon Kid Cosmic In this animated series from the creator of "The Powerpuff Girls," an odd, imaginative boy acquires superpowers after finding five cosmic rings. Your Son After his son is brutally beaten outside a nightclub, a surgeon takes the law into his own hands and seeks vengeance against the perpetrators. The Dirt In this dramatization of Mötley Crüe's no-holds-barred autobiography, the band hits the monster highs and savage lows of heavy metal superstardom. Wine Country When a group of longtime girlfriends goes to Napa for the weekend to celebrate their friend's 50th birthday, tensions from the past boil over. Crime Diaries: The Candidate Dramatization of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio's 1994 assassination. Part of an anthology on unsolved crimes in Latin America. Nowhere Man A strange encounter causes a man awaiting execution to experience alternate timelines, leading to his escape from prison to protect his family. Budapest Two best friends put their careers and marriages on the line when they launch a business hosting outrageous, anything-goes bachelor parties in Hungary. The Legend of Cocaine Island This documentary follows American Rodney Hyden's journey to find a rumored stash of cocaine in the Caribbean with help from a colorful group of misfits.First of all, I am so, so sorry it's taken me so long too post. I feel awful and I know you've been waiting, santa. I got such an amazing santa for this exchange! She got in contact early on to ask me a few questions and tell me my gift would be homemade! I have never gotten a homemade gift before from a RedditGifts exchange but I have seen so many talented redditors so I was very excited! I have to give my santa props for being vague enough in asking her questions that I had no idea what I might be getting which made it even more fun. When my gift arrived I was so excited. I wrote a ton on my info page because I was crazy excited about this particular exchange. I'm a total 1970s (and late 60s) geek. I love everything about the decade from the history to fashion and the music and social justice movements. All of it. My santa is crazy talented. She crocheted me this gorgeous scarf in my favorite color. I didn't post right away initially because I wanted to find the best lighting to really even try to show how gorgeous it is. What's funny to me is that my santa didn't even know this but I collect scarves! I have a huge collection and for a few years I literally wore them every single day. I have tons of variety and styles and even there, this one is a unique and special part of my collection. Her skill at crochet is something pictures can't do justice no matter what but this literally looks like something I'd buy in a store. It's just top notch quality. Adding to that, I am in love with this shade or orange! When she asked my favorite color I even gave her an alternate because I understand that orange can be a difficult color to wear but this shade is perfect. It is by far the most wearable orange scarf I've ever seen (and orange scarfs are pretty rare anyhow. I think I have two others but they don't even compare!) I think you found me my new favorite shade! My santa also wrote me this awesome letter. Turns out we have a LOT in common, even some things I never would've expected. I'm so amused too because I wrote about what a massive Fleetwood Mac fan I am and not only is my santa a fan but when she was buying the yarn for my gift the store was playing a Mac song! She took that a sign and I agree. You definitely picked the right one! I think this was such a cool choice as well since DIY fashion was pretty big in the 60s and 70s and yarn related crafts, especially. Really spot on. Orange was probably at its peak then as well and I think this shade especially goes well with many of the 70s style clothing I have. You hit it out the park with this! I was so touched by the letter and how excited my santa repeatedly said she was to have me as her giftee. I will cherish this scarf and can't wait until the weather cools down so I can wear it. I am an artsy sort though my health has complicated things and i dont get to create a lot and my hands can't handle crochet (and I was just a beginner so I'm majorly impressed! My father actually knits and was the one who taught me but always told me crochet is way harder. I think I'd agree and for sure I know it takes effort too keep everything so even and nice!) So I really love and appreciate beautiful handmade goods. To know it was made just for me and that my santa put so much time and effort and love into the gift is just amazing. It means so much. I really feel like this gift is proof of the beauty of Reddit Gifts and how kind and caring my santa is. It's so nice to know there's good people out there who would do something special even for a someone who is basically a stranger to them. I feel bad it took me this long to post, though I know I was in touch with you, so I hope that you know how much I truly appreciate and adore your gift and talent and I loved getting to know you a bit as well. You rocked it, santa!Sesame Street has long been known for its ability to teach kids about tough topics in a gentle, digestible way. Its latest episode, however, which is by far its most controversial yet, left viewers asking themselves: Did the show go too far when it taught kids about feminine hygiene by having Grover die of toxic shock syndrome? Judging by the backlash, Sesame Street might have crossed a few lines with this one. Advertisement Parents around the country were up in arms last week when PBS aired a new episode of Sesame Street in which a woozy Grover sang a song called “I Feel Funny (And Not In A Good Way),” and then collapsed in a seizure in front of Mr. Hooper’s store on Sesame Street. After Elmo and Big Bird took turns giving Grover piggyback rides down the street to the hospital, an emergency room doctor informed them that Grover had left a tampon in for too long and was now experiencing the final stages of a bacterial infection called toxic shock syndrome. Yikes. Toxic shock syndrome is definitely a phenomenon people need to be aware of, but this may have been a little too intense of a storyline for a kids’ show. The controversial episode was packed full of scenes apparently intended to teach the importance of hygiene, including one in which Elmo and Big Bird both fell to the floor in grief when Grover’s doctor explained that the shock Grover was experiencing wasn’t a “shock” that kids might be familiar with, like a surprise, but instead a sudden drop in blood flow that would ultimately be fatal. Soon after, the Count led viewers in a song about the Number Of The Day: 72, representing each of the hours Grover had left the tampon in for. Advertisement The Sesame Street gang even attended Grover’s funeral during the episode, in which Cookie Monster gave a eulogy followed by an impassioned speech about the dangers of using super-absorbent tampons, all through racking sobs. “I want my daughter to learn about life, but I think age 3 is too soon to watch a Muppet insert and remove a tampon and also learn about renal failure and death, all in the space of half an hour,” said Laurie Butler, one of the concerned mothers who wrote in to PBS after the episode aired. “I definitely want my daughter to learn about feminine hygiene, but I’d much rather her hear that from me than from Kermit the Frog dressed as a coroner waving his arms over Grover’s dead body.” Well, unfortunately, we have to agree with Laurie here—Sesame Street is an amazing show, but this episode definitely took it too far. Let’s hope the writers find a smarter, more appropriate way to use Grover next time, assuming they bring him back to life.June 26, 2012 Alexander Billet reports on the "material girl's recent concert in Israel--and her refusal to stand in solidarity with those calling for a boycott of Israel. MADONNA KICKED off her "MDNA" tour on 1 June with all the spectacle one has come to expect from her. First-rate choreography, costume changes galore and, of course, all the hits trotted out for a crowd of 30,000 at Ramat Gan Stadium on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. There was even a little controversy mixed in to remind us of the days when the "Queen of Pop" used to be truly shocking. Now, the hired pens are frothing over her depiction of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead. Predictably, the responses range from the obtuse ("How can she show the swastika in the land of the Jews?") to the supportive ("She was right to bring attention to the rise of the right in Europe") to outrage from Le Pen herself (who is threatening to sue "if she tries that in France"). All of this commentary misses that which is both most obvious and most hidden: that in order to play in Israel in the first place, Madonna had to cross what must be world's largest picket line. "I chose to start my world tour in Israel for a very specific and important reason," said Madonna from the stage of the stadium. "As you know, the Middle East and all the conflicts that occur here and that have been occurring for thousands of years, they have to stop. You can't be a fan of mine and not want peace in the world." Madonna performs in Israel (Orit Pnini) That same day, two Palestinian brothers, both in possession of tickets to Madonna's "peace" concert, filmed their attempt to get to the show. That attempt was thwarted by Israel's wall in the West Bank. Madonna said nothing about them or the other innumerable Palestinians who were similarly unable to attend. For all her rhetoric about world peace, she said nothing of the very segregated crowd for whom she was performing. She said nothing of the Palestinian political prisoners on continued hunger strike. Nor did she say anything about the members of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, calling for African refugees to be summarily deported. In fact, her "thousands of years" line, parroted from the same old Orientalist schlock fed to the West every day, reveals that Madonna knows absolutely nothing about the daily conditions of Palestinians. Even the debate over the image of Marine Le Pen ignores a massive part of the issue--specifically that even while the fascist menace seems to be gaining traction in European elections, the far right is on the rise in Israel, too. Ultra-orthodox gangs are allowed to beat up Arabs on Israel's streets with impunity. Cities like Haifa are warning businesses that they'll lose their licenses to operate if they hire African refugees. Avigdor Lieberman, the same foreign minister who routinely promises "transfer" of Palestinians, has enthusiastically met with Geert Wilders, the hard right, anti-immigrant leader of the Dutch Freedom Party. One simple, shocking image of Marine Le Pen won't even scratch the surface of this, and as you may have guessed, Madonna didn't mention any of Israel's home-grown proto-fascists. As for the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, the Queen of Pop wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. THIS, IN essence, is where the victory lay for Israel's occupation of Palestine: the brutal reality of a colonial settler state relying on a policy of racism and apartheid, repainted as a clash between a peace-loving bastion of culture and a civilization bent on war. It's no wonder, then, that such fanfare has surrounded Madonna's Israel tour-launch. Ever since she announced it at this year's Superbowl, the concert has been touted loud and clear--perhaps by nobody more than Israel's politicians and officials. In the days leading up to the concert, the Israeli embassy in London took time to smear the BDS campaign as "an anti-Israeli movement." The Board of Deputies of British Jews called comparisons to apartheid South Africa "a specious and desperate effort by a failing boycott campaign." But if the push for cultural boycott is failing, then why go out of the way to denounce it so vociferously? Why is the Knesset passing laws that allow for boycott advocates to be sued in court? Why is the Israeli government discussing stepping in to insure promoters against the financial effects of "politically motivated cancellations"? So scared of BDS are some in the music industry that last year saw a consortium of American and Israeli entertainment executives to set up the "Creative Community for Peace," whose expressed intention is to counter the movement for a cultural boycott of Israel. Truthfully, the Israeli government and concert industry have plenty of reason to be nervous. Though the launch of the "MDNA" tour did indeed take place in Israel, the BDS campaign surrounding it was one of the most high-profile in some time. It was so public that Madonna's public relations team stepped in to announce that 600 tickets to her show would be given to members of left-leaning organizations. This too backfired. Some groups declined the invitation on the grounds that those living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza wouldn't be able to attend. And given the amount of publicity surrounding the controversy, they were afforded a larger platform to make the case for BDS. Among these were Anarchists Against the Wall and the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, the latter of whom released a statement making clear that: Madonna has never criticized the Israeli occupation, its separation policies, or its regime of privileges. Therefore, we believe that the reason she sought the presence of Israeli peace activists was to further a public image of an artist who promotes peace in the Middle East. We refuse to be a public relations gimmick for Madonna at the expense of the Palestinians. This is not our way. The inequities of Israeli society have even been inadvertently illustrated from within Madonna's own camp. Headlines were made when Ali Ramadani, one of Madonna's backup dancers of Palestinian heritage, tweeted from al-Aqsa mosque while visiting. "At the amazing al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem," wrote Ramadani. "I don't want to say it's in Israel, but Palestine, strength and honor." Israeli newspapers called his tweet a controversy. It seems, then, that even as the Israeli concert industry has stepped up its game, so has the BDS movement. The campaign surrounding Madonna's mega-show has arguably been the most high-profile since 2010, when the Gaza Freedom Flotilla massacre provoked several well-known acts to cancel performances in protest. Since then, there have been several other cancellations Israeli concerts (Tuba Skinny, Natacha Atlas and Cat Power) after consistent campaigning from BDS activists. Still others (The Yardbirds, Zdob si Zdub), while not officially joining the BDS campaign, have quietly canceled their gigs in Israel without rescheduling. Far from failing, the cultural boycott movement is doing exactly what it's meant to do: shine a light on the fierce injustice of Israeli apartheid and shame those who cross the picket line. If the stakes have indeed been raised on both ends, then the need for sharp critique and hard arguments can't be understated. Madonna's endless prattle about world peace may have been hollow, but it's also effective in the hands of colonizers. Just as in South Africa, Israeli officials have long sought to paint the Arab-Israeli conflict as "equal-sided." Famous images of young Palestinians slinging rocks at massive tanks provided to Israel by the world's biggest military superpower have gone a long way toward poking holes in this myth over the past twenty years. NONETHELESS, ISRAEL'S political class--from its far-right to its dwindling liberal camp--continue to demand that Palestinians put down their arms, even as Israeli settlers and the Israeli military barrel through towns in the West Bank, and Gaza is locked from the rest of the world. The double standard is palpable, but the role of culture--at least in the hands of the occupiers' government--has been to obscure it. Speaking of those activists that did attend the concert, Madonna told the crowd, "There are several very brave and important NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that are representing both Palestine and Israel together." Again, note the wording. And note the implication: that it's two equal sides at war here. Never mind the Nakba (the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948), never mind the decades of displacement, the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees scattered by Israeli land grabs or the thousands locked up in its prisons. Never mind that Israel is armed to the teeth by the west and is one of the world's top military spenders as a proportion of national income. With that simple turn of phrase, all of this history and reality is swept aside for words that let the colonizers off the hook and place at least some of the blame on the colonized who dare to resist. There is another crime, more esoteric in nature, at play here. Whether Madonna is aware of it or not (and there's a good chance she is), her music and art are willfully being lent to the cause of crude state propaganda. This is no conspiracy theory. Israeli politicians are frequently over the moon to have high-profile artists play in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu himself was so publicly chuffed to have Justin Bieber perform in Tel Aviv that he attempted to force a meeting with the teen pop star. When fake punkers Simple Plan announced their own show in Israel earlier in the spring, it made it onto the State of Israel's Twitter account. Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, former deputy director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, has said publicly, "We are seeing culture as a hasbara (propaganda) tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture." This, of course, flies in the face of everything that those who are against BDS tell us: that art is somehow "above" politics, and has no role to play other than "bringing people together." No matter how many times it's debunked, this old chestnut persists. It ignores that art, for all its high falutin' pretensions, is a form of labor. And, as any union member will tell you, when labor is withheld it can throw one hell of monkey wrench into the gears of the machine. This is, ironically, even more true for mega-stars like Madonna. Though she may not have to put the same amount of sweat and sacrifice into her music that she had to 25 years ago, her shows require countless stagehands, sound techs and security staff to pull them off. And so, once more, it really can't be denied that the launch of the "MDNA" tour in Israel was a victory for the apartheid state. What also can't be denied is the growth of the movement for BDS. Every effort was taken to put the heat on Madonna's camp, resulting in some surprising chances to speak truth to power. Case in point: the ongoing campaign to get the Red Hot Chili Peppers to cancel a forthcoming Tel Aviv show has gained a welcome shot in the arm. There's no substitute for that experience. The opportunity to shine a light on Israel's crimes is arguably bigger than it's ever been. Madonna's glitzy, glaring flash might blind and confuse for a little while, but in the end, it's really no match for the collective effort of all those pushing that light in the right direction. First published at Electronic Intifada.Australia's biggest domestic beer maker has pulled off the unthinkable, driving thirsty customers away from drink after it supported a church-run debate about same-sex marriage with beer bottles featuring bible verses. Australia's biggest domestic beer maker has pulled off the unthinkable, driving thirsty customers away from drink after it supported a church-run debate about same-sex marriage with beer bottles featuring bible verses. Family-owned beer firm Coopers criticised following Facebook video which supported church-run debate on same sex marriage The family-owned Coopers Brewery had so far managed to avoid scandal during its 155 years of business but quickly learned a lesson about the power of social media. Coopers, a regular donor to religious charities, said a week ago it would celebrate the Bible Society's 200th anniversary by selling 10,000 cases of beer with Bible verses on the label. As part of the celebrations, the brewery and the Bible Society released a video in which two beer-drinking politicians debated same-sex marriage. One of the politicians, Tim Wilson, has said he wants to marry his long-term male partner, while the other, Andrew Hastie, said he supported "traditional marriage". A backlash quickly followed, with the Coopers Facebook page flooded with complaints. Some pubs in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's two biggest cities, said they would stop serving the company's beer because of its light-hearted approach to same-sex marriage, which is illegal in Australia but has wide community support. "We will be taking their Pale Ale off tap after our current kegs are blown," Sydney's Union Hotel said in a Facebook message. "Their views on marriage equality are at odds with not only those of our staff, but our locals and the broader community," it said. Mike Bennie, a Sydney beer and wine critic, said: "Making light of any social justice issue in Australia right now is not particularly helpful." One Melbourne nightclub manager posted footage online of him smashing bottles of Coopers. Coopers said in a statement on Sunday the video was a "light-hearted but balanced debate about an important topic". It later denied authorising the video. Managing director Tim Cooper and finance director Melanie Cooper issued a video on Tuesday apologising for causing offence and saying the company "supports marriage equality". Hastie and Wilson both said they were disappointed by the backlash. Coopers has so far defied a steady downturn in Australian beer consumption because of its reputation as an independent brewer and its strategy of building a presence in inner-city pubs, where upmarket ales are popular. The company says its sales have grown 16pc a year since 2003, while at the same time Australian per capita beer consumption has fallen every year but one. Online EditorsIf you're wondering how Attorney General Jeff Sessions would use his powerful perch to defend civil rights, here's a telling example from Andrew Kaczynski: As Alabama's attorney general in 1996, Sessions attempted to stop the Southeastern Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual College Conference from meeting at the University of Alabama under a state law passed in 1992 that made it illegal for public universities to fund in any way a group that promotes "actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws." The stated mission of the Southeastern Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual College Conference was to educate and start a dialogue about the LGBT community. Scheduled events at the conference included a workshop on coming out, an interfaith panel of LGBT issues, a discussion on preventing STDs, and discussions on the Internet and substance abuse. After a university spokesperson reminded Sessions that the gathering was protected free speech under the First Amendment, Sessions doubled down. At a news conference reported by multiple news outlets at the time, he said he might try to get a court order to stop the conference. Several days later, a federal judge struck down Alabama's 1992 law as unconstitutional. Sessions was defiant.Chicago sports radio station WSCR-AM 670 is turning to a pair of former Pro Bowl offensive linemen to replace its popular Bears postgame tandem of Doug Buffone and Ed O’Bradovich. Olin Kreutz and James "Big Cat" Williams have been hired along with Hub Arkush for the postgame. Kreutz, a six-time Pro Bowl selection and four-time All-Pro, spent 13 of his 14 seasons in the NFL with the Bears from 1998 through 2010 and started 182 games for the franchise, trailing only Walter Payton. Williams played for the Bears from 1991 to 2002 and was a Pro Bowl selection following the 2001 season. A converted defensive lineman, he started 143 games. The postgame show will run for two hours after each Bears game. Buffone and O’Bradovich were a longtime pairing on the Score before Buffone’s death April 20 at age 70. O’Bradovich, 75, has switched to WGN-AM 720 where he will be paired with Hall of Famer Dan Hampton and former Bears player Glen Kozlowski on “The Hamp & O.B. Show with Glen Kozlowski.” Kreutz was teammates with a small number of current Bears players, including quarterback Jay Cutler and running back Matt Forte. The Bears open the season Sept. 13 when they host the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field.29th October 2017 New and improved version of CRISPR for more precise genetic engineering An improved version of the genetic engineering technique known as CRISPR has been published in the journals Science and Nature. Two separate studies have demonstrated a powerful new method of genetic engineering, which could be used to improve the research and treatment of diseases in the future. In the first study, scientists directly and permanently changed single base pairs of DNA from AT to GC. This could one day enable precise DNA surgery to correct mutations. In the second, RNA was edited rather than DNA, which has potential to treat diseases without permanently affecting the genome. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which led the first study, created a new enzyme known as a "base editor". This allows researchers to edit the individual base pairs of DNA that form the instructions of life. By altering the molecular structure of one base – adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) or thymine (T) – and converting it to another, genetic faults that cause diseases could be fixed with high levels of precision. Researchers can now manipulate all four bases. Howard Hughes scientists took cells from patients and used base editing to correct hemochromatosis, an inherited condition that leads to dangerously high levels of iron in the blood. In DNA, each base on one strand is joined with its "partner" base on an opposing strand – so that, for example, adenine pairs with thymine (AT), while guanine pairs with cytosine (GC). Some genome editing tools, such as CRISPR/Cas9, cut both strands of DNA and rely on the cell's own molecular machinery to fill in the gap with a desired DNA sequence. Base editors, however, can rewrite the individual chemical units of DNA. Last year, the team at Howard Hughes described a base editor that could change CG base pairs into TA. But they didn't have the ability to convert AT to GC, until now. Mutations in which a GC mutates into an AT account for nearly half of the roughly 32,000 single point mutations associated with human diseases. "CRISPR is like scissors, and base editors are like pencils," says David Liu, Professor of Chemical Biology. He and his colleagues are now "hard at work trying to translate base editing technology into human therapeutics." The new system – which relies on the evolution of engineered bacterial colonies to generate the enzyme – is a "really exciting addition to the genome engineering toolbox," explains Feng Zhang, molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, who was not involved in this study, but took part in the second. "It's a great example of how we can harness natural enzymes and processes to accelerate scientific research." A newly created DNA base editor: atom-rearranging enzyme (red), guide RNA (green) and Cas9 nickase (blue). Credit: Gaudelli et al./ Nature 2017 In the second study, by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, researchers adapted CRISPR to edit single RNA letters in human cells. This new system is called RNA Editing for Programmable A to I Replacement, or "REPAIR". RNA is usually single-stranded, and does not form into a double helix as does DNA. Unlike the permanent changes to the genome required for DNA editing, RNA editing provides a safer and more flexible way to make corrections. It has major potential as a tool for disease research and treatment. "REPAIR can fix mutations without tampering with the genome – and because RNA naturally degrades, it's a potentially reversible fix," explains co-author David Cox, a graduate student in Feng Zhang's lab. Like the base editors in the first study, REPAIR has the ability to target individual RNA letters – switching adenosines (A) to inosines (recognised as guanosines (G) by the cell) – without cutting the transcript or relying on the cell's native machinery. These letters are involved in single-base changes, known to regularly cause disease in humans. A mutation from G to A is extremely common; these alterations have been implicated in cases of epilepsy, muscular dystrophy and Parkinson's disease, for example. REPAIR can reverse the impact of any pathogenic G-to-A mutation – regardless of its surrounding letter sequence, with the potential to operate in any cell type. Zhang and his colleagues tested REPAIR on human cells in the laboratory, using this RNA approach to correct an inherited form of anaemia. "The ability to correct disease-causing mutations is one of the primary goals of genome editing," said Professor Zhang. "So far, we've gotten very good at deactivating genes – but actually recovering lost protein function is much more challenging. This new ability to edit RNA opens up more potential opportunities to recover that function and treat many diseases, in almost any kind of cell." Zhang, along with the Broad Institute and MIT, plan to share the REPAIR system widely. As with earlier CRISPR tools, they will make this technology freely available for academic research, via the plasmid-sharing website Addgene, through which the Zhang laboratory has already shared reagents over 42,000 times with researchers at 2,200 labs in 61 countries around the world. Credit: Broad Communications, Susanna M. Hamilton "This is an exciting week for genetic research," said Dr Helen O'Neill, at University College London. "These papers highlight the fast pace of the field and the continuous improvements being made in genome editing, bringing it closer and closer to the clinic." "The science is moving fast in the sense it is becoming less risky, more certain, more precise and more effective," said Dr Sarah Chan, a bioethicist at the University of Edinburgh, in a BBC interview. "It is absolutely past time for us to engage more widely with the public on the issue of gene editing." --- • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook • Subscribe to us on YouTube Comments »The question posed by the Vizio E2VLE series comes down to priorities. If your priority is getting scads of streaming video and audio content delivered wirelessly to your TV as cheaply as possible without having to use an external box, it's worth a look. But if your priority is getting good picture quality for the money, look elsewhere. The Roku LT can supply those scads to any TV for as little as $50, and the TCL L40FHDF12A is one example of a budget TV with picture quality that matches this Vizio's. Many others perform better at the same price, so despite a lengthy features list the E2VLE series is tough to recommend. Editors' note: The CNET Editors' rating above factors in a new Value score that joins Design, Features, and Performance in our ratings calculations for TVs. In the case of the Vizio E2VLE series, the Value score is 6. Series information: I performed a hands-on evaluation of the 47-inch Vizio E472VLE, but this review also applies to the other screen sizes in the series. All sizes have identical specs and should provide very similar picture quality. Design The Vizio has more angles than a geometry textbook. The chunky, pedestrian exterior of the E2VLE series hearkens back to TV designs of a few years ago, when frames and panels were thicker, black was glossier and angles were sharper. Those angles on the frame seem intended to echo the "V" of the logo (which illuminates, and can be turned off), and the only other accent is a similarly angled badge proclaiming the presence of "120Hz Smooth Motion." The angular (see the theme?) stand refuses to swivel. Unlike Vizio's higher-end Smart TV remotes, the clicker that comes with the E2VLE models lacks a backside QWERTY keyboard. The front side could be a lot better. It lacks illumination, the menu/exit/guide/back keys are too small, there's not enough differentiation, and no direct button to switch aspect ratio. Its best feature is dedicated keys for Amazon Instant, Netflix and Vudu streaming services. Vizio's menu system remains unchanged from recent years, and it's still very good. It resembles another app in appearance, and we liked that the picture settings section is actually integrated into the main App taskbar (see below). Responses were fast, explanations complete, and we had no problems finding our way around. The TV's menu system looks just like another app. Key TV features Display technology LCD LED backlight No Screen finish Matte Remote Standard Smart TV Yes Internet connection Built-in Wi-Fi 3D technology N/A 3D glasses included N/A Refresh rate(s) 120Hz Dejudder (smooth) processing Yes DLNA compliant Photo/Music/Video USB Photo/Music/Video Features: Vizio is known for getting more features to ever-lower price points, and by ditching expensive LED backlighting on the E2VLE series, it created one of the cheapest Smart TV-equipped models around. I like the addition of built-in Wi-Fi, and Vizio finally caught up with the competition by adding DLNA to browse files over a home network (it stopped responding and crashed in our brief test with a packed media server, however). The only image-affecting extra is 120Hz with smoothing, if you like that kind of thing (I don't). DLNA capability is a recent Vizio addition. Smart TV: Vizio still calls its app suite VIA for "Vizio Internet Apps," although its Web site now uses the generic Smart TV. Its design, based on the original Yahoo Widgets, consists of a strip along the bottom of the screen. It shows just four widgets at a time, so finding the one you want is a tedious scrolling chore if you any more than 10 or so installed. Vizio doesn't make finding new widgets any easier, with a "Yahoo Connected TV Store" that's crowded with entirely too much chaff, including way too many "apps" devoted to local TV stations. Overall the experience feels dated and definitely a step behind major competitors. Content selection, however, is among the best available today. Since last year it has added CinemaNow, YouTube, and many others, leaving no major video services off the list (although sports apps like MLB.TV and NHL are still AWOL). There's also a Skype icon but it seems inactive for now--clicking it simply exited the system. Vizio is still the only TV maker to support Rhapsody, and with Pandora, TuneIn Radio and iHeartRadio there's plenty of musical choice too. Lots of content, but just four tiles visible at once, makes using the apps interface a scrollapalooza. Picture settings: The selection here is adequate but not up to LG or Samsung's standards, lacking a gamma presets, a 10-point grayscale, color management and fine dejudder control. There's a ridiculous number of picture modes so viewers who like to create different settings for all kinds of material and sources will have a lot to like. Most of the picture controls and all of the presets are also available when watching streaming video.XFINITY.com is the place to be for all of your “Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen-X” needs. We’ll have interviews with all twenty of the new players to hold you over until the season starts. Then we’ll have full episode recaps, interviews with the players after they’ve been eliminated, and the return of the ever-popular “Survivor” Power Rankings. Follow me on Twitter (@gordonholmes) for up-to-the-minute news. Name (Age): Bret LaBelle (42) Current Residence: Dedham, MA Occupation: Police Sergeant Hobbies: Going to the gym, golf, improve, and bicycling. Pet Peeves: Couples who sit on the same side of the booth, people who talk politics and religion at Thanksgiving dinner, and bullies. Three Words to Describe You: Gregarious, funny/hilarious and caring. NOTE: Usually I get a good thirty minutes with each contestant before the game starts. However, this season I had to get through all 20 players in only two-and-a-half hours. So, these pieces will be short and hopefully sweet. Gordon Holmes: We’re on a bit of a tight schedule here, so if you could keep your answers short, I would appreciate it. Bret LaBelle: I’ve got a hamburger waiting, so I’m on a tight schedule too. Holmes: I totally respect that. LaBelle: (Laughs) Holmes: You’re heading into a high-stress situation, but I’d imagine disarming a gunman would also be a high-stress situation. What happened there? LaBelle: They were trying to subdue a guy. They were yelling that they couldn’t get his left hand. So, I immediately shot my hand under his left hand and he had a loaded Glock 40. The reason I knew it was a Glock right away even though it was under his clothing is because I carry
AMBROGIO: Well, then, would you like to explain to me what this communism of yours is all about. GIORGIO : With pleasure. Communism is a method of social organisation in which people, instead of fighting among themselves to monopolise natural advantages and alternatively exploiting and oppressing each other, as happens in today's society, would associate and agree to cooperate in the best interest of all. Starting from the principle that the land, the mines and all natural forces belong to everybody, and that all the accumulated wealth and acquisitions of previous generations also belongs to everybody, people, in communism, would want to work cooperatively, to produce all that is necessary. AMBROGIO: I understand. You want, as was stated in a news-sheet that came to hand during an anarchist trial, for each person to produce according to their ability and consume according to their needs; or, for each to give what they can and take what they need. Isn't that so? GIORGIO: In fact these are principles that we frequently repeat; but for them to represent correctly our conception of what a communist society would be like it is necessary to understand what is meant. It is not, obviously, about on absolute right to satisfy all of one's needs, because needs are infinite, growing more rapidly than the means to satisfy them, and so their satisfaction is always limited by productive capacity; nor would it be useful or just that the community in order to satisfy excessive needs, otherwise called caprices, of a few individuals, should undertake work, out of proportion to the utility being produced. Nor are we talking about employing all of one's strength in producing things, because taken literally, this would mean working until one is exhausted, which would mean that by maximising the satisfaction of human needs we destroy humanity. What we would like is for everybody to live in the best possible way: so that everybody with a minimum amount of effort will obtain maximum satisfaction. I don't know how to give you a theoretical formula which correctly depicts such a slate of affairs; but when we get rid of the social environment of the boss and the police, and people consider each other as family, and think of helping instead of exploiting one another, the practical formula for social life will soon be found. In any case, we will make the most of what we know and what we can do, providing for piece-by-piece modifications as we learn to do things better. AMBROGIO: I understand: you are a partisan of the prise au tas, as your comrades from France would say, that is to say each person produces what he likes and throws in the heap, or, if you prefer, brings to the communal warehouse what he has produced; and each takes from the heap ever he likes and whatever he needs. Isn't that so? GIORGIO: I notice that you decided to inform yourself a little about this issue, and I guess that you have read the trial documents more carefully than you normally do when you send us to jail. If all magistrates and policemen did this, the things that they steal from us during the searches would at least be useful for something! But, let's return to our discussion. Even this formula of take from the heap is only a form of words, that expresses an inclination to substitute for the market spirit of today the spirit of fraternity and solidarity, but it doesn't indicate with any certainty a definite method of social organisation. Perhaps you could find among us some who take that formula literally, because they suppose that work undertaken spontaneously would always be abundant and that products would accumulate in such quantity and variety that rules about work or consumption would be pointless. But I don't think like that: I believe, as I've told you, that humans always have more needs than the means to satisfy them and I am glad of it because this is a spur to progress; and I think that, even if we could, it would be an absurd waste of energy to produce blindly to provide for all possible needs, rather than calculating the actual needs and organising to satisfy them with as little effort as possible. So, once again, the solution lies in accord between people and in the agreements, expressed or silent, that will come about when they have achieved equality of conditions and are inspired by a feeling of solidarity. Try to enter into the spirit of our programme, and don't worry overmuch about formulas that, in our party just like any other, are not pithy and striking but are always a vague and inexact way of expressing a broad direction. AMBROGIO: But don't you realise that communism is the negation of liberty, and of human personality? Perhaps, it may have existed in the beginning of humanity, when human beings, scarcely developed intellectually and morally, were happy when they could satisfy their material appetites as members of the horde. Perhaps it is possible in a religious society, or a monastic order, that seeks the suppression of human passion, and prides itself on the incorporation of the individual into the religious community and claims obedience to be a prime duty. But in a modern society, in which there is a great flowering of civilization produced by the free activity of individuals, with the need for independence and liberty that torments and ennobles modern man, communism is not an impossible dream, it is a return to barbarism. Every activity would be paralysed; every promising contest where one could distinguish oneself, assert one's own individuality, extinguished… GIORGIO: And so on, and so on. Come on. Don't waste your eloquence. These are well-known stock phrases... and are no more than a lot of brazen and irresponsible lies. Liberty, individuality of those who die of hunger! What crude irony! What profound hypocrisy! You defend a society in which the great majority lives in bestial conditions, a society in which workers die of privation and of hunger, in which children die by the thousands and millions for lack of care, in which women prostitute themselves because of hunger, in which ignorance clouds the mind, in which even those who are educated must sell their talent and lie in order to eat, in which nobody is sure of tomorrow - and you dare talk of liberty and individuality? Perhaps, liberty and the possibility of developing one's own individuality exist for you, for a small caste of privileged people... and perhaps not even for them. These same privileged persons are victims of the struggle between one human being and another that pollutes all social life, and they would gain substantially if they were able to live in a society of mutual trust, free among the free, equal among equals. However can you maintain the view that solidarity damages liberty and the development of the individual? If we were discussing the family - and we will discuss it whenever you want - you could not fail to let loose one of the usual conventional hymns to that holy institution, that foundation stone etc. etc. Well, in the family what is it we extol, if not that which generally exists - the love and solidarity prevailing among its members. Would you maintain that the family members would be freer and their individuality more developed if instead of loving each other and working together for the common good, they were to steal, hate and hit one another? AMBROGIO: But to regulate society like a family, to organise and to make a communist society function, you need an immense centralisation, an iron despotism, and an omnipresent state. Imagine what oppressive power a government would have that could dispose of all social wealth and assign to everyone the work they must do and the goods they could consume! GIORGIO: Certainly if communism was to be what you imagine it to be and how it is conceived by a few authoritarian schools then it would be an impossible thing to achieve, or, if possible, would end up as a colossal and very complex tyranny, that would then inevitably provoke a great reaction. But there is none of this in the communism that we want. We want free communism, anarchism, if the word doesn't offend you. In other words, we want a communism which is freely organised, from bottom to top, starting from individuals that unite in associations which slowly grow bit by bit into ever more complex federations of associations, finally embracing the whole of humanity in a general agreement of cooperation and solidarity. And just as this communism will be freely, constituted, it must freely maintain itself through the will of those involved. AMBROGIO: But for this to become possible you would need human beings to be angels, for everyone to be altruists! Instead people are by nature egoistical, wicked, hypocritical and lazy. GIORGIO: Certainly, because for communism to become possible there is a need that human beings, partly because of an impulse toward sociability and partly from a clear understanding of their interests, don't bear each other ill-will but want to get on and to practice mutual aid. But this state is far from seeming an impossibility, is even now normal and common. The present social organisation is a permanent cause of antagonism and conflict between classes and individuals: and if despite this society is still able to maintain itself and doesn't literally degenerate into a pack of wolves devouring each other, it is precisely because of the profound human instinct for society that produces the thousand acts of solidarity, of sympathy, of devotion, of sacrifice that are carried out every moment, without them even being thought about, that makes possible the continuance of society, notwithstanding the causes of disintegration that it carries within itself. Human beings are, by nature, both egoistic and altruistic, biologically pre-determined I would say prior to society. If humans had not been egoistic, if, that is to say, they had not had the instinct of self-preservation, they could not have existed as individuals; and if they hadn't been altruistic, in other words if they hadn't had the instinct of sacrificing themselves for others, the first manifestation of which one finds in the love of one's children, they could not have existed as a species, nor, most probably, have developed a social life. The coexistence of the egoistic and the altruistic sentiment and the impossibility in existing society of satisfying both ensures that today no one is satisfied, not even those who are in privileged positions. On the other hand communism is the social form in which egoism and altruism mingle - and every person will accept it because it benefits everybody. AMBROGIO: It may be as you say: but do you think that everybody would want and would know how to adapt themselves to the duties that a communist society imposes, if, for instance, people do not want to work? Of course, you have an answer for everything in theory, as best suits your argument, and you will tell me that work is an organic need, a pleasure, and that everybody will compete to have as much as possible of such a pleasure! GIORGIO: I am not saying that, although I know that you would find that many of my friends who would say so. According to me what is an organic need and a pleasure is movement, nervous and muscular activity; but work is a disciplined activity aimed at an objective goal, external to the organism. And I well understand how it is that one may prefer horse-riding when, instead it is necessary to plant cabbages. But, I believe that human beings, when they have an end in view, can adapt and do adapt to the conditions necessary to achieve it. Since the products that one obtains through work are necessary for survival, and since nobody will have the means to force others to work for them, everyone will recognise the necessity of working and will favour that structure in which work will be less tiring and more productive, and that is, in my view, a communist organisation. Consider also that in communism these same workers organise and direct work, and therefore have every interest in making it light and enjoyable; consider that in communism there will naturally develop a public view that will condemn idleness as damaging to all, and if there will be some loafers, they will only be an insignificant minority, which could be tolerated without any perceptible harm. AMBROGIO: But suppose that in spite of your optimistic forecasts there should be a great number of loafers, what would you do? Would you support them? If so, then you might as well support those whom you call the bourgeoisie! GIORGIO: Truly there is a great difference; because the bourgeois not only take part of what we produce, but they prevent us from producing what we want and how we want to produce it. Nonetheless I am by no means saying that we should maintain idlers, when they are in such numbers as to cause damage: I am very afraid that idleness and the habit of living off others may lead to a desire to command. Communism is a free agreement: who doesn't accept it or maintain it, remains outside of it. AMBROGIO: But then there will be a new underprivileged class? GIORGIO: Not at all. Everyone has the right to land, to the instruments of production and all the advantages that human beings can enjoy in the state of civilization that humanity has reached. If someone does not want to accept a communist life and the obligation that it supposes, it is their business. They and those of a like mind will come to an agreement, and if they find themselves in a worse state than the others this will prove to them the superiority of communism and will impel them to unite with the communists. AMBROGIO: So therefore one will be free not to accept communism? GIORGIO: Certainly: and whoever it is, will have the same rights as the communists over the natural wealth and accumulated products of previous generations. For heavens sake!! I have always spoken of free agreement, of free communism. How could there be liberty without a possible alternative? AMBROGIO: So, you don't want to impose your ideas with force? GIORGIO: Oh! Are you crazy? Do you take us for policemen or magistrates? AMBROGIO: Well, there is nothing wrong then. Everyone is free to pursue their dream! GIORGIO: Be careful not to make a blunder: to impose ideas is one thing, to defend oneself from thieves and violence, and regain one's rights is something else. AMBROGIO : Ah! Ah! So to regain your rights you would use force, is that right? GIORGIO: To this I won't give you an answer: it may be useful to you in putting together a bill of indictment in some trial. What I will tell you is that certainly, when the people have become conscious of their rights and want to put an end to... you will run the risk of being treated rather roughly. But this will depend on the resistance that you offer. If you give up with goodwill, everything will be peaceful and amiable; if on the contrary you are pig-headed, and I’m sure that you will be, so much the worse for you. Good evening. EIGHT AMBROGIO: You know! The more I think about your free communism the more I am persuaded that you are… a true original. GIORGIO: And why is that? AMBROGIO: Because you always talk about work, enjoyment, accords, agreements, but you never talk of social authority, of government. Who will regulate social life? What will be the government? How will it be constituted? Who will elect it? By what means will it ensure that laws are respected and offenders punished? How will the various powers be constituted, legislative, executive or judicial? GIORGIO: We don't know what to do with all these powers of yours. We don't want a government. Are you still not aware that I am an anarchist? AMBROGIO: Well, I've told you that you are an original. I could still understand communism and admit that it might be able to offer great advantages, if everything were to be still regulated by an enlightened government, which had the strength to make everybody have a respect for the law. But like this, without government, without law! What kind of muddle would there be? GIORGIO: I had foreseen this: first you were against communism because you said that it needed a strong and centralised government; now that you have heard talk of a society without government, you would even accept communism, so long as there was a government with an iron fist. In short, it is liberty which scares you most of all! AMBROGIO: But this is to jump out of the frying pan into the fire! What is certain is that a society without a government cannot exist. How would you expect things to work, without rules, without regulations of any kind? What will happen is that someone will steer to the right, somebody else to the left and the ship will remain stationary, or more likely, go to the bottom. GIORGIO: I did not say that I do not want rules and regulations. I said to you that I don't want a Government, and by government I mean a power that makes laws and imposes them on everybody. AMBROGIO: But if this government is elected by the people doesn’t it represent the will of those same people? What could you complain about? GIORGIO: This is simply a lie. A general, abstract, popular will is no more than a metaphysical fancy. The public is comprised of people, and people have a thousand different and varying wills according to variations in temperament and in circumstances, and expecting to extract from them, through the magic operation of the ballot box, a general will common to all is simply an absurdity. It would be impossible even for a single individual to entrust to somebody else the execution of their will on all the questions that could arise during a given period of time; because they themselves could not say in advance what would be their will on these various occasions. How could one speak for a collectivity, people, whose members at the very time of producing a mandate were already in disagreement among themselves? Just think for a moment at the way elections are held - and note that, I intend speaking about the way they would work if all the people were educated and independent and thus the vote perfectly conscious and free. You, for instance, would vote for whoever you regard as best suited to serve your interests and to apply your ideas. This is already conceding a lot, because you have so many ideas and so many different interests that you would not know how to find a person that thinks always like you on all issues: but will it be then to such a person that you will give your vote and who will govern you? By no means. Your candidate might not be successful and so your will forms no part of the so called popular will: but let's suppose that they do succeed. On this basis would this person be your ruler? Not even in your dreams. They would only be one among many (in the Italian parliament for instance one among 535) and you in reality will be ruled by a majority of people to whom you have never given your mandate. And this majority (whose members have received many different or contradictory mandates, or better still have received only a general delegation of power, without any specific mandate) unable, even if it wanted to, to ascertain a non-existent general will, and to make everybody happy, will do as it wishes, or will follow the wishes of those who dominate it at a particular moment. Come on, it's better to leave aside this old-fashioned pretence of a government that represents the popular will. There are certainly some questions of general order, about which at a given moment, all the people will agree. But, then, what is the point of government? When everybody wants something, they will only need to enact it. AMBROGIO: Well in short, you have admitted that there is a need for rules, some norms for living. Who should establish them? GIORGIO: The interested parties themselves, those who must follow these regulations. AMBROGIO: Who would impose observance? GIORGIO: No-one, because we are talking about norms which are freely accepted and freely followed. Don't confuse the norms of which I speak, that are practical conventions based on a feeling of solidarity and on the care that everyone must have for the collective interest, with the law which is a rule written by a few and imposed with force on everybody. We don't want laws, but free agreements. AMBROGIO: And if someone violates the agreement? GIORGIO: And why should someone violate an agreement with which they have has concurred? On the other hand, if some violations were to take place, they would serve as a notification that the agreement does not satisfy everybody and will have to be modified. And everybody will search for a better arrangement, because it is in everybody's interest that nobody is unhappy. AMBROGIO : But it seems that you long for a primitive society in which everyone is self-sufficient and the relations between people are few, basic and restricted. GIORGIO: Not at all. Since from the moment that social relations multiply and become more complex, humanity experiences greater moral and material satisfaction, we will seek relationships as numerous and complex as possible. AMBROGIO: But then you will need to delegate functions, to give out tasks, to nominate representatives in order to establish agreements. GIORGIO : Certainly. But don't think that this is equivalent to nominating a government. The government makes laws and enforces them, while in a free society delegation of power is only for particular, temporary tasks, for certain jobs, and does not give rights to any authority nor any special reward. And the resolutions of the delegates are always subject to the approval of those they represent. AMBROGIO: But you don't imagine that everyone will always agree. If there are some people that your social order does not suit, what will you do? GIORGIO: Those people will make whatever arrangements best suit them, and we and they will reach an agreement to avoid bothering each other. AMBROGIO: And if the others want to make trouble? GIORGIO: Then... we will defend ourselves. AMBROGIO: Ah! But don't you see that from this need for defence a new government might arise? GIORGIO: Certainly I see it: and it is precisely because of this that I've always said that anarchism is not possible until the most serious causes of conflict are eliminated, a social accord serves the interests of all, and the spirit of solidarity is well developed among humanity. If you want to create anarchism today, leaving intact individual property and the other social institutions that derive from it, such a civil war would immediately break out that a government, even a tyranny, would be welcomed as a blessing. But if at the same time that you establish anarchism you abolish individual property, the causes of conflict that will survive will not be insurmountable and we will reach an agreement, because with agreement everyone will be advantaged. After all, it is understood that institutions are only worth as much as the people that make them function - and anarchism in particular, that is the reign of free agreement, cannot exist if people do not understand the benefits of solidarity and don't want to agree. That is why we engage in spreading propaganda. NINE AMBROGIO: Allow me to return to your anarchist communism. Frankly I cannot put up with it… GIORGIO: Ah! I believe you. After having lived your life between codices and books of law in order to defend the rights of the State and those of the proprietors, a society without State and proprietors, in which there will no longer be any rebels and starving people to send to the galleys, must seem to you like something from another world. But if you wish to set aside this attitude, if you have the strength to overcome your habits of mind and wish to reflect on this matter without bias, you would easily understand, that, allowing that the aim of society has to be the greatest well being for all, one necessarily arrives at anarchist communism as the solution. If you think on the contrary that society is made to engross a few pleasure loving individuals at the expense of the rest, well… AMBROGIO: No, no, I admit that society must have as a goal the well being of all, but I cannot because of this accept your system. I am trying hard to get inside your point of view, and since I have taken an interest in the discussion I would like, at least for myself, to have a clear idea of what you want: but your conclusions seem to be so utopian, so… GIORGIO: But in short, what is it that you find obscure or unacceptable in the explanation that I have given you. AMBROGIO: There is... I don't know... the whole system. Let's leave aside the question of right, on which we will not agree; but let us suppose that, as you maintain, we all have an equal right to enjoy the existing wealth, I admit that communism would seem to be the most expeditious arrangement and perhaps the best. But, what seems to me absolutely impossible, is a society without government. You build the whole of your edifice on the free will of the members of the association… GIORGIO: Precisely. AMBROGIO: And this is your error. Society means hierarchy, discipline, the submission of the individual to the collective. Without authority no society is possible. GIORGIO. Exactly the reverse. A society in the strict sense of the word can only exist among equals; and these equals make agreements among themselves if in them they find pleasure and convenience, but they will not submit to each other. Those relations of hierarchy and submission, that to you seem the essence of society, are relations between slaves and masters: and you would admit, I hope, that the slave is not really the partner of the master, just as a domestic animal is not the partner of the person who possesses it. AMBROGIO: But do you truly believe in a society in which each person does what they want! GIORGIO: On condition it's understood that people want to live in a society and therefore will adapt themselves to the necessities of social life. AMBROGIO: And if they don't wish to? GIORGIO: Then society would not be possible. But since it is only within society that humanity, at least in its modern form, can satisfy its material and moral needs, it is a strange supposition that we would wish to renounce what is the precondition of life and well being. People have difficulty in coming to agreement when they discuss matters in abstract terms; but as soon as there is something to do, that must be done and which is of interest to everybody, as long as no one has the means to impose their will on others and to force them to do things their way, obstinacy and stubbornness soon cease, they become conciliatory, and the thing is done with the maximum possible satisfaction to everyone. You must understand: nothing human is possible without the will of humanity. The whole problem for us lies in changing this will, that is to say it means making people understand that to war against each other, to hate each other, to exploit each other, is to lose everything, and persuading them to wish for a social order founded on mutual support and on solidarity. AMBROGIO: So to bring about your anarchist communism you must wait until everybody is so persuaded, and has the will to make it work. GIORGIO: Oh, no! We'd be kidding ourselves! Will is mostly determined by the social environment, and it is probable that while the present conditions last, the great majority will continue to believe that society cannot be organized in other ways from what now exists. AMBROGIO: Well then?! GIORGIO: So, we will create communism and anarchism among ourselves... when we are in sufficient numbers to do it - convinced that if others see that we are doing well for ourselves, they will soon follow suit Or, at least, if we cannot achieve communism and anarchism, we will work to change social conditions in such a way as to produce a change of will in the desired direction. You must understand; this is about a reciprocal interaction between the will and the surrounding social conditions… We are doing and will do whatever we can do so that we move towards our ideal. What you must clearly understand is this. We do not want to coerce the will of anyone; but we do not want others to coerce our will nor that of the public. We rebel against that minority which through violence exploits and oppresses the people. Once liberty is won for ourselves and for all, and, it goes without saying, the means to be free, in other words the right to the use of land and of the instruments of production, we will rely solely on the force of words and examples to make our ideas triumph. AMBROGIO: All right; and you think that in this way we will arrive at a society that governs itself simply through the voluntary agreement of its members? If that is the case it would be a thing without precedent! GIORGIO: Not as much as you might think. As a matter of fact, in essence it has always been like that... that is if one considers the defeated, the dominated, the oppressed drawn from the lower levels of humanity, as not really part of society. After all, even today the essential part of social life, in the dominant class as in the dominated class, is accomplished through spontaneous agreements, often unconscious, between individuals: by virtue of custom, points of honour, respect for promises, fear of public opinion, a sense of honesty, love, sympathy, rules of good manners - without any intervention by the law and the government. Law and governments become necessary only when we deal with relations between the dominators and the dominated. Among equals everyone feels ashamed to call a policeman, or have recourse to a judge! In despotic States, where all the inhabitants are treated like a herd in the service of the sole ruler, no one has a will but the sovereign... and those whom the sovereign needs to keep the masses submissive. But, little by little as others arrive and achieve emancipation and enter the dominant class, that is society in the strict sense of the word, either through direct participation in government or by means of possessing wealth, society moulds itself in ways which satisfy the will of all the dominators. The whole legislative and executive apparatus, the whole government with its laws, soldiers, policemen, judges etc. serve only to regulate and ensure the exploitation of the people. Otherwise, the owners would find it simpler and more economical to agree among themselves and do away with the state. The bourgeois themselves have voiced the same opinion... when for a moment they forget that without soldiers and policemen the people would spoil the party. Destroy class divisions, make sure that there are no more slaves to keep in check, and immediately the state will have no more reason to exist. AMBROGIO: But don't exaggerate. The State also does things of benefit to all. It educates, watches over public health, defends the lives of citizens, organises public services... don't tell me that these are worthless or damaging things! GIORGIO: Ugh! - Done the way the State usually does it, that is hardly at all. The truth is that it is always the workers who really do those things, and the State, setting itself up as their regulator, transforms such services into instruments of domination, turning them to the special advantage of the rulers and owners. Education spreads, if there is in the public the desire for instruction and if there are teachers capable of educating; public health thrives, when the public knows, appreciates and can put into practice public health rules, and when there are doctors capable of giving people advice; the lives of citizens are safe when the people are accustomed to consider life and human liberties sacred and when... there are no judges and no police force to provide examples of brutality; public services will be organised when the public feels the need for them. The State does not create anything: at best it is only other a superfluity, a worthless waste of energy. But if only it was just useless! AMBROGIO: Leave it there. In any case I think you have said enough. I want to reflect upon it. Until we meet again… TEN AMBROGIO: I have reflected on what you have been telling me during these conversations of ours... And I give up the debate. Not because I admit defeat; but... in a word, you have your arguments and the future may well be with you. I am, in the meantime, a magistrate and as long as there is law, I must respect it and ensure that it is respected. You understand… GIORGIO: Oh, I understand very well. Go, go if you like. It will be up to us to abolish the law, and so free you from the obligation to act against your conscience. AMBROGIO: Easy, easy, I didn't say that... but, never mind. I would like a few other explanations from you. We could perhaps come to an understanding on the questions regarding the property regime and the political organisation of society; after all they are historic formations that have changed many times and possibly will change again. But there are some sacred institutions, some profound emotions of thePortsmouth had Conor Chaplin's late strike to thank for earning a draw away against Barnet. Both sides looked out of sorts as passes repeatedly went astray in the opening exchanges. Pompey eventually had the first effort on goal, Eoin Doyle heading wide from eight yards, while Curtis Weston met Mauro Vilhete's cross just after the half-hour mark to force David Forde into a sharp save at the other end. Portsmouth boss Paul Cook brought on Chaplin and Danny Rose at the break but the Bees almost went ahead after an hour as Ruben Bover's free-kick clipped the side-netting. The Spaniard had gone off when Barnet won another set-piece in a similar position but Vilhete deputised brilliantly, bending the ball over the wall to give the Bees an 82nd-minute lead. However, the home side could not hang on as Chaplin fired a dramatic equaliser into the top corner from 20 yards in the 89th minute. Match report supplied by the Press AssociationHeads of the combat commands in the Middle East and Africa briefed the Senate about US operations against Islamic State terrorists, but the hearing kept coming around to claims of malign influence and even imperial ambitions by Russia and Iran. “We are not currently coordinating or cooperating with the Russians; we are simply de-conflicting our air operations,” General Joseph Votel, head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, contradicting reports that Russia and the US-led coalition were coordinating their operations in Syria against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). Read more Russia’s 2015 intervention in Syria has “negatively impacted the regional balance of power,” while “Iran has expanded cooperation with Russia in Syria in ways that threaten US interests in the region,” Votel said. He told Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) that Russia is “attempting to increase their influence throughout the Middle East,” and has “certainly been successful in supporting the Assad regime,” referring to the government of Syria. Votel also cited Russian presence as a concern for the US in Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, which were formerly part of the Soviet Union. Iran “aspires to be a regional hegemon and its forces and proxies oppose US interests in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza and Syria, and seek to hinder achievement of US objectives in Afghanistan and some Central Asian States,” Votel said. When Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) tried to insinuate Russia was “aiding and abetting the Iranians” in general, Votel clarified that he was specifically referring to Syria. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) asked about the Russian sale of attack helicopters to Nigeria, which she called a threat to US national security. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of Africa Command (AFRICOM), explained that many African countries chose to buy hardware from Russia, China or other countries because they “don’t have a lot of strings attached.” The US was holding up the helicopter deal with Nigeria over human rights concerns. Waldhauser also accused Russia of wanting to influence the government in Libya. Waldhauser on #Russia in #Libya:They are trying to exert influence on the ultimate decision over what entity becomes the government #SASCpic.twitter.com/TuH6mpLwsX — US AFRICOM (@USAfricaCommand) March 9, 2017 Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) asked about Russian efforts to destabilize and undermine Afghanistan – alleged by the US commander in the country and Afghan officials – and if US activities in Eastern Europe might divert Moscow’s attention. Russia has denied accusations of political support for the Taliban, insisting that its diplomatic efforts aim to help encourage Taliban officials to accept peace talks with the Afghan government. “From my perspective, I’d like them totally focused on Eastern Europe and not on Afghanistan,” Votel replied. “If their attention can be drawn to other challenges… that helps us.” Read more Votel also confirmed that US Marines and artillery were deployed near the IS stronghold of Raqqa, describing them as “redundant capable fire support on the ground,” and shrugged off reports of US military presence in of Manbij, saying it was “nothing new” and that US troops have been there since the northern Syrian city was liberated in August 2016. Earlier this week, US-allied Kurdish-led forces said the troop deployment was a response to “Turkish threats to occupy the city.” Describing Turkey as an important NATO ally and member of the anti-IS coalition, Votel acknowledged that “some Turkish activities and rhetoric… have the potential to impact campaign momentum,” noting that Turkish-backed forces have clashed with US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces in northern Syria. “We’re trying to work with an indigenous force that has tensions with a NATO ally,” he said. “That’s not an easy situation to move through.” The CENTCOM chief also referred to a program of training and equipping the “Vetted Syria Opposition (VSO) forces,” which the Pentagon was supposed to have abandoned following a 2015 fiasco, as key to “setting the ultimate conditions for a negotiated settlement to end the conflict.” “Our revised training approach is proving successful, improving the effectiveness and lethality of the force on path to a projected strength of up to 35,000 by the end of fiscal year 2017 and growing to 40,000 in 2018,” Votel said in his prepared remarks. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) argued it was not in the US national interest for Syria “to be handed to Assad, a proxy for Iran,” to the agreement of both generals. The hearing also touched on the recent US commando raid in Yemen, US aid to Saudi Arabia, the need to send more US troops to Afghanistan to prop up the government forces against the Taliban, and the wisdom of antagonizing Muslims when US strategy against IS relied heavily on “indigenous forces.”With AT&T’s exclusive hold on the iPhone due to end soon by many accounts, many are wondering if Verizon will get their own version of the iPhone early next year… and how much that will hurt AT&T. According to analysts, a Verizon iPhone wouldn’t hurt AT&T very much, and now AT
to those of the struggles of African Americans (and other groups). For instance, in his most famous work “America is in the Heart: A Personal History,” Bulosan wrote: “America is not a land of one race or one class of men. We are all Americans that have toiled and suffered and known oppression and defeat, from the first Indian that offered peace in Manhattan to the last Filipino pea pickers. America is not bound by geographical latitudes. America is not merely a land or an institution. America is in the hearts of men (and women) that died for freedom; it is also in the eyes of men (and women) that are building a new world. … America is also the nameless foreigner, the homeless refugee, the hungry boy begging for a and the black body dangling from a tree. America is the illiterate immigrant who is ashamed that the world of books and intellectual opportunities is closed to him. We are that nameless foreigner, that homeless refugee, that hungry boy, that illiterate immigrant and that lynched black body. All of us, from the first Adams to the last Filipino, native born or alien, educated or illiterate — We are America!” Source: Jun Brioso Going back even further, not very many people know that there is a strong and meaningful connection between the struggles of African Americans against American racism and the struggles of Filipin@s against American imperialism. For example, many African American soldiers during the seemingly forgotten and never-talked-about war between the Philippines and the United States from 1898-1913 sympathized with the Filipin@s who were fighting to keep their sovereignty and independence. As noted Filipin@ American scholar and historian Yen Le Espiritu wrote: “White American soldiers in the Philippines used many of the same epithets to describe Filipinos as they used to describe African Americans, including ‘niggers,’ ‘black devils,’ and ‘gugus’…If we positioned Filipino/American history within the traditional immigration paradigm, we would miss the ethnic and racial intersections between Filipinos and Native Americans and African Americans as groups similarly affected by the forces of Manifest Destiny. These common contexts of struggle were not lost in African American soldiers in the Philippines. Connecting their fight against domestic racism to the Filipino struggle against U.S. imperialism, some African American soldiers – such as Corporal David Fagen – switched allegiance and joined the native armed struggle for independence” (p. 52). Toward Filipin@ Solidarity With the African American Community Indeed, there are many historical and modern-day realities that tie the African American experience and the Filipin@ experience together. Perhaps by becoming aware of the long and meaningful connections between African Americans and Filipin@s, then maybe we can begin to address the pervasive anti-Black sentiments in the Filipin@ community. Perhaps by becoming aware of such historical connections, then maybe more Filipin@s will become aware of our own history of colonialism and oppression, the legacies of which include the colorism and racism that still negatively affects how we look at ourselves, African Americans, and other Peoples of Color today. Perhaps by becoming aware of such historical and contemporary connections with the experiences and struggles of the African American community, then maybe the appreciation and celebration of Black contributions will be more pervasive in the Filipin@ community. Perhaps more Filipin@s will be in solidarity with our Black brothers and sisters as we resist oppression and create social change - together. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ E.J.R. David, Ph.D. has two books, "Brown Skin, White Minds: Filipino American Postcolonial Psychology" and "Internalized Oppression: The Psychology of Marginalized Groups." Follow the author on Twitter. More information about the author here.If you would like to see more articles like this please support our coverage of the space program by becoming a Spaceflight Now Member. If everyone who enjoys our website helps fund it, we can expand and improve our coverage further. In preparation for liftoff Dec. 18 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, the powerful Internet-from-space broadcasting satellite called EchoStar 19 was encapsulated in the nose cone as seen below. The operation was performed at the commercial Astrotech processing facility in Titusville on Dec. 5. The satellite will be launched from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41. The Atlas 5 rocket’s Extra Extended Payload Fairing (XEPF) aluminum nose cone is 14 feet wide and 45 feet in length, and protects the delicate satellite during the climb through Earth’s atmosphere. EchoStar 19 will be stationed 22,300 miles above Earth to provide high-speed Internet connectivity to regions of the U.S. where terrestrial options like cable and fiber are not available. The Dec. 18 launch is planned for 1:27 p.m. EST (1827 GMT). “We’ve basically buckled the seatbelt over EchoStar 19,” said Steve Skladanek, president of Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services. “Now it’s time for Atlas to give it a safe and smooth ride to orbit. No vehicle combines the reliability, orbital accuracy and schedule certainty of Atlas. That has real value for commercial customers, and we’re grateful that EchoStar has placed its confidence in the world’s most reliable rocket.” Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services is the contracting arm responsible for marketing Atlas 5 rockets to commercial customers. Photos by Lockheed Martin and United Launch Alliance See earlier EchoStar 19 coverage. Our Atlas archive.In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, this week’s episode is all about the history of Irish Coffee. Starting in a flying boat terminal in Ireland, then making its way to San Francisco, the story of how Irish Coffee made it into mainstream culture is well worth hearing. This episode of The Boise Coffee Podcast is brought to you by My Espresso Shop. Use offer code “BOISECOFFEE” to get 10% off your order including any espresso machine or grinder. Visit MyEspressoShop.com today! You can read the full episode transcript below. This episode of The Boise Coffee Podcast is brought to you by My Espresso Shop. My Espresso Shop is a leading online retailer of espresso machines, grinders, and related accessories, and with their price match guarantee you know you’re getting the absolute lowest prices on the market. Visit MyEspressoShop.com to find out more. It’s the 1930s in Ireland. A man by the name of Joe Sheridan decides to apply for a chef’s job at an airport in the city of Rineanna. It’s a small airport – a flying boat terminal, in fact, but it’s significant. The airport is called Foynes, and it becomes the first airport to host transatlantic flights between Ireland and New York City. Joe Sheridan soon becomes well known as a great chef in a new international hub. In 1943 a flight departs Foynes headed for New York with dozens of passengers on board, when suddenly a bad storm hits. The pilot is forced to turn the plane around and land back in Foynes, and, as you can probably imagine, the passengers are rather scared. Legend says that after the flight landed and the cold, shaken passengers got back into the terminal, chef and bartender Joe Sheridan decided to whip up something special. He brewed dark coffee, tossed in some sugar cubes, then added a splash of Tullamore DEW whisky. Finally, he topped the drink with a layer of cold, thick cream. As he passed the drink out, one of the passengers took a sip, then asked, “is this Brazilian coffee?” “No,” Sheridan said, “It’s Irish Coffee.” I’m Colin Mansfield and welcome to The Boise Coffee Podcast. In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, this week we’re going to talk about Irish Coffee. There’s these great videos online that I stumbled onto while preparing for this episode. You can find dozens of them by simply typing “Buena Vista Cafe” into YouTube. All of them are similar, and all of them are amazing. A bartender stands behind a row of over a dozen identical glasses – he’s wearing a white shirt, and sometimes a white jacket on top. He wears a tie, and overall has a very professional appearance. About the glasses – they’re not the type of glasses you’d usually drink alcohol out of – they have a short stem, a curved body, and a wide rim at the top. The bartender handles these glasses as if he’s touched hundreds of them before – because he has. First comes the hot water. This isn’t a part of the finished drink, it’s only meant to heat the glass up in preparation. But the bartender doesn’t pick each glass up individually to fill it with hot water – instead he takes his carafe and pours it while gliding his hand over all of the glasses, filling them nearly simultaneously. In one fell motion – whoosh – the glasses are hot. Now, down the line his hands move, dumping the contents of each heated glass into some trough hidden behind the bar. Next comes the sugar cubes. Quickly, he snatches simple white sugar cubes from a box and – plink, plink – drops two into each glass as his hands move down the line. And now – the coffee. In the same manner he dumped the water, the bartender pulls out a large carafe of piping hot brewed coffee and begins pouring it while moving down the line of glasses, never hesitating or stopping over an individual cup. His pouring arm makes another pass over the glasses, ensuring each is filled to the same level. It’s almost like he sees the group of beverages as a whole rather than dozens of individual drinks. Next is the stirring – he wants the sugar to be completely dissolved in the hot coffee. Taking a long-stemmed spoon, he stirs each cup, but not with methodical care or any hint of delicateness. No, he stirs rapidly, with fervor, dunking the spoon into a glass, stirring quickly, then onto the next one. The spoon makes this low chunk chunk chunk sound as it slaps against the sides and bottom of each glass. And now, the whisky – a bottle with pouring spout attached, but no shot glasses used. Instead, the bar tender once again pours down the line of glasses, knowing exactly how much is needed for each drink. The drinks remain perfectly level in relation to one another – they’re identical, like a line of cars rolling off an assembly line one after another. The bartender pours the whisky while holding his army perhaps a foot or two above the glasses. This creates a dramatic moving waterfall of alcohol cascading into the glasses below. And now, the bartender pauses. He takes a towel, wipes his hands, perhaps he talks to an employee walking nearby. Then, reaching below the bar, he withdraws a metal pot similar to something you might find at a coffee shop used to steam milk – but this is cream, and it’s perfectly chilled. The bartender takes a spoon, lowers it onto the surface of the first drink, then pours the cream on top, letting it settle as a layer on top of the warm coffee/whisky mixture. Then, not losing a moment, he moves onto the next drink. Each pour takes perhaps 1 second, and in less than 15 the entire row of drinks is completed. And now, the Irish Coffee making process complete, the bartender palms two drinks in each hand, removes them from the assembly line, and carries them off to a customer. This is the process used to make Irish Coffees at the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco, California. The Buena Vista didn’t invent the Irish Coffee – that honor belongs to Joe Sheridan at the Foynes flying boat terminal like we heard at the beginning of the episode – but without this American bar, Irish Coffee would likely have never become the standard it is today. It’s not uncommon for restaurants and bars around the world to develop their own special drinks or dishes. We all know about specials featured at our favorite local spots around town. Few of those specials, though, have been passed along to the corners of the world in the same way Irish Coffee has. Irish Coffee is ubiquitous now in the same way that mulled wine or a hot toddy is, and it can be tempting to assume that well-known mixed drinks like these spread in the same way as a viral video online. Somebody, somewhere tastes the drink, enjoys it, then tells their friends. Those friends, in turn, try the drink, enjoy it, then tell their friends. Rinse and repeat. This might be true for some drinks, but Irish Coffee owes its spread to one man. And while Joe Sheridan invented the drink, he wasn’t the person that transformed Irish Coffee into the fixed icon that it is today. That honor belongs to a reporter named Stanton Delaplane. Delaplane was a reporter – but not exactly your run-of-the-mill variety. He worked for the San Francisco Chronicle for 53 years. In 1941 he won the Pulitzer Prize for articles about “the Free State of Jefferson,” a group of four Northern California counties and one Oregon county that threatened to break away and form a 49th state in a dispute over highway construction in the gold and copper mining areas. He also won National Headliner Awards in 1946 and 1959. Delaplane wrote a column five days a week for years and years, and in 1944 and 1945 he served as a war correspondent in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II. According to a SFGate article written about Delaplane in 2008, he was a perfectionist who enjoyed writing on whatever he had laying around – like old air mail letters – then going through every line carefully, ensuring he wrote exactly what he wanted to say. Starting in 1953 Delaplane began writing a syndicated humorous travel column called “Postcards.” He used short sentences in a staccato style, which he said was for the benefit of San Francisco Municipal Railway riders who had to read the paper while commuting on the shaky train. British commentator Alistair Cooke once wrote about Delaplane’s writing style saying, “Stanton Delaplane wrote like a young and happy and wholly successful pupil of Hemingway. he rarely wrote sentences of more than six or seven words and could go weeks without calling on an adjective. His peculiar magic, which I often probed into and never discovered, was to keep these bare sentences rollicking along in the most effortless way, running as clean as spring water over the bed of a brook. He could not help being an entertaining writer and that is a gift that very few writers indeed can legitimately claim from the double-domed philosophers to the light-weight journalists.” Stanton Delaplane was a tremendous writer, but he was also the man that brought Irish Coffee to the United States – and through that, into mainstream culture. How he accomplished that, after the break. This episode of The Boise Coffee Podcast is brought to you by My Espresso Shop, a leading online retailer of espresso machines, grinders, and all the accessories that go with them. The folks at My Espresso Shop are extremely customer-focused – they want you to have the best buying experience possible, and they do a great job. Not only do they have a price-match guarantee to make sure you’re getting the lowest possible price for your coffee equipment, but they almost always have an additional special bonus offer going on. Right now, for example, if you look at their site, you’ll see they’re offering a free Amazon gift card with purchase of almost any Espresso Machine and grinder. To make things even better, for listeners of my podcast, My Espresso Shop is offering 10% off your order containing a grinder or espresso machine. Just use offer code “BOISECOFFEE” at checkout. This is hands-down the best deal you’re going to find online for name-brand high quality espresso equipment. Head over to MyEspressoShop.com, use offer code BOISECOFFEE, and enjoy! In the early 1950s Stanton Delaplane visited Ireland. By that time the old Foynes flying boat terminal had closed and been replaced by Shannon International Airport. Joe Sheridan – the chef who invented Irish Coffee on that cold, stormy night nearly 20 years prior, had moved to the new airport as well, and he had made Irish Coffee a regular part of his menu. Delaplane ordered an Irish Coffee, and immediately fell in love. After returning to the states, he took the recipe to his friends Jack Koeppler and George Freeberg, the owners of a San Francisco bar called the Buena Vista Cafe. Delaplane asked for Koeppler’s and Freeberg’s help to re-create the magical drink he had tasted in Ireland, and on November 10th, 1952 they got to work. On its face, Irish Coffee has an incredibly simple recipe: coffee, whisky, sugar, and cream. But as with any recipe, the ratios of ingredients and the timing of when to add them can turn making a simple drink into a time-consuming affair – especially if you’re a perfectionist like Stanton Delaplane. That night with Jack Koeppler became a study in trial-and-error; the two of them would mix drinks, sip judiciously, and then record the faults. Over time, they acknowledged two recurring problems: The first problem was that the taste just wasn’t quite right based on Delaplane’s experience at the Shannon Airport in Ireland. The second problem was that strangely, they couldn’t get the cream to float on top of the beverage. Each time they poured it in, it sank to the bottom. That night of testing resulted in dozens of failed experiments, and a lot of whisky consumed over several hours. After drinking several Irish Coffees in a row, Stanton Delaplane nearly passed out on the cable car tracks outside the Buena Vista Cafe. Stanton was heartbroken at their failed evening of experimentation, but Jack remained undaunted. He doubled down, deciding to pilgrimage to Ireland himself and learn the secret of the elusive Irish Coffee. After his return, they were able to solve both problems they had experienced on that hangover-inducing coffee binge. To solve the problem of taste Stanton and Jack used the same whisky as Joe Sheridan: Tullamore DEW. The problem with the cream, however, was less-easily solved. They brought their sinking cream problem to the mayor of San Francisco, George Christopher, who also happened to be a prominent dairy owner. It was here they discovered that if the cream was allowed to age for 48 hours, then frothed to a precise consistency it would float neatly on top of their drink just as it had in Ireland. With the drink perfected, the only thing left was to advertise – a task perfectly suited for Stanton Delaplane. He began mentioning the drink in his travel column, which was widely read throughout the U.S. Irish Coffee and the Buena Vista Cafe quickly grew in popularity, attracting both local Californians and tourists from all across the United States. Everyone wanted a taste of Irish Coffee. Once Irish Coffee became popular, consumption of whisky at the Buena Vista went from 2 cases a year to about 1,000 cases which equated to almost 10 percent of the United States’ whisky consumption at that time. It’s said that the Buena Vista bartenders made 2,000 Irish Coffees daily, for many years. Meeting that amount of demand required that they become both fast and accurate at making their drink. This is how the assembly line method of making Irish Coffee came into being – the method that I described at the beginning of the show. According to one article, the busiest day the Buena Vista has ever seen was the Super Bowl in 1982, 49ers vs. Miami. Three bartenders served 109 bottles of whiskey between 8am and 5pm, and the night crew served another 104. With approximately 29 drinks per bottle, that means the cafe served over 6,000 drinks that day. By the Buena Vista’s own count, they have served more than 30 million Irish Coffees total. In 1952 the Buena Vista Cafe took on a new employee. It was an Irish fella – a guy by the name of Joe Sheridan, the inventor of Irish Coffee. Sheridan was asked to come and work at the bar, which he did for ten years. It’s not often that an inventor gets to watch his creation become famous, but Joe Sheridan got that honor. Today, he’s buried in Oakland, CA. About Irish Coffee, legend says that Joe Sheridan offered this advice on what ingredients to use in his famous beverage: “Cream as rich as an Irish brogue; coffee as strong as a friendly hand; sugar sweet as the tongue of a rogue; and whisky smooth as the wit of the land.” Thanks for listening to The Boise Coffee Podcast. I’m your host, Colin Mansfield, and you just heard episode 2 of season 3 of my podcast on coffee. If you like what you heard today and want to hear more, you can find previous seasons and episodes on iTunes, Stitcher, or my blog – BoiseCoffee.org. If you want to get in touch with me you can drop me a line at BoiseCoffee@gmail.com, or reach out to me on twitter. My handle is @BoiseCoffee. Today’s episode of The Boise Coffee Podcast was brought to you by My Espresso Shop. You can go online now and save 10% on any grinder or espresso machine by using offer code “BoiseCoffee.” Visit MyEspressoShop.com and get shopping! Thank you so much for listening, and have a great first week of spring!William Patrick Corgan, the former Smashing Pumpkins front man who used to go by Billy, recently appeared on The Howard Stern Show to speak about, among other things, several paranormal experiences he's had. While speaking with Stern, Corgan shared how he felt the spirit of David Bowie was with him while he was writing the song "Zowie" for his latest album. "When I was writing the song, the opening chord sequence reminded me of, like, the kind of chords David [would use] … he’d do a lot of weird inversions,” Corgan said in the interview. “He was just in the air and so he kind of rode shotgun with me when I was writing this song.” That wasn't the only supernatural story Corgan shared during the interview. He spoke, too, about the sighting of an apparition his girlfriend had while he was working on his upcoming book. Corgan had inadvertently deleted a portion of the book, and went to tell his girlfriend. At the same time, she saw a ghostly figure walking across their kitchen that looked like William's mother at age 25, and was coming to tell Corgan. “It was like this weird ripple in time thing,” said Corgan. Perhaps most strangely, when the topic of Alex Jones and Reptilians was brought up, the musician recounted to Stern how he had seen a person change form. Corgan was reluctant to share significant details about the story, but insisted he was sober during the event. He did say that the person in question was not a celebrity. “Let’s just say I was with somebody once and I saw a transformation that I can’t explain," Corgan told Stern. “Imagine you’re doing something, you turn around and suddenly there’s somebody else standing there.” Corgan said that the being acknowledged him, but would not explain its true nature. “It’s a really messed up story,” he said. “It’s up there with one of the most intense things I’ve ever been through.”Reactive Web Design: The secret to building web apps that feel amazing Owen Campbell-Moore Blocked Unblock Follow Following Apr 3, 2017 In the last year I’ve observed two subtle techniques being used by some developers that take a web app from feeling slow and janky to highly reactive and polished. I believe these techniques are important enough that they need a name: Reactive Web Design. In summary, reactive web design is a set of techniques that can be used to build sites that always feel fast and responsive to user input regardless of the network speed or latency. As web developers and framework authors, I believe finding ways to make these patterns default in everything we build is a top priority for improving UX and perceived performance on the web. Technique 1: Instant loads with skeleton screens When used well, this technique is almost never noticed, but has a huge impact on perceived performance of a site. Interestingly, the technique is used by almost all native apps and makes them feel very reactive even on terrible networks, but it is almost never used on the web! Opportunity this way lies!💡 In short, skeleton screens ensure that whenever the user taps any button or link, the page reacts immediately by transitioning the user to that new page and then loading in content to that page as the content becomes available. Facebook using a skeleton screen to improve perceived performance when you first open it Skeleton screens are a key perceived performance technique as they make applications feel much faster, dramatically reducing the number of moments where the user is left wondering: What is going on? Is it even loading? Did I tap it right? 🤔 Flipkart.com is a rare example of a website that makes use of this approach. Browsing through categories or tapping on products therefore feels lightning fast, even when the actual results take a few seconds to load: A screencapture of flipkart.com launched from the home screen in standalone mode on Android When this technique is used best, content that is already available such as thumbnails or article titles can be re-used to improve the perceived performance even further, making loads feel truly instant. app.jalantikus.com uses the Skeleton Screens pattern and reuses titles and thumbnails across transitions Testing sites with skeleton screens Testing how well sites use this technique is easy: simply use Chrome network emulation to make the network as slow as possible and then click around a site. If it is doing this well, the site will still feel snappy and responsive to your input. The slowest speed supported in Chrome network emulation Technique 2: “Stable loads” via predefined sizes on elements You know that feeling where a website is jumping around while you’re trying to use it? You’re just trying to read an article and the text keeps moving around? That’s what we call an “unstable load”, and we need to burn it with fire 🔥🔥🔥. slate.com content jumps around very aggressively as the page loads. The slower the network you’re on, the longer it jumps for. Unstable loads make websites hard to interact with, and makes them feel… well… Unstable! Browsing an unstable site always reminds me of how I imagine it would feel to walk around during an earthquake Unstable loads are caused by images and ads embedded into a page but not including any sizing information. By default the browser only knows the size of these once they have loaded, so as soon as an image loads in, THUNK!, the whole page slides down 😡. To prevent this, all <img> tags on a page must proactively include the dimensions of the image they will contain. In many cases images used on certain pages are always the same size and so their size can simply be included in the HTML template, but in some cases the size of images is dynamic and thus their size should be calculated when the image is uploaded then templated into the HTML when it is created. <!-- Always include sizes on images to prevent unstable loads --> <img src='/thumbnail.png' style='width: 100px; height: 84px'> The same is true for ads, often a culprit when it comes to unstable loads. Wherever possible, create a div that will contain an ad, and in your templating set it to be sized with your best guess at how big this ad will be. Note that unstable loads are at their worst on slow networks as you have just settled into reading content when suddenly it jumps, and you can never quite be sure that you’re safe. Putting it all together I’ve build a small demo site at reactive.surge.sh to demonstrate the difference between conventional and reactive web design. Conventional article loading Note how sluggish it feels and how frustrating content jumping is. Interestingly I find this orders of magnitude more annoying on mobile devices when tapping the screen and not seeing it react. Loading an article with reactive web design With reactive design the load feels instant and the site remains reactive when tapping the back icon and the article title multiple times Wrapping up The slower the network is, the worse the user experience becomes when page transitions block on the network and pages jump around for extended periods. With Reactive Web Design we can make our experience feel snappy and responsive (“Responsive Design” as a name was already taken, d’oh!) even on slow and painful networks. I’d love to hear about data from the community on the effect of perceived performance on KPIs such as engagement and revenue! Additionally, I’d encourage framework and library authors to consider how to make skeleton screens and stable loads the default, also known as the pit of success. If you have thoughts about this, please tweet me @owencm, and if you enjoyed this please give it a ♥! P.S. be sure to check out the demo site reactive.surge.sh on a mobile device for it’s full glory!When Al Gore became vice president, legendary scholar Richard Neustadt — one of Gore’s former professors — sent him a memo with advice. One sentence stuck with me: “The White House staff lives in the present, the VP’s staff in the future.” Other than presiding over the Senate and breaking its ties, the Constitution gives the vice president only one duty: wait. It would be inhuman to expect anyone ambitious enough to become vice president to undertake that duty passively. It would be irresponsible for any vice president not to devote some time to thinking about “what if.” But it has been taboo for the vice president to use his rectangular office in the West Wing for such “future”-oriented activities in a way that casts a shadow over the “present” activities in the oval-shaped one down the hall. Thus, reports that Vice President Mike Pence is going beyond mere “active waiting,” to making moves to position himself to run if President Donald Trump does not seek reelection, have created controversy. Though the vice president’s office has denied that any conclusions should be drawn from his reported actions, it has not disputed many of the specifics, including a trip to Iowa, meetings with major donors and establishing a political action committee. In the ensuing hoopla, Pence has been portrayed as gauchely overeager, like a diner in a fancy restaurant leaning over and asking a stranger, “Are you going to finish that?” As the only former chief of staff to two vice presidents, I think this reaction has been misguided in two critical respects. First, what Pence is doing is not beyond the pale for an ambitious vice president. While the last two sitting vice presidents to run for president — George H.W. Bush and Al Gore — were a bit more discreet, they nonetheless began politicking with party insiders, donors and early-primary-state muckety-mucks from their earliest days in office. Even during Bill Clinton’s first term, it was hard to find an Iowa county chair, New Hampshire legislator or DNC finance committee member who had not gotten a birthday call from Gore. Bush’s handwritten notes to political insiders were legendary and ubiquitous. Moreover, there is a strong logic to undertaking such activity early in a president’s tenure. Vice-presidential stroking of party egos spares the president the need to do such pedestrian politicking himself. A vice president operating under the presidential mantle does build long-term relations and accumulates long-term chits for his own benefit, but also creates political capital that the administration can leverage in the here and now. Working to boost candidates in midterm elections likewise serves both “present” and “future” agendas. In this way, nothing Pence has been doing on the political front should give Trump any heartburn. At the same time, however, it is likewise a mistake to assume any of this will do Pence any good if Trump’s presidency collapses. In the 213 years since the 12th Amendment created our system of joint presidential-vice-presidential tickets, no vice president has been elected to the highest office after serving with a president who declined to seek, or was defeated in seeking, a second elected term. And as for coming to office via the president’s ouster, the only vice president to follow that path, Gerald Ford, lost when he campaigned to retain the office — and he had far less to do with President Richard M. Nixon’s scandals than Pence does with the mess around Trump. This is the vice-presidential prisoner’s dilemma: There is no distance he can achieve, no political support he can muster, no congressional chits he can collect, no donor base he can assemble that can survive the fallout from a failed presidency. A vice president is either implicated as being in the loop or looks foolish if he insists that he was out of it. There’s too much video of any vice president praising, promoting and partnering with his boss to say, “President who?” A vice president’s record behind the scenes in the administration is, by definition, obscure to voters. As a result, for better or worse, a vice president must run on the president’s record: If Trump’s record is bad enough to prevent him from running in 2020, it will flatten Pence as well. If Pence seeks the presidency in 2020 because Trump has been forced out of office, or pressured not to run for reelection due to unpopularity, he will suffer the same fate as Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Ford in 1976, Walter Mondale in 1984 and Dan Quayle in 2000: defeat. Nothing Pence is doing now will break him out of a political imprisonment of his own creation. Ronald A. Klain, a Washington Post contributing columnist, served as a senior White House aide to Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and was a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by e-mail or mail.A gloating killer taunted his teenage victim's mother with text messages after he brutally murdered her. That is the story prosecutors in Illinois told in court Wednesday, when they called Brenda O'Laughlin to the stand during John Wilson Jr.'s murder trial. "Hello Brenda," read the first message O'Laughlin received on October 27, 2011, a day after she found her daughter's bloodied remains inside her home. "Love your pic," read another. There was no mistaking the intent of the texts, prosecutors said. They were sent directly from 14-year-old Kelli O'Laughlin's stolen cellphone. "She wanted me to tell you something before I killed her," the third message read. It was followed by, "Think I'm in love with you Bren." Brenda O'Laughlin said she did not respond to the first few text messages because she was waiting for instructions from the law enforcement. It was not until she was given an ultimatum -- "You got 2 min to text me before I break this phone" -– that Brenda O'Laughlin replied, she testified. "Who are you and what do you want," she texted back. The reply was prompt. "You will know soon when I come see you." The messages stopped shortly thereafter. A few days later, on November 2, 2011, authorities arrested Wilson, a 38-year-old parolee, and charged him with first-degree murder and residential burglary. Prosecutors allege Wilson broke into the O'Laughlin's Chicago home on October 26, 2011, with the intent of burglarizing it. However, during the course of that criminal act, Kelli O'Laughlin unwittingly walked in on him. "[Wilson] could've just run out and left the house," Prosecutor Guy Lisuzzo told jurors Wednesday, according to Myfoxchicago.com. "[But] he didn't. He confronts and stabs her repeatedly." Brenda O'Laughlin testified her daughter's body was still warm when she stumbled upon it a short time later. She said she touched her daughter and spoke softly to her while waiting on paramedics. “I was trying to comfort her,” she said in court. The girl was pronounced dead at a local hospital a short time later. Wednesday was the first day of testimony in the murder case. Authorities allege cellphone records place Kelli O'Laughlin's cellphone in Wilson's custody after her death. They also claim to have DNA and other evidence that puts him at the crime scene. According to 12newsnow.com, Wilson's defense attorney, Michelle Gonzalez, proclaimed his clients innocence during opening statements. "It wasn't him," Gonzalez said, according to the website. "There's a lot of evidence that shows it could have been anyone. And the police just focused in on him." The trial is expected to last two weeks. Like Us On Facebook \| Follow Us On Twitter \| Contact The AuthorIt's only been about eight weeks since The Baked Bear opened its doors in Scottsdale, prompting ice cream lovers from all over metro Phoenix to flock to the spot for made-to-order ice cream sandwiches. The first Valley location of the California-based ice cream shop has seen long lines from the get-go, which is why it makes so much sense that there are already plans for a second location in the works. Later this summer, The Baked Bear will open a second metro Phoenix location at 420 South Mill Avenue in Tempe. The dessert spot will be located on the on the northwest corner of Fifth Street and Mill Avenue, and is expected to open in August. So, what makes The Baked Bear so great? Well, for starters, diners can build their own ice cream sandwiches from a selection of about a dozen ice cream flavors and more than a dozen flavors of cookies. Cookies, which are made fresh daily, come in classic varieties such as chocolate chip and snickerdoodle, as well some less common options including cookies and cream and funfetti.Online Casinos Set to Embrace Bitcoins? Published July 1, 2013 by OCR Editor Virtual currency is changing the face of online payments. Online casinos are innovative by nature, so it would be no surprise to see them begin to embrace Bitcoins - the virtual currency that is changing the world of Internet payments as we know it. What are Bitcoins? You have probably already heard of Bitcoins, but just in case you haven't - these are virtual currency that can be sent online between people and businesses without going through the hassle of dealing with a bank. As you would expect their fees are low and accounts are immune to being frozen or blocked in various countries. Like real currencies, Bitcoins are generated and traded over the Internet according to fluctuating exchange rates. When withdrawing Bitcoins at a participating online gambling site, players must use their electronic signature for verification and can exchange them for dollars, euros and other real currencies. Soon at Leading Online Casinos? At present Bitcoins are being used as a payment methods at a number of innovative, smaller online casinos. Should these experiments prove successful with players, it will only be a matter of time before they are offered by the bigger gambling operators such as William Hill, bet365 and All Slots. For now, customers of those top online casinos will have to make do with the huge range of existing payment methods such as credit cards, e-wallets and bank transfer. But rest assured that if this takes off, another transfer method is just around the corner - Bitcoins.I Am Not Mer
the stairs....” “I used to read some mysteries. Mostly, though, it was science fiction I liked.” “Really? You look more like a mystery reader.” “There’s a look?” She laughed. “Tell you what. Science fiction? We got a box of paperbacks in last week. Right over there, under the ladder. Check it out, and I’ll tell Mr. Ziegler you’re here. Uh—“ “My name is Keller. Bill Keller. My wife was Lorraine.” She held out her hand. “I’m Deirdre. Just have a look; I’ll be back in a jiff.” I wanted to stop her but didn’t know how. She went through a bead curtain and up a dim flight of stairs while I pulled a leathery cardboard box onto a chair and prepared for some dutiful time-killing. Certainly I didn’t expect to find anything I wanted, though I would probably have to buy something as the price of a courtesy call, especially if Ziegler was coaxed out of his lair to greet me. But what I told Deirdre was true; though I had been an eager reader in my youth, I hadn’t bought more than an occasional softcover since 1970. Fiction is a young man’s pastime. I had ceased to be curious about other people’s lives, much less other worlds. Still, the box was full of forty-year-old softcover books, Ace and Ballantine paperbacks mainly, and it was nice to see the covers again, the Richard Powers abstracts, translucent, bubbles on infinite plains, or Jack Gaughan sketches, angular and insectile. Titles rich with key words: Time, Space, Worlds, Infinity. Once I had loved this sort of thing. And then, amongst these faded jewels, I found something I did not expect— And another. And another. * * * The bead curtain parted and Ziegler entered the room. He was a bulky man, but he moved with the exaggerated caution of the frail. A plastic tube emerged from his nose, was taped to his cheek with a dirty bandaid and connected to an oxygen canister slung from his shoulder. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. He wore what looked like a velveteen frock coat draped over a t-shirt and a pair pinstriped pajama-bottoms. His hair, what remained of it, was feathery and white. His skin was the color of thrift-shop Tupperware. Despite his appearance, he gave me a wide grin. “Mr. Ziegler,” I said. “I’m Bill Keller. I don’t know if you remember—” He thrust his pudgy hand forward. “Of course! No need to explain. Terrible about Lorraine. I think of her often.” He turned to Deirdre, who emerged from the curtain behind him. “Mr. Keller’s wife...” He drew a labored breath. “Died last year.” “I’m sorry,” Deirdre said. “She was... a wonderful woman. Friendly by nature. A joy. Of course, death isn’t final... we all go on, I believe, each in his own way....” There was more of this—enough that I regretted stopping by—but I couldn’t doubt Ziegler’s sincerity. Despite his intimidating appearance there was something almost willfully childlike about him, a kind of embalmed innocence, if that makes any sense. He asked how I had been and what I had been doing. I answered as cheerfully as I could and refrained from asking after his own health. His cheeks reddened as he stood, and I wondered if he shouldn’t be sitting down. But he seemed to be enjoying himself. He eyed the five slender books I’d brought to the cash desk. “Science fiction!” he said. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a science fiction reader, Mr. Keller.” (Deirdre glanced at me: Told you so!) “I haven’t been a steady reader for a long time,” I said. “But I found some interesting items.” “The good old stuff,” Ziegler gushed. “The pure quill. Does it strike you, Mr. Keller, that we live every day in the science fiction of our youth?” “I hadn’t noticed.” “There was a time when science seemed so sterile. It didn’t yield up the wonders we had been led to expect. Only a bleak, lifeless solar system... a half-dozen desert worlds, baked or frozen, take your pick, and the gas giants... great roaring seas of methane and ammonia....” I nodded politely. “But now!” Ziegler exclaimed. “Life on Mars! Oceans under Europa! Comets plunging into Jupiter—!” “I see what you mean.” “And here on Earth—the human genome, cloned animals, mind-altering drugs! Computer networks! Computer viruses!” He slapped his thigh. “I have a Teflon hip, if you can imagine such a thing!” “Pretty amazing,” I agreed, though I hadn’t thought much about any of this. “Back when we read these books, Mr. Keller, when we read Heinlein or Simak or Edmond Hamilton, we longed to immerse ourselves in the strange... the outré. And now—well—here we are!” He smiled breathlessly and summed up his thesis. “Immersed in the strange. All it takes is time. Just... time. Shall I put these in a bag for you?” He bagged the books without looking at them. When I fumbled out my wallet, he raised his hand. “No charge. This is for Lorraine. And to thank you for stopping by.” I couldn’t argue... and I admit I didn’t want to draw his attention to the paperbacks, in the petty fear that he might notice how unusual they were and refuse to part with them. I took the paper bag from his parchment hand, feeling faintly guilty. “Perhaps you’ll come back,” he said. “I’d like to.” “Anytime,” Ziegler said, inching towards his bead curtain and the musty stairway behind it, back into the cloying dark. “Anything you’re looking for, I can help you find it.” * * * Crossing College Street, freighted with groceries, I stepped into the path of a car, a yellow Hyundai racing a red light. The driver swerved around me, but it was a near thing. The wheel wells brushed my trouser legs. My heart stuttered a beat. ... and I died, perhaps, a small infinity of times. Probabilities collapse. I become increasingly unlikely. “Immersed in the strange,” Ziegler had said. But had I ever wanted that? Really wanted that? * * * “Be careful,” Lorraine told me one evening in the long month before she died. Amazingly, she had seemed to think of it as my tragedy, not hers. “Don’t despise life.” Difficult advice. Did I “despise life”? I think I did not; that is, there were times when the world seemed a pleasant enough place, times when a cup of coffee and a morning in the sun seemed a good enough reason to continue to draw breath. I remained capable of smiling at babies. I was even able to look at an attractive young woman and feel a response more immediate than nostalgia. But I missed Lorraine terribly, and we had never had children, neither of us had any close living relations or much in the way of friends; I was unemployed and unemployable, confined forevermore within the contracting walls of my pension and our modest savings... all the joy and much of the simple structure of my life had been leeched away, and the future looked like more of the same, a protracted fumble toward the grave. If anything postponed the act of suicide it wasn’t courage or principle but the daily trivia. I would kill myself (I decided more than once), but not until after the news... not until I paid the electric bill... not until I had taken my walk. Not until I solved the mystery I’d brought home from Finders. I won’t describe the books in detail. They looked more or less like others of their kind. What was strange about them was that I didn’t recognize them, although this was a genre (paperback science fiction of the 1950s and ’60s) I had once known in intimate detail. The shock was not just unfamiliarity, since I might have missed any number of minor works by minor writers; but these were major novels by well-known names, not retitled works or variant editions. A single example: I sat down that night with a book called The Stone Pillow, by a writer whose identity any science fiction follower would instantly recognize. It was a Signet paperback circa 1957, with a cover by the artist Paul Lehr in the period style. According to the credit slug, the story had been serialized in Astounding in 1946. The pages were browned at the margins; the glued spine was brittle as bone china. I handled the book carefully, but I couldn’t resist reading it, and insofar as I was able to judge, it was a plausible example of the late author’s well-known style and habits of thought. I enjoyed it a great deal and went to bed convinced of its authenticity. Either I had missed it, somehow—in the days when not missing such things meant a great deal to me—or it had slipped out of memory. No other explanation presented itself. One such item wouldn’t have worried me. But I had brought home four more volumes equally inexplicable. Chalk it up to age, I thought. Or worse. Senility. Alzheimer’s. Either way, a bad omen. Sleep was elusive. The next logical step might have been to see a doctor. Instead, the next morning I thumbed through the yellow pages for a used-book dealer who specialized in period science fiction. After a couple of calls I reached a young man named Niemand who offered to evaluate the books if I brought them to him that afternoon. I told him I’d be there by one. If nothing else, it was an excuse to prolong my life one more interminable day. * * * Niemand—his store was an overheated second-story loft over a noisy downtown street—gave the books a long, thoughtful examination. “Fake,” he said finally. “They’re fake.” “Fake? You mean... counterfeit?” “If you like, but that’s stretching a point. Nobody counterfeits books, even valuable books. The idea is ludicrous. I mean, what do you do, set up a press and go through all the work of producing a bound volume, duplicate the type, flaws and all, and then flog it on the collector’s market? You’d never recoup your expenses, not even if you came up with a convincing Gutenberg Bible. In the case of books like this the idea’s doubly absurd. Maybe if they were one-off from an abandoned print run or something, but hell, people would know about that. Nope. Sorry, but these are just... fake.” “But—well, obviously, somebody did go to the trouble of faking them.” He nodded. “Obviously. It’s flawless work, and it can’t have been cheap. And the books are genuinely old. Contemporary fakes, maybe... maybe some obsessive fan with a big disposable income, rigging up books he wanted to exist....” “Are they valuable?” “They’re certainly odd. Valuable? Not to me. Tell you the truth, I kind of wish you hadn’t brought them in.” “Why?” “They’re creepy. They’re too good. Kind of X-Files.” He gave me a sour grin. “Make up your own science fiction story.” “Or live in it,” I said. We live in the science fiction of our youth. He pushed the books across his cluttered desk. “Take ’em away, Mr. Keller. And if you find out where they came from—” “Yes?” “I really don’t want to know.” * * * Items I noticed in the newspaper that evening: GENE THERAPY RENDERS HEART BYPASS OBSOLETE BANK OF ZURICH FIRST WITH QUANTUM ENCRYPTION SETI RESEARCHERS SPOT “POSSIBLE” ET RADIO SOURCE I didn’t want to go back to Ziegler, not immediately. It felt like admitting defeat—like looking up the answer to a magazine puzzle I couldn’t solve. But there was no obvious next step to take, so I put the whole thing out of my mind, or tried to; watched television, did laundry, shined my shoes. None of this pathetic sleight-of-hand provided the slightest distraction. I was not (just as I had told Deirdre) a mystery lover, and I didn’t love this mystery, but it was a turbulence in the flow of the passing days, therefore interesting. When I had savored the strangeness of it to a satisfying degree I took myself in hand and carried the books back to Finders, meaning to demand an explanation. Oscar Ziegler was expecting me. The late-May weather was already too humid, a bright sun bearing down from the ozone-depleted sky. Walking wasn’t such a pleasure under the circumstances. I arrived at Finders plucking my shirt away from my body. Graceless. The woman Deirdre looked from her niche at the rear of the store. “Mr. Keller, right?” She didn’t seem especially pleased to see me. I meant to ask if Ziegler was available, but she waved me off: “He said if you showed up you were to go on upstairs. That’s, uh, really unusual.” “Shouldn’t you let him know I’m here?” “Really, he’s expecting you.” She waved at the bead curtain, almost a challenge: Go on, if you must. The curtain made a sound like chattering teeth behind me. The stairway was dim. Dustballs quivered on the risers and clung to the threadbare coco-mat tread. At the top was a door silted under so many layers of ancient paint that the moulding had softened into gentle dunes. Ziegler opened the door and waved me in. His room was lined with books. He stepped back, settled himself into an immense overstuffed easy chair, and invited me to look at his collection. But the titles at eye level were disappointing. They were old cloth volumes of Gurdjieff and Ouspenski, Velikovsky and Crowley—the usual pseudo-gnostic spiritualist bullshit, pardon my language. Like the room itself, the books radiated dust and boredom. I felt obscurely disappointed. So this was Oscar Ziegler, one more pathetic old man with a penchant for magic and cabalism. Between the books, medical supplies: inhalers, oxygen tanks, pill bottles. Ziegler might be old, but his eyesight was still keen. “Judging by the expression on your face, you find my den distasteful.” “Not at all.” “Oh, fess up, Mr. Keller. You’re too old to be polite and I’m too old to pretend I don’t notice.” I gestured at the books. “I was never much for the occult.” “That’s understandable. It’s claptrap, really. I keep those volumes for nostalgic reasons. To be honest, there was a time when I looked there for answers. That time is long past.” “I see.” “Now tell me why you came.” I showed him the softcover books, told him how I’d taken them to Niemand for a professional assessment. Confessed my own bafflement. Ziegler took the books into his lap. He looked back at them briefly and took a long drag from his oxygen mask. He didn’t seem especially impressed. “I’m hardly responsible for every volume that comes into the store.” “Of course not. And I’m not complaining. I just wondered—” “If I knew where they came from? If I could offer you a meaningful explanation?” “Basically, yes.” “Well,” Ziegler said. “Well. Yes and no. Yes and no.” “I’m sorry?” “That is... no. I can’t tell you precisely where they came from. Deirdre probably bought them from someone off the street. Cash or credit, and I don’t keep detailed records. But it doesn’t really matter.” “Doesn’t it?” He took another deep drag from the oxygen bottle. “Oh, it could have been anyone. Even if you tracked down the original vendor—which I guarantee you won’t be able to do—you wouldn’t learn anything useful.” “You don’t seem especially surprised by this.” “Implying that I know more than I’m saying.” He smiled ruefully. “I’ve never been in this position before, though you’re right, it doesn’t surprise me. Did you know, Mr. Keller, that I am immortal?” Here we go, I thought. The pitch. Ziegler didn’t care about the books. I had come from an explanation; he wanted to sell me a religion. “And you, Mr. Keller. You’re immortal, too.” What was I doing here, in this shabby place with this shabby old man? There was nothing to say. “But I can’t explain it,” Ziegler went on; “that is, not in the depth it deserves. There’s a volume here—I’ll lend it to you—” He stood, precariously, and huffed across the room. I looked at his books again while he rummaged for the volume in question. Below the precambrian deposits of the occult was a small sediment of literature. First editions, presumably valuable. And not all familiar. Had Ernest Hemingway written a book called Pamplona? (But here it was, its Scribners dust jacket protected in brittle mylar.) Cromwell and Company, by Charles Dickens? Under the Absolute by Aldous Huxley? “Ah, books.” Ziegler, smiling, came up behind me. “They bob like corks on an ocean. Float between worlds, messages in bottles. This will tell you what you need to know.” The book he gave me was cheaply made, with a utilitarian olive-drab jacket. You Will Never Die, by one Carl G. Soziere. “Come back when you’ve read it.” “I will,” I lied. * * * “I had a feeling,” Deirde said, “you’d come downstairs with one of those.” The Soziere book. “You’ve heard of it?” “Not until I took this job. Mr. Ziegler gave me a copy. But I speak from experience. Every once in a long while, somebody comes in with a question or complaint. They go upstairs. And they come back down with that.” At which point I realized I had left the paperbacks in Ziegler’s room. I suppose I could have gone back for them, but it seemed somehow churlish. But it was a loss. Not that I loved the books, particularly, but they were the only concrete evidence I had of the mystery—they were the mystery. Now Ziegler had them back in his possession. And I had You Will Never Die. “It looks like a crank book.” “Oh, it is,” Deirdre said. “Kind of a parallel-worls argument, you know. J.W. Dunne and so on, with some quantum physics thrown in; actually, I’m surprised a major publisher didn’t pick it up.” “You’ve read it?” “I’m a sucker for that kind of thing, if you want the truth.” “Don’t tell me. It changed your life.” I was smiling. She smiled back. “It didn’t even change my mind.” But there was an odd note of worry in her voice. * * * Of course I read it. Deidre was right about You Will Never Die. It had been published by some private or vanity press, but the writing wasn’t crude. It was slick, even witty in places. And the argument was seductive. Shorn of the babble about Planck radii and Prigogine complexity and the Dancing Wu-Li Masters, it came down to this: Consciousness, like matter, like energy, is preserved. You are born, not an individual, but an infinity of individuals, in an infinity of identical worlds. “Consciousness,” your individual awareness, is shared by this infinity of beings. At birth (or at conception; Soziere wasn’t explicit), this span of selves begins to divide, as alternate possibilities are indulged or rejected. The infant turns his head not to the left or to the right, but both. One infinity of worlds becomes two; then four; then eight, and so on, exponentially. But the underlying essence of consciousness continues to connect all these disparate possibilities. The upshot? Soziere says it all in his title. You cannot die. Consider. Suppose, tomorrow afternoon, you walk in front of a speeding eighteen-wheeler. The grillwork snaps your neck and what remains of you is sausaged under the chassis. Do you die? Well, yes; an infinity of you does die; but infinity is divisible by itself. Another infinity of you steps out of the path of the truck, or didn’t leave the house that day, or recovers in the hospital. The youness of you doesn’t die; it simply continues to reside in those remnant selves. An infinite set has been subtracted from infinity; but what remains, remains infinite. The subjective experience is that the accident simply doesn’t happen. Consider that bottle of Clonazepam I keep beside the bed. Six times I reached for it, meaning to kill myself. Six times stopped myself. In the great wilderness of worlds, I must have succeeded more often than I failed. My cold and vomit-stained corpse was carted off to whatever grave or urn awaits it, and a few acquaintances briefly mourned. But that’s not me. By definition, you can’t experience your own death. Death is the end of consciousness. And consciousness persists. In the language of physics, consciousness is conserved. I am the one who wakes up in the morning. Always. Every morning. I don’t die. I just become increasingly unlikely. * * * I spent the next few days watching television, folding laundry, trimming my nails—spinning my wheels. I tossed Soziere’s little tome into a corner and left it there. And when I was done kidding myself, I went to see Deirdre. I didn’t even know her last name. All I knew was that she had read Soziere’s book and remained skeptical of it, and I was eager to have my own skepticism refreshed. You think odd things, sometimes, when you’re too often alone. I caught Deirdre on her lunch break. Ziegler didn’t come downstairs to man the desk: the store simply closed between noon and one every weekday. The May heat wave had broken; the sky was a soft, deep blue, the air balmy. We sat at a sidewalk table outside a lunch-and-coffee restaurant. Her full name was Deirdre Frank. She was fifty and unmarried and had run her own retail business until some legal difficulty closed her down. She was working at Finders while she reorganized her life. And she understood why I had come to her. “There’s a couple of tests I apply,” she said, “whenever I read this kind of book. First, is it likely to improve anyone’s life? Which is a tricker question than it sounds. Any number of people will tell you they found happiness with the Scientologists or the Moonies or whatever, but what that usually means is they narrowed their focus—they can’t see past the bars of their cage. Okay, You Will Never Die isn’t a cult book, but I doubt it will make anybody a better person. “Second, is there any way to test the author’s claims? Soziere aced that one beautifully, I have to admit. His argument is that there’s subjective experience of death—your family might die, your friends, your grade-school teachers, the Princess of Wales, but never you. And in some other world, you die and other people go on living. How do you prove such a thing? Obviously, you can’t. What Soziere tries to do is infer it, from quantum physics and lots of less respectable sources. It’s a bubble theory—it floats over the landscape, touching nothing.” I was probably blushing by this time. Deirdre said, “You took it seriously, didn’t you Or half-seriously....” “Half at most. I’m not stupid. But it’s an appealing idea.” Her eyes widened. “Appealing?” “Well—there are people who’ve died. People I miss. I like to think of them going on somewhere, even if it isn’t a place I can reach.” She was aghast. “God, no! Soziere’s book isn’t a fairy tale, Mr. Keller—it’s a horror story!” “Pardon me?” “Think about it! At first it sounds like an invitation to suicide. You don’t like where you are, put a pistol in your mouth and go somewhere else—somewhere better, maybe, even if it is inherently less likely. But take you for example. You’re what, sixty years old? Or so? Well, great, you inhabit a universe where a healthy human being can reach the age of sixty, fine, but what next? Maybe you wake up tomorrow morning and find out they cured cancer, say, or heart disease—excluding you from all the worlds where William Keller dies of a colon tumor or an aneurism. And then? You’re a hundred years old, a hundred and twenty—do you turn into some kind of freak? So unlikely, in Soziere’s sense, that you end up in a circus or a research ward? Do they clone you a fresh body? Do you end up as some kind of half-human robot, or a brain in a bottle? And in the meantime the world changes around you, everything familiar is left behind, you see others die, maybe millions of others, maybe the human race dies out or evolves into something else, and you go on, and on, while the universe groans under the weight of your unlikeliness, and there’s no escape, every death is just another rung up the ladder of weirdness and disorientation....” I hadn’t thought of it that way. Yes, the reductio ad absurdum of Soziere’s theory was a kind of relativistic paradox: as the observer’s life grows more unlikely, he perceives the world around him becoming proportionately more strange; and down those unexplored, narrow rivers of mortality mighty well lie a cannibal village. Or the Temple of Gold. What if Deirdre was too pessimistic? What if, among all the unlikely worlds, there was one in which Lorraine had survived her cancer? Wouldn’t that be worth waiting for? Worth looking for, no matter how strange the consequences might be? * * * News items that night: NEURAL IMPLANTS RESTORE VISION IN FIFTEEN PATIENTS “TELOMERASE COCKTAIL” CREATES IMMORTAL LAB MICE TWINNED NEUTRON STARS POSE POTENTIAL THREAT, NASA SAYS My sin was longing. Not grief. Grief isn’t a sin, and is anyway unavoidable. Yes, I grieved for Lorraine, grieved long and hard, but I don’t remember having a choice. I miss her still. Which is as it should be. But I had given in too often to the vulgar yearnings, mourned youth, mourned better days. Made an old man’s map of roads not taken, from the stale perspective of a dead end. Reached for the Clonazepam and turned my hand away, freighted every inch with deaths beyond counting. I wonder if my captors understand this? * * * I went back to Ziegler—nodding at Deirdre, who was disappointed to see me, as I vanished behind the bead curtain. “This doesn’t explain it.” I gave him back You Will Never Die. “Explain,” Ziegler said guilelessly, “what?” “The paperbacks I bought from you.” “I don’t recall.” “Or these—” I turned to this bookshelf. Copies of In Our Time, Our Mutual Friend, Beyond the Mexique Bay. “I didn’t realize they needed explaining.” I was the victim of a conjurer’s trick, gulled and embarrassed. I closed my mouth. “Anomalous experience,” Ziegler said knowingly. “You’re right, Soziere doesn’t explain it. Personally I think there must be kind of a critical limit—a degree of accumulated unlikeliness so great that the illusion of normalcy can no longer be wholly sustained.” He smiled, not pleasantly. “Things leak. I think especially books, books being little islands of mind. They trail their authors across phenomenological borders, like lost puppies. That’s why I love them. But you’re awfully young to experience such phenomena. You must have made yourself very unlikely indeed—more and more unlikely, day after day! What have you been doing to yourself, Mr. Keller?” I left him sucking oxygen from a fogged plastic mask. * * * Reaching for the bottle of Clonazepam. Drawing back my hand. But how far must the charade proceed? Does the universe gauge intent? What if I touch the bottle? What if I open it and peer inside? (These question, of course, are answered now. I have only myself to blame.) * * * I had tumbled a handful of the small white tablets into my hand and was regarding them with the cool curiosity of the entomologist when the telephone rang. Pills or telephone? Both, presumably, in Soziere’s multiverse. I answered the phone. It was Deirdre. “He’s dead,” she told me. “Ziegler. I thought you should know.” I said, “I’m sorry.” “I’m taking care of the arrangements. He was so alone... no family, no friends, just nothing.” “Will there be a service?” “He wanted to be cremated. You’re welcome to come. It might be nice if somebody besides me showed up.” “I will. What about the store?” “That’s the crazy part. According to the bank, he left it to me.” Her voice was choked with emotion. “Can you imagine that? I never even called him by his first name! To be honest—oh, God, I didn’t even like him! Now he leaves me this tumbledown business of his!” I told her I’d see her at the mortuary. * * * I paid no attention to the news that night, save to register the lead stories, which were ominous and strange. We live, Ziegler had said, in the science fiction of our youth. The “ET signals” NASA scientists had discovered were, it turned out, a simple star map, at the center of which was—not the putative aliens’ home world—but a previously undiscovered binary neutron star in the constellation of Orion. The message, one astronomer speculated, might be a warning. Binary neutron stars are unstable. When they eventually collide, drawn together by their enormous gravity, the collision produces a black hole—and in the process a burst of gamma rays and cosmic radiation, strong enough to scour the Earth of life if the event occurs within some two or three thousand light-years of us. The freshly discovered neutron stars were well within that range. As for the collision, it might happen in ten years, a thousand, a ten thousand—none of the quoted authorities would commit to a date, though estimates had been shrinking daily. Nice of the neighbors to warn us, I thought. But how long had that warning bell been ringing, and for how many centuries had we ignored it? * * * Deirdre’s description of the Soziere book as a “bubble theory” haunted me. No proof, no evidence could exist: that was ruled out by the theory itself—or at least, as Ziegler had implied, there would be no evidence one could share. But there had been evidence, at least in my case: the paperback books, “anomalous” books imported, presumably, from some other timeline, a history I had since lost to cardiac arrest, a car accident, Clonazepam. But the books were gone. I had traded them, in effect, for You Will Never Die. Which I had returned to Oscar Ziegler. Cup your hands as you might. The water runs through your fingers. There was only the most rudimentary service at the crematorium where Ziegler’s body was burned. A few words from an Episcopal minister Deirdre had hired for the occasion, an earnest young man in clerical gear and neatly-pressed Levis who pronounced his consolations and hurried away as if late for another function. Deirdre said, afterward, “I don’t know if I’ve been given a gift or an obligation. For a man who never left his room, Mr. Ziegler had a way of weaving people into his life.” She shook her head sadly. “If any of it really matters. I mean, if we’re not devoured by aliens or god knows what. You can’t turn on the news these days.... Well, I guess he bailed out just in time.” Or moved on. Moved someplace where his emphysema was curable, his failing heart repairable, his aging cells regenerable. Shunting the Oscar Ziegler along a more promising is less plausible track.... “The evidence,” I said suddenly. “What?” “The books I told you about.” “Oh. Right. Well, I’m sorry, but I didn’t get a good look at them.” She frowned. “Is that what you’re thinking? Oh, shit, that fucking Soziere book of his! It’s bait, Mr. Keller, don’t you get it? Not to speak ill of the dead, but he loved to suck people into whatever cloistered little mental universe he inhabited, misery loves company, and that book was always the bait—” “No,” I said, excited despite my best intentions, as if Ziegler’s cremation had been a message, his personal message to me, that the universe discarded bodies like used Kleenex but that consciousness was continuous, seamless, immortal.... “I mean about the evidence. You didn’t see it—but someone did.” “Leave it alone. You don’t understand about Ziegler. Oscar Ziegler was a sour, poisonous old man. Maybe older than he looked. That’s what I thought of when I read Soziere’s book: Oscar Ziegler, someone so ridiculously old that he wakes up every morning surprised he’s still a human being.” She stared fiercely at me. “What exactly are you contemplating here—serial suicide?” “Nothing so drastic.” I thanked her and left. * * * The paradox of proof. I went to Neimand’s store as soon as I left Deirdre. I had shown the books to Niemand, the book dealer. He was the impossible witness, the corroborative testimony. If Neimand had seen the books, then I was sane: if Neimand had seen the books they might well turn up among Ziegler’s possessions, and I could establish their true provenance and put all this dangerous Soziere mythology behind me. But Niemand’s little second-story loft store had closed. The sign was gone. The door was locked and the space was for lease. Neither the jeweller downstairs nor the coffee-shop girl next door remembered the store, its clientele, or Niemand himself. There was no Niemand in the phone book. Nor could I find his commercial listing. Not even in my yellow pages at home, where I had first looked it up. Or remembered looking it up. Anomalous experience. Which constituted proof, of a kind, though Ziegler was right; it was not transferable. I could convince no one, ultimately, save myself. * * * The television news was full of apocalypse that night. A rumor had swept the Internet that the great gamma-ray burst was imminent, only days away. No, it was not, scientists insisted, but the allowed themselves to be drawn by their CNN inquisitors into hypothetical questions. Would there be any safe place? A half-mile underground, say, or two, or three? (Probably not, they admitted; or, We don’t have the full story yet.) To a man, or woman, they looked unsettled and skittish. I went to bed knowing she was out there, Lorraine, I mean, out among the plenitude of worlds and stars. Alone, perhaps, since I must have died to her—infinities apart, certainly, but enclosed within the same inconceivably vast multi-universe, as alike, in our way, as two snowflakes in an avalanche. I slept with the pill bottle cradled in my hand. * * * The trick, I decided, was to abandon the charade, to mean the act. In other words, to swallow twenty or thirty tablets—a more difficult act than you might imagine—and wash them down a neat last shot of Glenlivet. * * * But Deirdre called. Almost too late. Not late enough. I picked up the phone, confused, my hands butting the receiver like antagonistic parade balloons. I said, or meant to say, “Lorraine?” But it was Deirdre, only Deirdre, and before long Deirdre was shouting in an annoying way. I let the phone drop. I suppose she called 911. II I woke in a hospital bed. I lay there passively for more than an hour, by the digital clock on the bedstand, cresting waves of sleep and wondering at the silence, until I was visited by Candice. Her name was written on her lapel tag. Candice was a nurse, with a throaty Jamaican accent and wide, sad eyes. “You’re awake,” she said, barely glancing at me. My hear hurt. My mouth tasted of ashes and quicklime. I needed to pee, but there was a catheter in the way. “I think I want to see a doctor,” I managed. “Prob’ly you do,” Candice agreed. “And prob’ly you should. But our last resident went home yesterday. I can take the catheter out, if that’s what you want.” “There are no doctors?” “Home with their families like everybody else.” She fluffed my pillow. “Only us pathetic lonelyhearts left, Mr. Keller. You been unconscious ten days.” Later she wheeled me down the corridor—though I insisted I could have walked—to a lounge with a tall plate glass window, where the ward’s remaining patients had gathered to talk
muddled sexuality. In a way, hearing Ted talk about his self-imposed boundaries makes it easier to understand how he can seem so fulfilled with his new, cleaned-up life. These days what Ted craves is not total sexual satisfaction but exactly the things he used to have—a church, a loving wife, camping trips with his boys—and getting those things back will require amputating part of who he is and what he might, at some point, have wanted. A few minutes later, Gayle walks back into the house with an armful of food. "Lunch is served!" "You're wonderful!" Ted says, rising from his recliner to help. From the couch, I can hear their voices peal through the house. "Do you want me to mix the dressing in or just leave it on the side?" "Oh, go ahead and mix it in." At the table, we bow our heads as Gayle says grace: "Father, thank you for today. We pray for your blessings on all of this, and for your wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. In Jesus' name, amen."Square batteries are fine for square things, but the latest craze is round watches, which means lots of wasted space on the inside. That's a bummer when we're already struggling to keep watches running for more than a day. However, LG Chem says it has leveraged new manufacturing techniques to produce hexagonal batteries that can cram as much as 25% more power into a watch. The new batteries are being shipped to multiple companies, but LG isn't saying who. Samsung and LG's consumer electronics arm are possible recipients, as both have shown interest in round smart watches. Motorola is also supposed to be working on a new Moto 360 that could benefit from a hexagonal battery. Anyone planning to make a square watch (eg. Asus) would do well to stick with a traditional square battery, though. LG is using a technique called "stack and folding" to make batteries in different shapes at industrial scale. It calls these "free form batteries." LG plans to make batteries that are curved and L-shaped in this way as well.Actor Paul Rudd, star of the Marvel film "Ant-Man," received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday.Rudd, best known for his Judd Apatow films like "Anchorman," "The 40-year-old Virgin," "Knocked Up," and "This Is 40," was given the 2,554th star just two weeks before the release of "Ant-Man," for which he co-wrote the screenplay."I remember being a kid and walking this boulevard and reading the names and thinking about what so many other millions of people thought about, which is, 'Who's that?'" Rudd said. "The fact that millions of people are going to be able to now see me and ask that same question... is humbling beyond belief."Rudd's first high-profile role was as Josh, the ex-stepbrother of Alicia Silverstone's character in the 1995 film comedy "Clueless."Rudd's other films include "I Love You, Man," "Wet Hot American Summer," "Dinner for Schmucks," "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," "Our Idiot Brother," and "Role Models." His television credits include "Friends," on which he played the boyfriend and later husband of Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) and "Parks and Recreation," portraying city council candidate Bobby Newport.Anzac poppy The red poppy has become a symbol of war remembrance the world over. People in many countries wear the poppy to remember those who died in war or who still serve. In many countries, the poppy is worn around Armistice Day (11 November), but in New Zealand it is most commonly seen around Anzac Day, 25 April. In Flanders fields The red or Flanders poppy has been linked with battlefield deaths since the time of the Great War (1914–18). The plant was one of the first to grow and bloom in the mud and soil of Flanders. The connection was made, most famously, by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae in his poem 'In Flanders fields'. In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. McCrae was a Canadian medical officer who, in May 1915, had conducted the funeral service of a friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres (Ieper). Distressed at the death and suffering around him, McCrae scribbled the verse in his notebook. In a cemetery nearby, red poppies blew gently in the breeze – a symbol of regeneration and growth in a landscape of blood and destruction. McCrae threw away the poem, but a fellow officer rescued it and sent it on to the English magazine Punch; 'In Flanders fields' was published on 8 December 1915. Three years later, on 28 January 1918, McCrae was dead. As he lay dying, he is reported to have said ‘Tell them this, if ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep.’ Keeping the faith Many people were moved by the pathos of 'In Flanders fields'. Among them was Moina Michael (1869–1944) who worked in a YMCA canteen in New York. Two days before the signing of the Armistice (11 November 1918), she wrote a reply to McCrae: 'We shall keep the faith'. Michael set herself a mission: to have the red poppy adopted in the United States as a national symbol of remembrance. The American Legion adopted it at its annual convention in September 1920. Attending that event was Madame E. Guérin who, along with Michael, was responsible for making the poppy an international symbol of remembrance. Both were known at the time as ‘The Poppy Lady’. Guérin saw the potential to make and sell poppies, putting the proceeds towards the welfare of veterans, their families and poor children. For the next year or so Guérin and others approached veterans’ groups in many countries, urging them to adopt the poppy as a symbol of remembrance. The first Poppy Day New Zealand was one of these countries. One of Guérin’s representatives, Colonel Alfred Moffatt, suggested the poppy idea to the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association (as the Returned Services' Association or RSA was originally known) in September 1921. The Returned Soldiers’ Association placed an order for 350,000 small and 16,000 large silk poppies, all made by Madame Guérin’s French Children’s League. The Returned Soldiers’ Association planned to hold its first Poppy Day appeal around the time of Armistice Day 1921 as other countries were doing. The ship carrying the poppies from France arrived in New Zealand too late for the scheme to be properly publicised. The association decided to wait until the next Anzac Day, 1922. The poppies went on sale the day before Anzac Day. This first Poppy Day appeal was a huge success. Many centres sold out early in the day. In all, 245,059 small and 15,157 large poppies were sold. Of the £13,166 raised, £3695 went to the French Children’s League to help relieve suffering in the war-ravaged areas of northern France. The association used the remainder to assist needy, unemployed returned soldiers and their families; that tradition has continued. The popularity of Poppy Day quickly grew. There were record collections during the Second World War. By 1945, 750,000 poppies were being distributed nationwide, which equates to half the population wearing the familiar red symbol of remembrance. Making poppies New Zealand’s supply of red poppies has been sourced both overseas and locally. The association began producing its own poppies in 1931, with disabled former servicemen in Auckland and Christchurch making them. The Christchurch RSA is still responsible for the manufacture of poppies, which are now made of paper rather than cloth. Rationing and restrictions during the Second World War affected the making of poppies. Government actually relaxed its restriction on the importation of cloth from Britain so that poppies could still be made. By this time, ladies’ committees or women’s sections of the RSA had taken a key role in the making (and sale) of poppies. In 1936, a ladies’ committee from Wellington made 20,000 poppies for Poppy Day. Wearing poppies In New Zealand the poppy is most often worn around Anzac Day. Since 1927 Poppy Day itself has been marked on the Friday before Anzac Day (unless it falls on a Good Friday) with the appeal going through to 25 April. Poppies still symbolise remembrance, and New Zealanders want to show this at other times as well as on Anzac Day. At major commemorative events, at military funerals and at war graves and cemeteries in New Zealand and around the world, the red poppy can be seen.The primary emotion of the electorate during this election has been anger. There’s been angry rhetoric and bitter discourse, hateful accusations and blatant untruths. Many supporters of Donald Trump have been referred to as angry white men, disillusioned with a country that has seemed to pass them by, embracing Trump not because he had anything positive to offer, but for his promise to shake up, if not tear down, the system. He found he could say almost anything and get away with it, since the main purpose of his campaign was really not to “make America great again”, but to create a base of energized and emotional supporters who would believe him and follow him no matter what. Trump supporters feel abandoned by the system that many of them helped vote into place by backing Republicans who have been unwilling to work with President Obama to get things accomplished for the good of the country. As a result we have Trump. Hillary Clinton followed the practice of former Republican Secretary of State Powell of using his private email server for State Department business, and she got skewered in a never-ending controversy that continues to effect the election, despite her being a candidate whom most people agree is more than qualified to be president. It’s amazing, actually, how the Republicans have taken one seemingly minor issue, infused it with ugly slogans, and stretched it into a years-long witch hunt. Then there were the police shootings of African Americans in the streets of America’s cities, leading to justifiable frustration and anger expressed through the Black Lives Matter movement. Donald Trump, in turn, denounced the very term Black Lives Matter as racist, while claiming that he’d be a much better president for black people. Seeing that he was falling well behind in the polls, largely due to his lack of self-control and poor debate performances, Trump further riled up his supporters by claiming that the election is rigged. He urged them to “watch” the polls during voting and to do anything necessary to stop so-called election fraud. Trump is inciting them to suppress legitimate votes, mainly those of people of color, despite their having no authority to do so and with no evidence that voter fraud even exists, at least near the levels where it could even begin to be a problem. Yet Trump has continued to repeat this distorted message. Trump is using tried and true Republican techniques for suppressing the vote. Republicans in control of their statehouses use their power to restrict voter registration, gerrymander voting district boundaries (which Democrats have done over the years, as well), attempt to pass laws requiring voter ID, and generally make it more difficult for people to vote. They have made polling places difficult to access in some areas, resulting in voters having to travel further and wait in long lines in order to cast their ballots. Conservative justices on the Supreme Court already did their part by ending key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, giving Republicans more latitude to suppress the African American and Hispanic vote. And now just over a week to go before the election, F.B.I Director James Comey has decided to reveal, possibly illegally, the existence of yet more potential Clinton emails recovered from former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s computer that the F.B.I. is examining. Despite stating in July that the investigation was closed, Comey is investigating thousands more emails, although producing no evidence that there is anything of substance in them, nothing, that is, except the prurient indiscretions of Anthony Weiner. At this point in the campaign, it may not matter if there is even anything of substance in those emails. Millions have already voted. With so little time left to identify the content of the emails, and to understand their context and meaning, we don’t know what they will reveal or how serious their impact, if any, will be. But this issue will continue to hang over this campaign. Trump has already said, “I told you so”, and the still undecided voters have another chance to be reminded of those exaggerated claims of Clinton’s dishonesty. This latest fiasco has already renewed the shouts of “crooked Hillary” and “lock her up” that had been starting to get drowned out as attention became more focused on Trump’s unsavory deeds with women and on his major character flaws. So now it’s the Democrats time to get angry. As written in the New York Times of Sunday, October 30, “as much as Clinton advisors stressed that they were not panicking, some of them radiated anger at Mr. Comey, Mr. Weiner and even Mrs. Clinton – a reflection of 18 months of frustration that her personal decisions about her email practices and privacy were still generating unhelpful political drama… some prominent Democratic women, meanwhile, were angry that a murky announcement from the F.B.I. might impede the election of the first female president of the United States.” Yet one has to wonder why we have not heard of any F.B.I. investigations of Donald Trump for urging voter suppression and polling place intimidation, and for his thinly veiled threats of violence against Clinton voters and Hillary herself. Why isn’t the F.B.I investigating Trump’s dangerous coziness with Vladimir Putin, considering that he all but invited Putin to hack our emails, denied that Russia was responsible for the DNC hacking, threatened to leave NATO if other countries don’t pay up, and refused to acknowledge the danger that Putin can pose to our country? Why has Mr. Comer not investigated these matters? Trump has been making remarks that threaten our democracy by casting doubt as to whether he would even concede the election if he loses the vote, an essential aspect of our electoral system that exists in order to create an orderly and peaceful transition of power. That is one of the hallmarks of our democracy that Trump is pushing aside; is his flagrant disregard for it not considered a danger to our country? Trump raises the specter of violence if the election doesn’t go his way, which is echoed in interviews with his supporters. He comes close to inciting them when speaking at his rallies; it would be wise, I would think, for the F.B.I. to determine if anyone plans to actually follow through on such language. In a letter dated October 30 from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid to F.B.I Director Comey posted on MarketWatch.com, Senator Reid wrote, “… it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity… And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.” Reid also stated that Comer may have violated the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits federal officials from using their office to influence an election. There’s more than enough anger and ugly politics to go around during this election campaign. Unfortunately, no matter which way the election turns out, it’s likely to continue.Protesters have rejected a Gulf Co-operation Council mediation initiative as it gives Saleh immunity [AFP] At least five people have been killed in the Yemeni capital Sanaa as forces loyal to a defected army general and pro-government fighters clashed, Al Jazeera's correspondents have said. Two more people were killed on Wednesday in the southern city of Aden in clashes between security forces and anti-regime demonstrators, who are pushing for the ouster of long-serving president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The defected general, Ali Mohsen, a kinsman of Saleh who has thrown his weight behind the opposition and whose military units are protecting protesters in Sanaa, has welcomed a mediation proposal by the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) to end the unrest. But on Tuesday tens of thousands of Yemenis staged protests against the proposal, with many saying it offers Saleh, in power since 1978, an immunity from prosecution. Protesters in Yemen have for months been calling for Saleh to step down over the country's lack of freedoms and extreme poverty. Up to 100 people have been killed in the unrest which shows no sign of subsiding. The mediation proposal calls on Saleh to transfer power to his deputy, but gives no specific timeframe for him to leave office. It also includes immunity from prosecution for Saleh and his family. "The initiative does not clearly mention the immediate departure of the head of the regime and it did not touch on the fate of his relatives who are at the top military and security agencies that continue killing the peaceful protesters," the anti-government Civil Alliance of the Youth Revolution said in a statement. The alliance, which includes 30 youth groups, said the GCC proposal was an attempt to abort the revolution. Saleh has accepted the Gulf framework as long as it's carried out "constitutionally," but state media had initially suggested the government would reject it.A powerful Hurricane Maria is sweeping across the Caribbean, dealing some islands a second blow just days after Hurricane Irma thrashed the region. Hurricane Maria slammed Puerto Rico just before dawn Wednesday as some 3.5 million people girded for a day of vicious winds and drenching rain expected to devastate the American territory. The Category 4 storm is expected to lash the island with winds of up to 160 miles per hour throughout Wednesday. Maria left the islands of Dominica and the U.S. Virgin Islands in shambles. Stay with the Miami Herald for the latest reports. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald Cayman Islands opens its doors to impacted citizens of British Overseas Territories 5:31 p.m.: Spaces in government schools have been temporarily opened and school fees have been waived for British Overseas Territory evacuees who wish to attend the public schools. Students will be allowed to attend government schools for the remainder of the 2017-2018 school year. Students who wish to attend private schools must liaise directly with the private school and incur their specific fee requirements. — JACQUELINE CHARLES Damian Rojas, 8, left Texas after Hurricane Harvey to vacation in San Juan with his family. He finds pigeons near the hurricane shelter at City Hall in advance of Hurricane Maria in the capital city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Tuesday, September 19, 2017. CARL JUSTE CJUSTE@MIAMIHERALD.COM Help for the animals 5 p.m.: Global animal charities Humane Society International and H/3 Foundation Inc. had launched an animal rescue and relief initiative in the British Virgin Islands after Hurricane Irma. The team will remain in Tortola during Hurricane Maria and visited an animal shelter that was heavily damaged. All the animals at the shelter survived the storm, but the team found them roaming or hiding within the destroyed structure. They were able to secure the 21 animals and are now caring for them at a lightly damaged veterinary facility that is serving as HSI’s base. Nine of the dogs were transported to a temporary boarding facility in the United States along with four owned but displaced animals — three dogs and one cat. HSI aims to reunite the displaced animals with their owners in the coming days. — HUMANE SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL Martinique avoids direct hit 4:50 p.m.: Martinique communications firm La Martinique reports that the French island of Martinique did not experience a direct hit by Maria and, as with Hurricane Irma, was spared after its close encounter with Maria. Quoted by Reuters in a press briefing today in Paris, Jacques Witkowski, France’s head of civil protection and crisis response, said: “In Martinique, reconnaissance operations are still underway but already we can see that there is no significant damage.” After an early statement related to Hurricane Irma, in which she expressed her deep sympathies and thoughts “to our brothers and sisters of the islands stricken by this unprecedented storm,” Karine Mousseau, Martinique Tourism Commissioner declared today: “We are all deeply saddened by the devastation experienced by Dominica, Martinique’s neighbor to the North, and pray that all of our friends who are now in the storm’s path will be spared the worst of this powerful hurricane.” She went on to say: “In cooperation and with the assistance of the Martinique Prefecture, we will soon have a more detailed update. In the meanwhile there are two important facts to report: the Martinique Aimé Césaire International Airport re-opened this morning at 9:00 a.m. and ports are scheduled to re-open tomorrow.” — LA MARTINIQUE/JACQUELINE CHARLES Dominican communications silenced 4:49 p.m.: Dominica remains isolated with no means of communications and transportation connections to the neighboring islands. A french helicopter is on its way to the devastated eastern Caribbean country to provide assistance and facilitate the evaluation of the situation and the needs. — JACQUELINE CHARLES State of emergency and curfew set in Dominica 4:10 p.m.: The prime minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, officially declared a state of emergency and a curfew from 4 p.m. Wednesday to 8 a.m. Thursday. — JACQUELINE CHARLES DOD helicopters now sheltered and ready to respond 2:45 p.m.: Department of Defense helicopters are sheltering at the Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen/Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, for a quick response to needs after Maria. — CAROL ROSENBERG DOD helicopters arrive at #USCG Air Station Borinquen/Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, to shelter through storm #HurricaneMaria pic.twitter.com/WBFlHCrvKC — USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) September 20, 2017 Maria now a Category 3 2 p.m.: The National Hurricane Center’s latest advisory put Hurricane Maria just offshore of the northwestern coast of Puerto Rico with sustained winds of 115 miles-per-hour. The storm is now a Category 3. Read full story here. — HOWARD COHEN Maria ‘takes her time’ Adriana Rosado, 21, Jorge Diana, 24, and their 2-month old Jorge Nicolas, who live in Guaynabo, are guests at the Ciqala hotel as they wait in the hallway outside of their flooded room as Hurricane Maria bears down on Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017 in San Juan. Alex Wroblewski Getty Images 1:22 p.m.: Herald reporter Patricia Mazzei updated her Twitter feed from Puerto Rico Wednesday afternoon. “Feel like I could just repost this every hour. Though fewer whistling winds. Which is... some sort of progress.” Her earlier tweet, at 11:51 a.m., read: “More sideways rain and whistling winds in Guaynabo. Maria takes her time.” Read full story here. — PATRICIA MAZZEI Dominica’s prime minister takes to Facebook, seeks helicopters to survey lands 1:09 p.m.: Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit posted on Facebook early Wednesday morning and spoke of “widespread devastation. “So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace.” He seeks support of “friendly nations and organizations” with helicopters. “I personally am eager to get up and get around the country to see and determine what’s needed.” — HOWARD COHEN Copa Airlines halts flights to islands impacted by Maria 12:44 p.m.: Copa Airlines released a statement alerting passengers that the majority of operations to and from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, on Wednesday and Thursday have been canceled due to Hurricane Maria. Passengers who were scheduled to travel between Sept. 19 and 26 can make changes to their itineraries through Oct. 16, 2017, without incurring penalties or additional costs. Passengers will have until Sept. 25 to make these changes and the changes will be subject to the ability of flights. In the case of flights canceled due to the hurricane, passengers can also request a full reimbursement of the cost of their ticket. For more information on flight status visit www.copaair.com/en/web/gs/flight-status. — HOWARD COHEN Images, messages flood into social media of devastation in the Caribbean 11:53 p.m.: Twitter and Facebook is filling with posts and images of the destruction in Dominica from Maria. Anita Duenas, in Fort Myers, has been texting her cousin Sonia Pérez, who lives in a neighborhood of San Juan called Hato Rey. “My poor cousin is in the 12th floor of a bldg in PR right now. She said she can feel it moving. They’re saying they’ll have to spend the whole day waiting for it to pass. So scary,” she posted. “About four hours ago she felt the building rocking back and forth and the winds howling. She is saying that it’s been many hours in the high winds and one expects almost anything to happen from hour to hour. She is feeling mentally drained.” — HOWARD COHEN Rescue team member Jonathan Cruz cries on the floor as he is desperate to go out to attend several calls for help from citizens in need of assistance during the impact of Hurricane Maria that started to hit the eastern region of Puerto Rico, in Humacao, on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2017. Carlos Giusti AP Puerto Rico expected to lose all communication after Irma, Maria 10: 31 a.m.: Hurricane Maria has inflicted a devastating blow to Puerto Rico’s already damaged region, with as much as 90 percent of the island now without electricity, according to Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello. Even before the storm, more than 70,000 Puerto Ricans were without power after Hurricane Irma sideswiped the island. Most cell towers and other forms of communications are also down, Rosello told El Nuevo Dia late on Wednesday morning, speaking via a land line. “We should expect that at some point we will lose 100 percent communication,” he said. Emergency managers had been able to communicate with people on the island of Culebra via radio and satellite communications. So far, there’s been no word from the island of Vieques, he said. Storm surge is estimated at between five to seven feet, and waves topping 20 feet have hit the shore, he said. “This has been a high-danger event. Many people heard or felt the winds. The system is still going on, even as the eye is moving across,” he said. “The truth is the danger continues. It’s going to keep raining hard. Flood zones are at critical levels. We’re still going to have a full day of rain. The tail of the hurricane is going to lash Puerto Rico, bringing more rains and more winds.” — PATRICIA MAZZEI Caribbean diplomats, leaders alter attendance plans for UN General Assembly 10: 25: With the Caribbean still reeling from Hurricane Irma, and now Hurricane Maria as it follows a similar path, several Caribbean diplomats and leaders have either canceled, delayed or cut short their appearance at this year’s United Nations General Assembly. The latest: Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, secretary-general of the 15-member Caribbean Community economic and political bloc. LaRocque at present is trying to get into storm-ravaged Dominica, where Hurricane Maria made landfall prior to heading to the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Many of the islands battered by the recent hurricanes are either members or associate members of the regional bloc. — JACQUELINE CHARLES Dominica devastated, seven confirmed dead, urgent need for supplies 10 a.m.: According to an email sent out by a man identifying himself as a principal adviser to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominica, and reported on ABS Television/Radio on Facebook, Skerrit spoke by satellite phone at 4:30 a.m. Skerrit said his family is fine but Dominica is not. Tremendous loss of housing and public buildings. The main general hospital took a beating. Patient care has been compromised. Many buildings serving as shelters lost roofs, which means that a very urgent need now is tarpaulins and other roofing materials. Little contact has been made with the outer communities but persons who walked 10 and 15 miles towards the city of Roseau from various outer districts report total destruction of homes, some roadways and crops. Urgent helicopter services are needed to take food, water and tarpaulins to outer districts for shelter. Canefield airport can accommodate helicopter landings and it is expected that from today, the waters around the main Roseau port will be calm enough to accommodate vessels bringing relief supplies and other forms of assistance, the email read. “It’s difficult to determine the level of fatalities but so far seven are confirmed as a direct result of the hurricane. That figure, the prime minister fears, will rise as he wades his way into the rural communities today,” the email read. Urgent needs are roofing materials for shelters, bedding supplies for hundreds stranded in or outside of what is left of their homes, and food and water drops for residents of outlying districts inaccessible at the moment. The tarmac at Mellville Hall was not too badly damaged so the strip should be opened in a day or two for larger relief planes to land, according to the site. “In summary, the island has been devastated. The housing stock significantly damaged or destroyed. All available public buildings are being used as shelters; with very limited roofing materials evident. The country needs the support and continued help and prayers of all.” — JACQUELINE CHARLES Other troops on standby to swing into action once Maria cleared Puerto Rico 9:14 p.m.: Troops on standby included about 300 soldiers and Marines at the Muñiz air base, adjacent to the civilian airport in San Juan. The forces had deployed there from Soto Cano, Honduras, to help St. Martin recover from Irma but on Tuesday had to suspend their so-called Joint Task Force-Leeward Islands operations and move their eight helicopters, from Chinooks to Black Hawks, about 70 miles west to a hardened hangar in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. In St. Martin, the Marines and soldiers were making water through a portable purification system for both the Dutch and French side of the island, and had distributed about 4,500 gallons before halting for Hurricane Maria. “As soon as Maria’s over we’re planning on getting back on that mission — unless we’re tasked with something else,” said Marine Capt. Jeremy Croft. “This is definitely a strange hurricane season.” — CAROL ROSENBERG Veterinarians and animal care specialists on duty in the British Virgin Islands 8:53 a.m.: Humane Society International has a team of veterinarians and animal care specialists leading the rescue and care of animals in the British Virgin Islands. Upon arrival, they visited an animal shelter that had received heavy damage from Hurricane Maria. All the animals at the shelter survived the storm, but the team found them roaming around or hiding within the destroyed structure. They were able to secure all 21 animals and are now caring for them at a lightly damaged veterinary facility that is serving as HSI’s base. Nine of the dogs were transported to a temporary boarding facility in the United States along with four owned but displaced animals — three dogs and one cat. HSI will reunite the displaced animals with their owners in the coming days. In addition, the team has been providing emergency veterinary care as well as food and other supplies for pets and livestock. — JACQUELINE CHARLES Coast Guard ready to help in Puerto Rico 8:25 a.m.: The Coast Guard had helicopters, cutters and airplanes on standby for search-and-rescue operations once Maria left Puerto Rico, including two Clearwater based HH-60 Jayhawks and a Miami based HC-144 Ocean Sentry twin-engine plane from Miami at Guantanamo. On the island, the Coast Guard had three HH-65 Dolphin helicopters that can med-evac people at the ready and more Dolphins on the flight decks of cutters in the area. — CAROL ROSENBERG SHARE COPY LINK Wind from Hurricane Maria pushed open some shutters and rattled windows near San Juan in the early morning of Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017. Residents of St. Croix and U.S. Virgin Islands warned: “This is a moving, living creature.” 7:12 a.m.: An hour after residents of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands received a flash flood alert pinged on their cellular phone, the territory's Gov. Kenneth Mapp reported that Hurricane Maria was just 30 miles south-southeast of St. Croix and packing maximum sustained winds of 175 miles per hour. He warned residents to be vigilant throughout the night as hurricane force winds hit the low-lying island. “Don’t be asleep. It’s okay to rest, but be vigilant and aware of what’s going on around your property,” Mapp said. At the time, Hurricane Maria was going through an “eye replacement” process, in which the current eye was getting smaller, and being replaced by a larger eye — an indication that the storm is strengthening, Mapp told islanders. SHARE COPY LINK Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico early on September 20, bringing extreme wind and rain to the region, local media reported. The National Hurricane Center warned that Maria would hit the southeastern Puerto Rico after passing over the Caribbean isla He warned that hurricane force winds may be experienced beyond the original forecast of 4 a.m., until 5 to 6 a.m., after which tropical storm conditions will prevail. “This is a moving, living creature,” he said, explaining flash floods were expected on St. Croix and a tremendous amount of rain will collect across the entire Territory. Four hours later at 3 a.m., Mapp reported that the wind intensity on St. Croix was beginning to lessen, however, stronger gusts will continue. “Within the hour, you will experience noticeable difference,” he told his constituents. “Not safe to venture out, debris still airborne.” — JACQUELINE CHARLES SHARE COPY LINK Hurricane Maria made landfall in Dominica as a Category 5 just over a week after Irma devastated the Caribbean. Now, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico are bracing for the eye of the storm. Majority of buildings in Dominica are damaged 6:58 a.m.: The first aerial footage of Dominica after Hurricane Maria shows extensive damage, with many roofs blown off by the powerful storm. The footage was done by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), which left Barbados late Tuesday with relief supplies for the Caribbean island. “Dominica Initial situation overview indicates 70 to 80 percent damage to building stock, damage to hospital, roads and bridges,” Ronald Jackson, the head of CDEMA, said. — JACQUELINE CHARLESThe Napthine government must be kidding. Last week it announced six finalists in the competition to refurbish the Flinders Street Station. The winner of the $500,000 prize has already been decided by a jury of ''prominent people'', including the Master Chef presenter George Calombaris, but the decision won't be announced until August 8 to enable Victorians to vote for their favourite design. Incredibly, the government says there is no guarantee that the winning design will ever be built. It depends on whether the money is available. I think we are being set up for another Public Private Partnership, with the investment bankers and superannuation funds rushing to the rescue. Premier Denis Napthine shows plans for the East-West tunnel. It has the hallmarks of the Southern Cross (nee Spencer Street) Station redevelopment/ripoff. The capital cost of the building was $300 million. The private partners supplied the money and effectively charged the government an interest rate of 8.35 per cent over the life of the partnership. The government could have financed the same building, using the same construction company, at the then long-term bond rate of 5.65 per cent when the contract was signed in 2002 - a saving of $497 million. This saving might have helped pay teachers, nurses and ambulance drivers a competitive salary. This is what happens when the interests of investment banks and superannuation funds and their army of advisers are prioritised before actual services in health, education and public transport. It is the financial deal that matters, not the service that it is expected to provide.All Politics Blog From Milwaukee, Madison and beyond, a daily dose of political news and glimpses behind the scenes SHARE By of the Over the weekend at the Republican Party of Wisconsin convention in Green Bay, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon), a candidate for the U.S. Senate, used the Dropkick Murphys song "I'm Shipping Up to Boston." The Irish-American punk band was not happy to hear that. They issued this statement: "We just got word that Wisconsin State Rep. and Speaker of the State Assembly Jeff Fitzgerald used "Shipping Up To Boston" as his walk-on song yesterday at the Wisconsin GOP Convention in Green Bay. "The stupidity and irony of this is laughable. A Wisconsin Republican U.S. Senate candidate -- and crony of anti-union Gov. Scott Walker -- using a Dropkick Murphys' song as an intro is like a white supremacist coming out to gangsta rap! "Fitzgerald: If you and your staff can't even figure out your music, you might wanna give up on the politics!!!!! "We stand beside our union and labor brothers and sisters and their families in Wisconsin and all over the U.S.!" Reached Monday, Fitzgerald said he won't play the song any longer. "I can't believe it caused the stir that it did," he said. "I won't use it again." The band is a frequent visitor to Milwaukee and have appeared at Milwaukee Admirals hockey games. The song in question was featured in the Martin Scorcese film, "The Departed." The band also dedicated one of its songs, "Take 'Em Down," to those who protested Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill. The song must have worked for Fitzgerald
Defence Ministry's payroll. Mr Zabolotny tries to communicate with his captors, saying: 'I have information about weapons.' The mercenaries were shown in a truck, which is believed to have transported them to a town square where they were executed An ISIS propaganda video featuring the men later inaccurately referred to them as serving Russian soldiers. There are suspicions a third Russian was also caught but no information has been released. Grigory Tsurkanu was originally named as Grigory Mikhailovich Surkanov. He is now feared dead after reportedly being executed in front of a cheering crowd in a town square Senior Russian MP Viktor Vodolatsky said it is unlikely the two have survived. 'It is very sad but 99 per cent Roman Zabolotny is not alive, nor is the second prisoner,' he said. 'Before filming that video they were given a statement which they had to read. The Russians were shown apparently being driven to their deaths by Islamic State fighters 'In this text they would reject their Orthodox religion, reject their motherland, become Muslim and join ISIS. 'They stayed loyal to the Orthodox faith and their motherland until the very end, and this is what they were killed by those gangsters for.' There has been no official confirmation from the Russian authorities about their fate and Vladimir Putin is unlikely to speak publicly about mercenaries in Syria, though though experts say they work closely with the armed forces. The pair were executed the same day the video was made in a town square, according to Anatoly Kotlyarov, an MP in Zabolotny's home city of Rostov-on-Don. 'Unfortunately, this is true,' he said. 'Information was received that they were executed'. He told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper his 'trustworthy' source 'has never been mistaken in four years of our cooperation, especially when informing about the dead'. ADVERTISEMENT When asked if there had been secret negotiations between Russian forces and ISIS over the captives, he said this was'secret information' which he could not divulge. Grigory Tsurkanu, pictured centre, is said to have been fighting for Russian Orthodox mercenaries who went to Syria to protect Christians from terrorists An anonymous friend of father-of-two Zabolotny was also quoted saying he believed him dead. 'Last time I saw him he was about to go there. 'And when this video came out that he was captured, I used my own channels to clarify his fate. 'He is dead. Those bastards executed him.' Devout Orthodox believer Zabolotny was reported to have gone to Syria to protect Christians from terrorists. A Russian group offered $1 million to ISIS for each of the men if they were freed. A Zabolotny family member said they had not been informed he was dead. 'Negotiations are going on, there is no information about his death,' said the relative. His father Vasily said: 'I am worried about my son, I am hardly coping. 'I am on the edge, sorry, I don't want to speak more.' Tsurkanu's parents were reportedly told by the FSB secret service 'not to make any noise' in the media amid hopes he would be released soon. The mercenary used to be a Russian paratrooper in the intelligence section of the country's air assault forces. Roman Vasilievich Zabolotny (left) was reportedly killed after being caught by jihadists.But a relative said negotiations are under way and there is no information about his death The men were believed to be fighting for a group called Wagner private army. Ruslan Leviev, founder of Conflict Intelligence independent investigation group, said the pair were mercenaries. 'Our experience of watching this conflict tells us that Wagner private army mercenaries are the first to fight,' he said. 'We think it is a strategy of the Defence Ministry of Russia: sending mercenaries to the hottest places, we avoid losses among official soldiers and keep the image of a successful combat operation.' Earlier, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov sidestepped a question about the fate of the men. ADVERTISEMENT 'I repeat once again that, of course, the possible circumstances of their captivity and confirmation of their identity are things that are being dealt with by our relevant agencies,' he said.A single mother of six is facing potential jail time for selling ceviche, a seafood dish popular in Latin America, to an undercover police officer. Mariza Reulas is a member of the 209 Food Spot Facebook group, where members from Stockton, California could share recipes, organize potlucks, and occasionally sell what they cook. “Somebody would be like, ‘Oh I don’t have anything to trade you but I would love to buy a plate,’” Reulas told Fox 40. In December 2015, she was contacted by someone asking to buy a plate of her ceviche; that someone turned out to be an undercover investigator from San Joaquin County. Reulas, along with about a dozen others, was cited for two misdemeanors of operating a food facility and engaging in business without a permit. She was offered a plea agreement of three years of probation, 80 hours of community service and a $235 fine, but she refused to plead guilty. Now a trial is set for next month and Reulas could face up to a year in jail if she is found guilty. San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Kelly McDaniel told Fox 40 that the group was sent several warnings before charges were issued. “I don’t write the laws, I enforce them. And the legislature has felt that this is a crime,” said [McDaniel]. She says selling any food not subject to health department inspection puts whoever eats it in real danger, not to mention it undercuts business owners who do get permits to make their food. Reulas was the only person charged whose case is headed to trial because she was the only one who refused to accept the plea. Nevertheless, people should be able to sell homemade food to informed adults without the need of a license or threat of imprisonment. People should be free to buy and eat the foods of their choice, and the government should butt out.LOS ANGELES — Dodgers pitcher Chin-hui Tsao, who was sent outright to Triple-A Oklahoma City on Nov. 9, has refused the assignment and instead is a free agent. Tsao, with over three years of major league service time — he has accumulated four years, 75 days — and as someone who has been outrighted to the minors before, had the right to refuse any outright assignment, and he exercised that right. The 35-year-old right-hander pitched in two games for the Dodgers in 2016, allowing one run in 1⅔ innings, posting a 5.40 ERA. Tsao had a 3.31 ERA and six saves in 17 appearances for Oklahoma City in 2016, with 14 strikeouts and five walks in 16⅓ innings. Tsao did not pitch after May 21, suffering a right triceps strain that wiped out the remainder of his season. Tsao has signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers in each of the last two seasons.Here we aim to answer as many of your questions as possible, along with some valuable financial information helping to put the goals of the Safety Currency into perspective.The Safety Currency is a complementary currency designed to combat the financial crisis and inflation while providing prosperity to its users.In short, the Safety Currency was created to:• Deliver prosperity and abundance back to its users• Protect against the approaching and existing global financial meltdown• Address financial scarcity experienced by 99% of the world's population• Stimulate spending, product demand and jobs to restore economic circulationThe ease with which you can spend your Safety Currency will coincide with our phases of growth.Initially the currency's main aim is to build a large community of users – this community is the key to unlocking the full potential of the people-powered currency. In this initial phase people and merchants can start requesting and accepting payment in Safety Currency via their online accounts.In the future phases of the currency you will be able to:• Receive email updates of products and services available for purchase in Safety Currency• Purchase/Sell your goods and services on an online platform dedicated to the Safety Currency• Pay for goods and services in local shops easier than with a credit card via a mobile app.Without doubt there will be many more innovative tools to come to maximise the ease of use of the Safety Currency.To easily spend your Safety Currency, it's very important that we all'make the mind click' to treat this currency just the same as we would treat any other currency. So the next time you pay for something, don't forget to ask "Can I pay with Safety Currency?" – just the same as you would ask "can I pay with cash or credit card?"The ultimate success of the currency lies with us – the community. The more people that'make the mind click', and the more people that find inventive ways to utilize the currency's buying power, the more it will circulate, be used, be in demand and be accepted - this is just the very beginning of something potentially very BIG.The currency is priced at the same value as the traditional currency:1 USD = 1 Safety Dollar, 1 Euro = 1 Safety Euro, 1 Pound = 1 Safety Pound.Yes, and it is quite inevitable. Due to unprecedented amounts of global debt, coupled with rising inflation (a tax that never needs to be voted upon), some of the biggest names in the financial industry have declared that a global financial meltdown is upon us in the near future.Willem Buiter, at Citigroup:"Time is running out fast. I think we have maybe a few months - it could be weeks, it could be days - before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it."Dan Akerson, of General Motors:"The '08 recession, which was a credit bubble that manifested itself primarily through the real estate market, that was a serious stress.... This is much more serious!"Paul Hickey of Bespoke Investment Group:"More and more, we are hearing anecdotal comments from individuals and professionals that this is the most difficult environment they have ever experienced."Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank:(commenting on German Prime Minister Angel Merkel's stance on the Euro) "If you don't think Merkel's tone will change, then our investment advice is to dig a hole in the ground and hide."Due to need alone, the majority of our life's decisions are based around money, so money can therefore be likened to a drug because there is always the need to get more. Because of this need, it is the biggest enslavement tool on the face of the earth. The more debt we go into the, more enslaved we become.Many factors including unprecedented amounts of debt have encouraged people and companies to hold onto their money as they 'weather the financial storm'. This fear-based mentality restricts the flow of money throughout the world - that's a bad thing for almost all of us. Money needs to flow in the same way that blood needs to flow around the body. If our blood stops flowing we can suffer a stroke. Our current financial system is on the verge of a massive stroke as people hold onto their money while living in fear of an uncertain future.The Safety Currency aims to remedy this situation by pumping more money into the system, providing prosperity and abundance to its users. The positive side effects being that more money is spent, more demand for products and services is created, creating more jobs and allowing the positive flow of money to be restored.Additionally the Safety Currency can act as an aid to the existing financial system by taking some of the pressure off the currently debt laden economy.Generally speaking, the ease with which money is created almost defies logic. When you loan $100,000 from a bank, the bank simply types this amount into their computer and BOOM money is created. We can use this same logic to create money for the purpose of community abundance rather than company profits.We tend to forget that money and its side effects stem from a man-made system. Therefore there is no fundamental reason that the scarcity of money should be the norm. If we can create a system delivering scarcity - we can just as easily create a system delivering abundance - it's our choice.A people-powered currency is a monetary system designed to support the well being of mankind and not personal interests. The currency will only thrive if it's utilized by its community of users. Our aim is to serve this community; our measure of success is whether the community is using the currency or not. If we are not serving our users, we will not receive their support.No. The first thing we need to realise is that the global financial transactions processed every day is almost incomprehensibly large. The creation of money by the Safety Currency would only start make a dent in global financial markets once hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars of turnover is reached. At any point we can adjust the balance mechanisms to ensure healthy abundance at all times.Any money system only works because a large group of people agree to use it. If everyone today decided to support a more abundant system, the existing system would be replaced with a new (and better) system - it's that simple.Like any financial website, the security and peace of mind of our users is of utmost importance. We ensure that as we grow our security measures will constantly be improved in line with the latest security technologies.Not at all. But it's a question a lot of people ask so you're not alone. A pyramid scheme is created to get money out of your pockets. This currency was created to get money in your pockets!That's a perfectly natural reaction to have (being sceptical until you understand it) that comes from years of conditioning by our friends, family and society at large. The simplicity and prosperity of this new system is a product of in-depth knowledge gained through years of hands-on experience in the financial industry - great things don't need to be complicated.Yes - if you support it. There are over 30 alternative currencies functioning in Spain alone. The reason many alternative currencies don't grow beyond their region is because they are not designed to be a global currency in the first place. This is where the Safety Currency differs. All we have done is design the tool…but the success of the currency all depends on YOU – the community that uses it. The more you use it the more benefit the whole community receives…It's a long road to become a global currency, but just as with any long trip, it all starts with the first step.Yes, if the community chooses to. Safety Currency users amongst each other, are able to exchange Safety Currency for any other currency and vice versa. In the future, this process will probably happen via dedicated exchanges allowing different currencies to be interconnected.Apart from spreading and using the currency, we are always looking for enthusiastic people to join our amazing team. Just email us at contact@safetycurrency.org to register your interest.Narita Airport has announced that landing fees for airlines are to be reduced from the end of April. The average reduction among all aircraft types at the airport is to be 5.5%. The airport has long been criticized for its comparatively high landing fees. The largest decrease will be enjoyed by the newest and quietest aircraft. The Boeing 777-200 will be the recipient of the largest rate cut, dropping by around half from 455,000 yen to 214,000 yen per landing, TBS reported. Under the airport's current fee system, airlines pay 1,650 yen ($20.60) to 2,100 yen ($26.27) per tonnage according to noise index. Narita has announced those rates will now be reduced by 100 yen ($1.25) for each category. Apart from a temporary reduction during the 2008 financial crisis, this is the first time the airport has reduced its charges since 2005, according to The Yomiuri Shimbun. Some analysts are saying the cut is likely to be in response to Tokyo Haneda Airport's growing stature as an international hub and its increasing ability to compete. Along with a growing reputation for handling international flights, Haneda also has the advantage of being closer to the center of Tokyo. An ANA spokesperson said that the reduction was "a good move", but that Narita remained a more expensive airport than others in the region. Industry analysts are now speculating that ticket prices for consumers may drop in reaction to the announcement. © Japan TodayUnited Launch Services has been awarded an $860 million contract modification for work on the U.S. Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle for Delta IV and Atlas V rockets. Pictured, an Atlas V launched last year. U.S. Air Force photo WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- United Launch Alliance has been given an $860 million contract modification for work on the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle for Delta IV and Atlas V rockets. The deal covers the EELV capability for the two kinds families of rockets. ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, will provide launch capability options, including mission integration, base and range support, maintenance commodities and Delta and Atlas depreciation. They will also provide for mission assurance, program management, systems engineering, integration of the space vehicle with the launch vehicle, launch site and range operations and launch infrastructure, maintenance and sustainment. Work will be performed in Colorado, California and Florida, and is expected to be completed by September 2017. The Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center is the contracting activity.Dutch MP calls for removal of all mosques in Netherlands THE HAGUE - Anadolu Agency A Dutch right-wing political party has demanded Netherlands be cleared of mosques, amid an ongoing row over the integration of Muslim and Turkish minorities in the country.Machiel de Graaf, a member of Dutch anti-immigration and anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV), asked all mosques in the country to be shut down while speaking during a debate on integration in the House of Representatives.Emphasizing that a Netherlands without mosques would be better, the parliamentarian said “We want to clean Netherlands of Islam.”In addition to not being integrated into Dutch society and refuse to be assimilated, Muslims living in the country threaten Dutch identity and culture by giving more birth, according to de Graaf.De Graaf’s remarks drew harsh criticism from members of social democratic parties attending the debate.While Labor Party (PvdA) deputy Roos Vermeij urged the right-winger to retract his words, Democrats 66 (D66) deputy Sten van Weijenberg stressed his statements were dangerous.De Graaf’s party, which is led by right-wing politician Geert Wilders, has been a vocal critic of Muslims and immigrants living in the country, but his words mark the first time that the request for the complete closure of mosques has been expressed.The debate also came as Turkey warned Dutch authorities about aggressive and racist policies toward the Turkish community living there.Two weeks ago, two lawmakers of Turkish descent from the PvdA were expelled after refusing to support their party’s critical remarks about a number of Turkish organizations that were accused of being “too focused on promoting Turkish and Islamic identity.”This is my work I picked up some stock plants recently to sell at the upcoming 2013 Bonsai Societies of Florida State convention. My aim is to style, root prune and make pretty these trees. Some I got for growing out and one or two for my collection. Here they are individually They’re all ficus. This one is f. Retusa F. Salicaria F. Salicaria F. Microcarpa F. Retusa F. Green island F. triangularis Beginning at the beginning, we have a clump of roots With a chopstick stuck in them. A lot of the time I will just saw off half of them. But I know these were cuttings and they were planted deep. That much trunk was under the soil line. I may not keep it but its good to know its there. These are ficus. What I can do to these roots I cannot do with other trees. It’s also May in Florida. These will have new leaves in 1-2 weeks. Do not think you can do this in Indiana or Edmonton like I can here in Florida. I must underline this, the time to repot or initial pot is when nighttime temps are about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Not in the winter or when the tree is dormant. This root which is tough to see; how’s this? It must go, plus a lot of the trunk that was buried has to be removed too That’s better. It looks like this tree wants to be banyan style so I’ll need a wider pot Some wire Which should look like this (somewhat) by the end of summer Now, I won’t go into great detail with every tree. I think that might just bore you, so I’ll hit the highlights and such. Next tree is a retusa I’ve trimmed the roots and now for some chopping I cut here to begin ( Law of Bonsai: you can’t glue a branch back on) but I think it needs to be shorter Too much reverse taper that won’t get better with time Better. In a pot and turned around Good. Next is a f. salicaria My hand is covering up the trunk that was under the soil. My thumb is an inch wide at the knuckle. So figure about two inches buried underneath the dirt. Always dig down. This tree has a lot of branches (good) but it also suffers from a lack of taper. Thwunk! Whoops! Can’t glue that back on either. But I think it’s for the best I might have to keep this one myself. Next! We have here a typical example of the F. Microcarpa. I got this one as a stock plant to chop back and grow out. And take cuttings off of, so… Whack! Chop! Plant! So why did I cut the roots so far back? I only want the surface roots to develop, and if I left the big chunky roots it would give the tree no reason to grow the side ones. Kinda like when you are decandling a pine tree you want to even out the growth. Next! A nice f. Salicaria with an amazing nebari. Unfortunately that’s all it has. A little sawing Some serious chopping A pot and some wire It should work. Don’t see it? Well, ok, here you go then… Don’t think so? Give me five years. Next is another f. Microcarpa I purchased to grow it bigger Ouroboros-esque, no? I’ll need to fix those roots. Why? Well, they are not very tree-ish. But aren’t you trying to grow this bigger? Yes. It’s better to address this now before I have an awesome plant to kill rather than this stock plant. Also, the roots I want to grow won’t grow because all the energy is sucked away into that big honking knob This root needs to catch up And be on the other side. Get the saw This will not kill the tree. And that’s it. Put it in a 3 gallon pot. Let it grow. Next we have this sweet f. Green Island Nice root spread. It could be a cascade with that long, low branch but I have a better idea. It will be a root instead. No, really. It’s low enough to pull it off and it works. See? That’s a trick you can use if you’re in a growing area that doesn’t promote aerial roots. Next Another tiger bark (retusa). Where my fingers are holding it is where the soil line was. This is a recurring theme with this post. Always dig down. A quick trim And a pot No wire on this one… I can’t do all the work. The next tree is one that truly called to me when I saw it. Pretty respectable, right? Wait until you see under the soil It’s been in this pot a long time. You know the drill by now, cut, saw, cajole. And the roots now And what was a nice little pig is now a big pig What do you think of that? All wired and potted It’s gonna be sweet. Almost done….. Next So this one really illustrates the theme here. I thought this would be a cute little tree. Until I dug down that is This is the same tree. I wouldn’t try to trick you. Wire and pot It’s still a little tree but not a mame like I was hoping for. These next two I styled and potted at a demonstration so I don’t have any before pics for you They turned out well I think. And the last tree is that f. triangularis. This one is special though. It will get its own post. Sorry. Here are the trees (minus the stock ones I’m growing) and a teaser on the triangularis (if you zoom in). I could have done individual posts on these trees and maybe even made the posts interesting. But the techniques were all the same. And the lesson: with a ficus that was grown from a cutting, always dig down to find the true base. Don’t trust what you see at the soil line.Some baseball fans see prospects as “a bunch of guys who won’t make it to the majors.” While that’s largely true, the ones that do are the lifeblood of any baseball franchise, and no one covers those prospects like Jason Parks of Baseball Prospectus. Jason recently released his Diamondbacks Top 10 and followed it up with the Baseball Prospectus 101 where he and his team and ranked the best 101 prospects in the game (including three D-backs). To top it all off, the 2014 Baseball Prospectus Annual is now available and it’s read cover-to-cover by just about everyone you should trust in baseball, including Diamondbacks announce Steve Berthiaume. If you don’t follow Professor Parks on twitter, you really should and his work at BP is worth the price of admission on its own (making the rest of the content an amazing bonus). Last week, Jason graciously agreed to do a Q&A for Inside the ‘Zona regarding the Diamondbacks’ system. His comments paint a hopeful picture for the organization and highlight some of the strengths of the franchise when it comes to talent procurement and player development. Because he sees so many prospects in person as a full-time scout, evaluator and writer, his insights are nearly unparalleled. Without further introduction, here’s our conversation: Jeff Wiser: We know about Archie Bradley, he’s going to be a stud. Rather than gush over him, I want to take this opportunity to address a couple of other guys and trends within the Diamondbacks system. In a recent chat at Baseball Prospectus, you mentioned that Braden Shipley could shoot up lists over the summer and be someone that organizations that drafted before the Diamondbacks will regret passing on. What can we look for from him and what does he need to do to grow into a top-30 prospect? Jason Parks: On-the-field production that backs up the scouting is what pushes players up prospect lists, and Shipley has the combination of stuff and pitchability to bring the entire package together in 2014. His fastball is plus-plus; his changeup could be plus-plus, AND…he throws a hammer curveball that could be plus. It’s a very sexy package, and if everything clicks, he could be a number two starter. Wiser: You and Keith Law of ESPN had very different rankings on Chris Owings. Obviously you both think he’s talented and worthy of high regard, but why do you think you were higher on Owings than Law? Parks: I honestly don’t care where Keith Law ranks players. I do—however—care where teams rank players, and I’ve spoken to several teams that are lower on Owings than I am, and the reasoning seems to be focused on his approach, and how you can see exploitable weakness against better arms. The book is going to get out on Owings, and you can bet he gets a steady diet of soft and spin early in counts, and it will be up to him to make the next adjustment. I really like the bat; he shows bat speed and good bat control, and I believe in his ability to make adjustments. A good scout source put a Michael Young label on Owings, and despite the negative connotations associated with Young in recent years, the player being referenced is a 200-hit middle infielder that can really hit fastballs and uses an all-fields approach. It’s not overly flashy and more blue-collar than blue-chip, but I think he develops into a very good major league player. Wiser: I wrote a piece last week on what the Diamondbacks’ prospect landscape will look like come 2015 with Bradley and Owings likely to exhaust their eligibility this season. What other guys have a chance to jump into the Top 100 fray come this time next January? Parks: Jose Martinez is going to be a frontline prospect. Justin Williams could make it interesting, as could Sergio Alcantara if the bat steps up. But Jose Martinez could really jump lists in 2014, and by 2015, he could be one of the top arms in the game. He has that sort of ceiling. Wiser: Across the board, it appears that a lot of Diamondback pitching prospects, aside from relievers, favor the curveball instead of the slider when it comes to breaking pitches. From your knowledge, is this a deliberate emphasis on the part of the organization to keep pitchers from throwing sliders (which some studies have shown to increase injury risks) or is it simply a coincidence. Parks: I’m really not sure. I think the curveball is a harder pitch to learn, to command, and to throw for strikes, so it’s common around baseball to see the slider taught to young arms (or arms that don’t take to the curveball). I’m not sure the violent snap of the curveball is all that better for the arm than the slider, but it would be interesting if the D-backs are big believers in the studies that suggest sliders add to the injury risk. Wiser: The talent in the Diamondbacks’ system has appeared to come in waves. The most recent wave has either entered the majors or been traded away. The next wave seems quite a ways off, as you mentioned that there are a number of players to get excited about in the low minors (complex level). Which pitchers should we be watching closely in 2014? Parks: I’ll keep saying this name until he becomes a ubiquitous presence in baseball: Jose Martinez. Not the biggest guy in the world, but a loose and easy arm; velocity projects to be in the plus-plus range on the fastball; hard curveball could be second plus-plus offering; big bat-missing weapon pitch, with an extremely tight rotation and vertical snap. It’s a frontline profile in the mold of a Yordano Ventura. Nasty. Another arm to keep an eye on is Brad Keller. It’s not a fancy ceiling; rather, more of a workhorse type with a low-90s fastball and a solid-average secondary set. It’s a physically mature body, so don’t expect a big arsenal bounce as he climbs, but he’s going to log innings, miss some bats, and more importantly: make outs. Wiser: What about hitters at that same level? Who might emerge this season? Parks: I ranked Justin Williams and Sergio Alcantara on the D-backs top ten list, but an even deeper sleeper is Fernery Ozuna. Small package at second base, but a hit tool that is highly projectable; shows fast hands, excellent bat speed and control, and the ability to square up balls in all quadrants. He has pop, and I bet he keeps hitting against better competition. I wanted to rank him in the top ten in the system. The 18-year-old Dominican can rake. Just wait. Wiser: Looking at Ray Montgomery’s scouting and Mike Bell’s player development system as a whole, what are some strengths of the Diamondbacks organization when it comes to developing young talent? Parks: It starts with identifying talent at the amateur level, finding the type of arms with size, strength and the projection to have impact arsenals. They seem attracted to polish when it comes to arms as well, college types with size, athleticism, pitchability and advanced developmental profiles. In a way, Archie Bradley was a college arm; polished more than the average high school pitcher, with a mature body and a mature approach that has allowed him to move through the minors relatively quickly. Seems like the type of arm they like to target. On the positional side, they seem to take more chances. They aren’t afraid to go high risk/high reward from the high school ranks, taking players that will need extra time in the developmental process, not made-ready types on the fast rise. Wiser: Ok, Jason, last question: which NL West team should the Diamondbacks fear most in the next three to five years? Is it still the Dodgers with all of their money or does another team have the young talent to make a big move in the division? Parks: You should always fear money, but financial boom doesn’t always equate to on-the-field success. I would fear both the Padres and the Rockies over the next three-to-five years. The Padres have a very strong farm system that could start yielding serious fruit over the next few seasons. The Rockies have every opponent’s nightmare: two potential frontline starters in their farm in Gray and Butler, and a slew of high-end offensive talent that has yet to impact the full-season leagues. If Tapia or Dahl really pop, the Rockies are going to be a very dangerous club in 5 years. Wiser: Jason, thanks for taking some time to talk Diamondbacks prospects with us! We appreciate the first-hand insight and we’ll be looking forward to following these guys all year long. Parks: No problem, my pleasure. Please drop a question or two in the comments below if you have them. I’ll try to field as many as I can and perhaps Jason will weigh in if there’s something that he feels compelled to address. Also, if you get chance, be sure to thank him (via @ProfessorParks on twitter) for his time and sharing his thoughts about the future of the Diamondbacks organization.Dead Space may feature co-op and human enemies, according to sources Dead Space 3 may feature drop-in/drop-out co-op, crouching and evasive maneuvers, human enemies and impromptu battle arenas, according to sources close to IGN. As stated on the the site, Isaac Clarke will be joined on his journey across ice planet Tau Volantis by "a man with a gnarly scar on his face, an engineering RIG of his own, and glowing red eyes peering from his helmet." In the single player game however, the scarred man will serve as the player's guide. Users will experience different cut scenes depending on whether they are playing in co-op or single player mode. Additionally players can co-operatively interact with the environment together by using, as an example, telekinesis. It is stated ammo will be shared with your co-op partner and although there is no revive system it is possible to heal your partner. The Dead Space workbench where players upgrade weapons is said to change as well. The Plasma Cutter now features a knockback effect similar to the Force Gun in its alt-fire mode, while the Pulse Rifle features saw-blades as its secondary firing mode, which may be one of the new customization alternatives in the new workbench. Telekinesis is more complex this time, allowing you to rotate items rather than simply holding them. Finally, new enemies and dangerous tech will be introduced in Dead Space 3, including gun-wielding humans that later become Necromorphs, a spinning top-like drill that can slice through Isaac when too close and a giant spider-like creature with orange-tinted weak spots. Further information is likely to rear its head at this year's upcoming E3. We contacted EA for comment and will update the story when more details become available.SAN ANTONIO — In 1996, Peter Holt joined the Spurs' ownership group with modest expectations. He soon discovered how difficult the business of the NBA could be. Injuries to key players, including Hall of Fame center David Robinson, led to the worst record in franchise history at 20-62. Since his tough “rookie” season, the Spurs chairman has not experienced another losing record, seen his team win five NBA championships and watched the value of the franchise skyrocket. Holt's typical candor was on display in a wide-ranging discussion that included his views about his team's place in NBA history, the dynamics of ownership-by-committee and the future of Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and his “Big Three” stars — Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker: Q: You're the chairman of a team that just won a fifth NBA championship, its first since 2007. Do you think these Spurs can be considered a dynasty? A: It's an interesting question. I don't believe it's a dynasty relative to sports. I do believe it's a dynasty relative to the fact you've got Popovich and Tim, so you've got your head coach for 18 years and your captain of the team, the anchor of the team, being together for 17 years. For that point of view and that continuum, I believe it's a dynasty. And the same ownership group, the same general manager, R.C. (Buford) — whatever his title has been before he's been the general manager while Pop's been the head coach. They're joined at the hip. From that point of view, player and coach together for 17 years, which I think is a record, I think it is a dynasty. Q: Could you possibly have envisioned this run of success? A: Oh, no, no. I wasn't any pro in the business, by any means, but I loved sports, like most Americans and most people around the world, it seems. But I never thought of this kind of run, and never mind the championships — and there's nothing better — but the 16 or 17 years of 50-plus (wins) and the winning percentage, all those things that go with it and now breaking every record in the NBA because we've been running so long at this level. Remember, I've only had one losing year and that was my first year, 1996-97, which now I'm glad happened and not just because we got Tim. I didn't know we were going to get Tim. We were third (worst record), not first. But it helped me understand how difficult this business is. It really did. I mean, the year before we had been in the Western Conference finals and we had David. I thought everything was going to be peachy keen and we went 20-62. The kids that summer, my wife and I told them we were buying into the Spurs and they were all excited because we all loved the Spurs and had season tickets and went all the time. By the end of the season, they said, “Dad, can we sell the Spurs? Everybody on the playground at school thinks you're an idiot.” That's a true story. Everybody thought I'd screwed
bill in 2014 (language that was subsequently renewed) barring the Obama administration from using other sources of money to supplement those fees if the fund wasn’t big enough to fully cover the risk. This seemingly arcane legislative maneuver had a serious impact. In the first year of the risk corridor, insurance companies had $2.87 billion in claims—but the government only had $362 million to hand back to them. “A little-noticed health care provision slipped into a giant spending law last year has tangled up the Obama administration, sent tremors through health insurance markets and rattled confidence in the durability of President Obama’s signature health law,” the New York Times wrote of Rubio’s efforts. “Some insurers left the marketplaces or even collapsed altogether, leading Rubio to crow his actions have been ‘a big part of ending Obamacare for good,'” explained Politifact. Playing chicken with cost-sharing reductions Since he took office early this year, Trump has been playing a game of chicken with the insurance industry, hinting that he’ll blow up the individual marketplace if lawmakers don’t repeal Obamacare. The administration even reportedly threatened to wreck the industry’s finances if insurers don’t support the GOP’s health care bill. “The biggest single reason for that rate increase is the lack of the federal funding for CSRs in 2018.” The dispute relates to a provision in Obamacare known as cost-sharing reductions that helps offset out-of-pocket costs for lower-income families. It requires insurance companies to offer lower deductibles and co-pays and, in exchange, promises that the federal government will reimburse insurers for these costs. The lower out-of-pocket costs are clearly mandated under the law, but in 2014, House Republicans sued the Obama administration over the reimbursement payments, claiming that Congress hadn’t technically appropriated those funds. That case remains in legal limbo, but Trump has threatened to drop the administration’s defense against the suit and end the payments. Because of the way the law is written, even if Trump ended the cost-sharing payments, insurance companies would still have to offer the lower rates. That would destroy their financial calculations, forcing insurers to raise premiums across the board or pull out of some markets altogether. The payments to insurers are made monthly, and Trump has said he could decide to stop making them at any time. Each month, the Trump administration has reiterated the uncertainty around cost-sharing reductions. “We committed to making them last month, and that’s as far as we will go at this time,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in late June. “We’re not committing to them this month.” Insurance companies have already cited that uncertainty when announcing their decisions to either leave marketplaces or increase premiums for 2018. Brad Wilson, the head of Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina, directly pointed to Trump’s comments to justify his company’s request for a 22.9 percent premium increase for 2018. “The biggest single reason for that rate increase is the lack of the federal funding for CSRs in 2018,” Wilson told Vox. “We cannot assume nor should we that the money is going to be there based on what we know today. The president and the administration have made several statements about CSRs that don’t give any comfort that they will be available.” Similarly, the Congressional Budget Office said last month that Obamacare markets are generally stable but that uncertainty about the future of CSR payments “may lead insurers to withdraw from the market.”Bacon. It has a wonderful place in human history. Humans have eaten it for thousands of years, traded it as a staple of economies, and most recently, turned it into an internet meme. It’s no mystery why we have a love affair with Bacon. It’s the Christina Hendricks of meat products. The smell of bacon soothes a crying infant. Vegetarians make exceptions for bacon. Bacon is the closest we can get to empirically proving the existence of God. Bacon, for lack of a better word, is The Shit. All the aforementioned could be said about store-bought bacon. The thing is, I had heard whispers that bacon from scratch—cured, smoked, and cut at home—puts store-bought bacon to profound shame. I didn’t think it was possible to improve on perfection, but I had to find out. And so I bravely set out to into the unknown to discover the lost art of homemade bacon, by which I mean I turned off Extreme Home Makeover, got off my ass and looked it up online. Let me say straight away that my culinary skills are average at best. But like my ping-pong game, they inexplicably improve with drinking. And so, after reading up, I decided to crack a beer and make some homemade bacon. I discovered that not only is it remarkably easy and cheap, it results in bacon so insanely good you’ll wonder if Jesus came down and pissed on your tongue. Here’s how you do it. Step 1: Purchase Head on down to your local butcher shop. If you don’t know a local butcher, I suggest using a service such as The Internet to locate one. If you don’t have The Internet, then you have bigger things to worry about than making bacon from scratch. Also, you couldn’t even be reading this right now. Moving on. Ask the butcher for pork belly: it arrives in slabs about 20-30 inches long and about 8 inches across: you’ll recognize them from their familiar bacon-esque cross section. They cost around $3.50 a pound, and you’ll probably want a quarter slab—a piece weighing about 4 to 5 pounds. Make sure the pork belly has the rind (the skin) ON. If you want to be a perfectionist, call your butcher and ask when they get the pork bellies in. Should be once a week. Go on that day to ensure you get the freshest meat. Once you’ve picked out your pork belly, pay for it and take it home. This part is obvious. Step 2: Cure This is also easy. Curing, back in the day, was the way people preserved meats without refrigeration. You see, cured cells exert osmotic pressure that prevents undesirable micro… you know what? Nevermind. Point is that nowadays, since we have crazy inventions like electricity, curing is no longer used to preserve. Instead, it’s used as a way of enhancing flavor, as curing extracts much of the water content from the meat’s cells thereby intensifying the flavors. To cure your pork belly, rub that bitch down with something akin to the following. 4 cups Kosher salt 2 cups brown sugar (for flavor, cuts the salt) You can add a variety of things to this rub: black pepper, garlic, ground bay leaves, mermaid tears, angel farts, whatever. Use your imagination. What flavors you add will come through in the meat. Now use ALL the rub to cover the pork belly, then stick it in a zip lock bag, and put it in the fridge. Then kick back, relax, check your email, watch the game, make a Bed, Bath and Beyond run, and just generally live your life for the next 7 days. Check on it periodically, maybe turning it over and draining any accumulated liquid. After that week, pull it out, rinse it off, pat it dry. You’ll notice it looks a lot like, well, cured meat. Now you’re going to leave it in the fridge, uncovered, for a day. Why? The pork belly needs to form a pellicle. “Forming the pellicle” sounds like a military assault tactic, but it’s actually way worse: the pellicle is a tacky, gooey layer that forms on the outside of the meat after curing. Kind of gnarly, but it is essential for the next step. Step 3: Smoke Smoking is the final step, and the trickiest one. It imparts that necessary smoky bacon flavor, and helps give the meat that perfect bacon texture. Good news is, if you have a BBQ, it’s fairly easy to accomplish. If you don’t, well, use your friend’s BBQ. If you don’t have any friends with a BBQ, use the internet to find a DIY smoker plan. If you don’t have any friends period, well, I’m sorry, that sucks. Maybe you should get out more. The key here is that you are only smoking your bacon, not cooking it. You don’t want your pork belly exposed to direct heat, so use about half the coals you normally would, move them all the way to the side, and toss a few pieces of wood (hickory, maple) soaked in water for half an hour on top to produce good smoke. You don’t want the temperature inside the smoker to get above about 200 degrees (use a meat thermometer). Place the pork belly inside, rind side up. That sticky pellicle will help the smokey flavor adhere to the meat. Close the lid up, and keep the smoke coming out the vent nice and ample for the next two hours, by adding the necessary briquettes and wood chunks. It’ll take about 2 hours for a proper smoke, so hang out by the grill for a while and do something enjoyable, like drinking beer or watching bunnies mate. After about 2 hours, pull it out, and cut the skin away while it’s still warm, taking care to leave as much fat underneath as possible. Now, if you have done things correctly, you will be holding in your hand the something that’s damn near divine. Cut slices off the pork belly to the thickness you prefer, cook over low heat to your desired floppy/crispy level. It’ll keep for a week in the fridge, or months if frozen. Final point: when you cook your homemade bacon in the pan, you’ll have a healthy, er, substantial amount of melted fat left in the pan. DO NOT THROW THIS AWAY. Bacon fat is amazingly tasty, and you’d be throwing away the equivalent of white, creamy gold. Instead, pour it into a heat-resistant container and store it in the fridge. You can use it for a bunch of stuff. You like fried eggs? Instead of greasing the pan with butter, try bacon fat. Next time you make popcorn, drizzle a little melted bacon fat on instead. Anything that calls for oil or butter, try bacon fat. Pastas, salad dressings, even toast. The uses are endless, as are the rewards. You may never go back.Rep. Chris Taylor at the Wisconsin capitol last year. This might be the scariest thing I've read in a while. Not that I didn't know what sorts of things ALEC is up to, of course, but damn. They have the equivalent of the space shuttles and we have Flexible Flyers. Via Bill Moyers: Representative Chris Taylor is a Democrat elected to the Wisconsin legislature in 2011. Last week, she attended the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual conference in Chicago. Writing about her experience at The Progressive magazine’s website, she describes her experience inside the “ALEC universe” and writes: “ALEC members have been quietly working out of the public eye to develop their agenda so that when given the opportunity, they are ready to start creating an ALEC nation. That time has come. And they are ready.” We caught up with her by phone back in Wisconsin to talk about what she found out about the conservative policy-making machine. Riley: Why did you want to attend the conference? What did you hope to achieve there? Taylor: I’m very new in the legislature. I came in the middle of last term. So I missed a lot of the Act 10 [debate]. I was working on various issues when all of that was going on. But I wanted to learn more. I wanted to have a better understanding of the group, so that I could, when I needed to, fight some of these very regressive policies better. I think it’s so incredibly important for people to understand where these [model] bills are coming from and try to understand the rationale. I was quite blown away by the extent of where [Wisconsin] policy is coming from, because so much of it is coming from this group. Riley: ALEC conferences are known for being very security conscious. Were you incognito? Did you wear a badge with your party affiliation? Taylor: No. I did wear a badge with my name and that I was a Wisconsin legislator. Every person there had a badge on. When you registered you had to present ID, which is really unusual. I mean I’ve been to conferences throughout my whole life, I’ve never had to present an ID. There was a big assumption that I was a Republican. Every person I talked to assumed that I was a Republican. Riley: And were you open with the fact that you weren’t, or – Taylor: No, if somebody asked me I was not going to lie. I really was there just to listen and to try to figure out where some of these people were coming from. One guy I was talking to, who was from one of these right wing think tanks was saying we need to curb Obama’s reckless power with these administrative regulations, and he wanted a federal constitutional amendment saying Congress has to approve federal regulations. I said, I don’t think most people are going to want to amend the Constitution for that. I don’t think that ignites people. Maybe it does on the far right, but most people don’t really care about that. And he said, “Oh, well, you really don’t need people to do this. You just need control over the legislature and you need money, and we have both.” That sentiment was underscored so many times to me, that they don’t want people involved in the political process, or in the policy process. And that seems to be the intent in a lot of ways: You have a think tank in every state and all they do is come up with these very, very regressive policies, you have corporations who are going to benefit so they fund it all, and then you have the legislators as your foot soldiers to carry out the tasks. There were a couple of instances where legislators actually did challenge some of the policies, but they always lost. The legislators were admonished many times during this conference for not doing enough and for not standing up to the federal government more. Riley: One of the think tanks that we’ve reported on, the Heartland Institute, sponsored a breakfast. They are a climate change denial think tank. Did you go to that? Taylor: I did. Riley: What was the presentation like? Taylor: It was incomprehensible. I could not follow it. It was so zany and weird. He said CO2 was not that bad for us because crops grow bigger with a lot of CO2. My husband’s an environmental historian, so I asked him, “Is that true?” He said, “Yeah, but it doesn’t mean CO2’s good for you.” The whole premise was you need to challenge the left, that there’s many, many holes in global warming, and we don’t do enough to challenge them. We also had a presentation on the Endangered Species Act at a lunch sponsored by the Texas Oil and Gas Association. The presenter said that the Endangered Species Act threatens the economy of every single state in the nation. It’s leading to high unemployment rates, threatens local economies, it doesn’t allow growth, etc. — that this is a matter of life and death, to get rid of the Endangered Species Act, because every state’s economy is going to topple if it remains in effect. I wasn’t very impressed by the environmental presentations, frankly. I didn’t think they were very good. Riley: What were you impressed by? Taylor: I was really impressed by their infrastructure. I mean, we would never duplicate something like this on the left because, first of all, we would never take instructions from corporations, but the coordination that they have between these policy think tanks, the money and the legislators, in terms of just driving an agenda, it’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m fascinated by it because I’ve never seen anything like it from the left. I was the public policy director at Planned Parenthood, so I’m very familiar with building infrastructure. We did a lot of that in the state of Wisconsin. But we have nothing that I know of on the national front that connects all these things. It is a well-oiled machine. They’re really organized, they’re really coordinated and they have the resources. And they’re not afraid to push it when they have the opportunities. Now they have 24 state legislatures that are Republican controlled and they have Republican governors. So they’ve had incredible success. They’ve had 71 bills introduced just this year that make it harder for most people who are injured to access the courts. We’ve certainly seen that here in Wisconsin. That was one of the first things that Walker did when he came in was push this tort reform through. They have been waiting for 40 years to do some of the things they’re doing right now. They’ve been developing these model policies, making these connections and building these relationships, and when they had an opportunity, like right here in Wisconsin, they pushed it. They did not hesitate to push their extreme agenda, even though it hurts people. It doesn’t help the average person. It hurts people to say we’re not going to invest in public education. It hurts people to deprive the government of revenue by these massive tax cuts to mostly rich people.According to the projections done by Football Outsiders in their recently released 2012 Football Outsider's Almanac, pretty darn tough. Their projected average opponent for the Chargers comes to 3.9% DVOA (for those not familiar with DVOA it is explained here). That ranks as the 3rd hardest in the NFL by that measure. For another way to think of it, this would be somewhere on the equivalent of playing every game next year against the 2011 version of the Dallas Cowboys. Also, by comparison, the Chargers had 2011 DVOA of 0.6%. In 2010, 17.1%. 2009, 13.6%. However, over at the site BeyondTheBets, a different way was devised to determine how tough the schedule is. The idea being that there should be a better way to determine schedule strength than just using the previous year's win totals. The method devised is to take the projected wins from a Vegas sportsbook for each opponent and add them up. Then use rankings from an NFL Preview Magazine and average the opponents based on their rank. Then average the two together. The Chargers come out with the 18th toughest schedule in the sportsbook part, 27th toughest in the rankings portion and 25th in the combined part. So you've got one system saying the schedule is one of the toughest in the NFL and another one trying to saying that it is one of the easiest? How do you know what to believe? Both systems are flawed. Projecting DVOA is a tricky business and the developers themselves claim that the projections using the stat are never as good as the stat is at measuring past performance. However, the second method is extremely flawed. The sportsbook when devising its win totals already has to account for schedule strength. And the rankings are completely subjective and unscientific. On top of that, why was an average taken? What was the evidence suggested that made it seem like they both pieces should be equally weighted? The only logic given was that, hey, these are both flawed system so let's average them out. As if averaging makes flaws and biases magically disappear. Child, please. So, anyway, I'm more inclined to side with Football Outsiders' analysis. That the Chargers schedule is hard. One of the hardest. Mainly because I know that even with its flaws their method has been tested and improved over time. Whereas other fly-by-night stuff is just guesses with no testing done over time. So buckle your seat belts Charger fans, the schedule is a bit of a bumpy ride.Ravens cornerback Lardarius Webb remains ahead of schedule in his recovery from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, making significant progress in his rehabilitation, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. The scenario of Webb potentially being back on the field for the first game of the regular season against the Denver Broncos hasn't been ruled out as a possibility, per the source. Webb isn't rushing back since getting hurt in October against the Dallas Cowboys, but has worked diligently at the Ravens' training complex ever since his knee was repaired by renowned orthopedist Dr. James Andrews. "It's coming along," Webb said this spring prior to the Ravens concluding offseason workouts. "I'm taking it slow. I'm working my butt off, coming along." Entering the second year of a $50 million contract that included a $10 million signing bonus, Webb is being counted on heavily to provide leadership and a shutdown presence in the secondary for a defense that's in the midst of a major overhaul since winning the Super Bowl in February. The Ravens lost linebacker Ray Lewis to retirement, cut strong safety Bernard Pollard and had the following players depart via free agency: free safety Ed Reed, linebackers Dannell Ellerbe and Paul Kruger and cornerback Cary Williams. The Ravens have acquired outside linebacker Elvis Dumervil, inside linebacker Daryl Smith, defensive linemen Chris Canty and Marcus Spears and free safety Michael Huff. Getting Webb back could spell a huge boost to a defense in transition. "We use him a lot when we blitzed him in the slot as our nickel back," defensive coordinator Dean Pees said. "He was a good corner. He makes plays. He’s a good tackler. It looks like he’s a buck 50 out there, but the guy throws his body around. He thinks he’s a linebacker. "The other part of it is just the way he plays, with the tenacity that he plays with. It just brings an extra spark to that whole secondary. He’s another guy where it’s critical we get him back, and we want him back.” Webb tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee as a rookie against the Chicago Bears. He made a speedy recovery from that injury, returning to play the following season. Webb, 27, had 25 tackles, six pass deflections, one interception and a forced fumble in six starts last season prior to hurting his knee. In four NFL seasons, the 2009 third-round draft pick from Nicholls State has 181 career tackles, eight interceptions and 41 pass deflections. "I've stayed positive throughout this whole process," Webb told The Baltimore Sun earlier this offseason. "I'm going to be Lardarius Webb out there. I'm going to have the same heart I've always played with. I'm going to do all my part. I like being in this situation. I'm coming off a little adversity, but it just puts a chip on my shoulder. "It's about determination and how bad I want to get back on that field. I missed out last season and I was there for the ride, but I want to go to the Super Bowl again. The Lord won't put me through anything I can't handle. I take everything in stride." awilson@baltsun.com twitter.com/RavensInsiderCuban President Raul Castro plans to stay in office until next April before stepping aside, two months longer than originally anticipated, which then would end nearly six decades of Castro family rule of the communist country. Cuba's parliament on Thursday extended its legislative period by two months to April 19 because of the impact of Hurricane Irma in September. With the current council of state — the powerful group Castro heads — also staying until mid-April, it ensures that the 86-year-old leader will remain in power until then. Castro's first vice president, Miguel Diaz Canel, 57, is expected to be Cuba's next president, even as Castro remains the leader of the Caribbean island nation's communist party. But Castro's departure would end 59 years of Castro family rule, starting with the revolutionary takeover of the government by Fidel Castro in 1959 when he overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista. Fidel Castro died last year after relinquishing power to his brother in 2008. Canel has pledged to continue Raul Castro's policies, including limited growth of private enterprise as part of the country's planned economy, single party rule, and tight government control of virtually all aspects of life for Cubans.Drought Warnings in Brazil Increase 409% in 13 Years 03/22/2017 - 12h16 Advertising GUILHERME ZOCCHIO FOLHA CONTRIBUTOR Today, March the 22nd, is World Water Day, and there isn't much to celebrate in Brazil. Cases of drought that led to either declarations of emergency situation or public calamity increased dramatically between 2003 and 2015, according to the ANA (National Water Agency). During this period, the number of episodes increased by 409%. Within the same timeframe, the number of municipalities that declared an emergency or calamity also increased due to the droughts. The increase was 199%. The drought in the Northeast is the worst since 1961, according to the Center for Weather Forecasting & Climatic Studies of the National Institute for Space Research. Based upon data from ANA, local reservoirs are at 13,8% of capacity. And according to the National Integration Ministry, 835 municipalities in the region are in a real state of emergency. Specialists say that Brazilian policies related to water resources generally only function in the short term, and that investments in the area have been insufficient. For scholars in the area, like USP (University of São Paulo) Meteorologist Maria Elisa Siqueira, historically repeating drought conditions in the country and the predictability of climate conditions through monitoring, have lead to a reasonable delay in the adoption of more sustainable water management practices. The ANA admits, however, that it realizes now that there is the "necessity to update regulatory and management practices". The Water Security Plan, under development by the ANA and the Integration Ministry, to be release in 2018. It will recommend the critical projects and changes needed to improve management of water resources, including the construction of dams and pumping systems. Translated by LLOYD HARDER Read the article in the original language(CNN) A new era of regenerative medicine could be on the horizon. A 3-D printed ovary allowed an infertile mouse to naturally mate and go on to give birth to two pups of their own, according to new research published Tuesday in Nature Communications. The 3-D printed bioprosthetic ovary, as it's termed, is "the holy grail of bioengineering for regenerative medicine," said Teresa K. Woodruff, a reproductive scientist and director of the Women's Health Research Institute at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "The long-term goal for this is cancer patients," Woodruff said. She hopes this new research, a collaboration with other scientists including Ramille Shah, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at McCormick School of Engineering, will result in a way to restore fertility in women who underwent life-preserving cancer treatments that rendered them sterile. Scaffold for growth Ovaries are essential to the female reproductive system. Not only do these glandular organs produce hormones, when healthy, they release at least one egg each month for possible fertilization. The basic unit of the ovary is the follicle, each of which contains a single egg surrounded by the cells that make the hormones estrogen and progesterone. "Every month, there is this really remarkable event," Woodruff said. "The ovary breaks down under hormonal control and allows the oocyte, the female egg, to move from the inside to the outside, and it moves into the fallopian tube, where it is fertilized." For an artificial ovary to be functional, it would need to facilitate ovulation. Faced with this task, Shah and her colleagues created a 3-D printed structure -- essentially a scaffold on which to embed follicles -- made out of hydrogels, a material that is 99% water with a little polymer in it to give it strength. Shah and her colleagues also endowed their scaffolding material with pores in which follicles could be placed. "What that does is, it provides follicles with the space to grow," Shah said. "But also it allows space for blood vessels to infiltrate the scaffold without degrading the material." Natural signals Once seeded with follicles, the structure was transplanted into mice whose ovaries had been removed. From there, the follicles matured, and the mice ovulated. After mating, their eggs were fertilized, and they gave birth to at least two pups each. Within the bodies of each mouse, explained Woodruff, the structure had become "a functionalized soft-organ transplant." The recipient mice actually coordinated development of ovarian tissues in their bodies, she said, because the flow of their blood through the pores of this structure helped transform it into a functional bioprosthetic. Shah is hoping to refine the work, beginning with the pores themselves. "This is our bioprosthetic ovary version 1," she said, admitting it was a pleasant surprise when it worked on the first try. If you look at a cross-section of an ovary, she explained, you would see varying sizes and shapes of the many pores it contains. This is so it can house follicles that are at different maturity stages. "You have to house both the small ones and the large ones, and you have to have an environment that can provide cross-talk between these follicles, because that's how the natural ovary signals for only specific ones to ovulate," Shah said. While some follicles are instructed to ovulate, others receive signals from the ovary to stay dormant or to mature. Compared with the 3-D printed scaffold, the ovary has "a lot more sophisticated architecture when it comes to varying pore sizes and pore shapes," said Shah, who hopes to replicate this in the bioprosthetic ovary, creating version 2. Future applications of 3-D printing Dr. Anthony Atala, the director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, said the nice thing about the new study is that the researchers proved that their 3-D printed bioprosthesis could include follicles and preserve the functionality. Atala was not involved in the new research. This has never been done before for this particular organ, he said, though other structures, including cartilage, muscle and bone, have been 3-D printed and implanted into patients. Still, in this case, the research passed the ultimate functional test: The mice actually became impregnated and gave birth, Atala said. The strategy with 3-D printing is to take more advanced tissues that have been engineered by hand and re-create them with 3-D printing, he said. "The printing gives you scalability, because you can scale a technology up instead of making them by hand, it gives you reproducibility, because you can print them in the same manner every time, and it gives you precision, because it can precisely place the cells where you need them," Atala said. "It will eventually decrease the cost of the production of these technologies, because you're automating the process." Human use Although it's difficult to know how quickly these technologies can be translated for human use, Shah said researchers are hoping a human implant will be made within five years, though it is not likely to be a full functioning ovary replacement right off the bat. Instead, human trials might begin with a structure that substitutes for only the hormone production function of an ovary. Future dreams include making a durable transplant for pediatric cancer patients. Before beginning treatment, these young patients would undergo a separate procedure to that end. Young patients need "to have ovarian function to go through puberty and to have long-term endocrine health not only for fertility but also for the estrogens, which are important for bone health and cardiovascular health," Woodruff said. "We would remove either one whole ovary, or biopsy an ovary, and that's cryopreserved for that patient's later use." Join the conversation See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. If the whole ovary is removed, why not simply re-implant the cryopreserved organ when cancer treatments end? The problem is that the tissues surrounding the follicles contain cancer cells, Woodruff said. "We don't want to reintroduce that cancer to a patient," she noted. So by removing the follicles and not transplanting the rest the ovary, instead using a bioprosthetic ovary, "we're hoping to minimize the likelihood of transferring disease." In the end, the collaboration was "very fruitful," even if questions remain, Shah said: "How long does the actual implant survive? Does it survive after multiple different cycles? Can it lead to multiple different litters?" "There's a lot of different knobs we have yet to turn in order to really make a long-lasting bioprosthetic ovary," she said.SOMA, Turkey — There was no one to treat in the first aid tents near the entrance to the mine, where an old woman nearby wailed, “Our children are burning!” A man and his wife, dazed from a lack of sleep, walked the muddy grounds near here, looking for information about their missing son that no one in the government could provide. “This is how they steal people’s lives,” said the grieving man, Bayram Uckun, who like many people here has become increasingly angry with Turkey’s leadership for its response to Tuesday’s explosion at the mine. “This government is taking our country back 90 years.” The body of Mr. Uckun’s son, and those of at least 15 other men, was almost certainly still trapped in the coal mine. But with the death toll expected to rise above 300, this industrial disaster, the worst in Turkey’s modern history, has quickly metastasized from a local tragedy into a new political crisis for the Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Further aggravating antigovernment sentiment, security forces on Friday shot tear gas and water cannons at thousands of protesters in Soma.Two years ago, I became a Potterhead. I’ll admit that, growing up, witches, wizards and the like were taboo in my house. Things like Dungeons and Dragons were outlawed from even really being discussed. When Harry Potter first debuted in September of ’98, I was just getting back from being in the Army, and I had my interests in other arenas at the time. My old mentality was “wizards = bad”, so I had no desire to read the books or see the movies (even though I was HIGHLY intrigued). Fast forward to 2011 and Deathly Hallows Part 2 is debuting. I covered the opening night for a YouTube show I was filming at the time, and I have to say, all of those Potterheads – those who had waited in line from 5AM until midnight to watch their childhood proverbially come to a close – overtook me with fandom like you wouldn’t believe. I had to be a part of that. I had to get what THEY got. I had to understand. So I threw myself into the movie series (I know, I know, I should have done the books first, but I was desperate). I acquired every movie leading up to Deathly Hallows Part 2 to catch myself up to speed. Watching every movie just in time to catch Deathly Hallows Part 2 in the theater, on the final night of its theatrical run for its last show of the night. I was the only one in the theater. And I admit, the series was over and I felt a bit of “loss”. It was surreal. I had just put myself into this world of magic, friendship, love, and loss. And I was hooked. I’m finishing the reading of the books now. And AJ, my co-host for RetroACTIVE, is a master craftsman who just so happens to be a fan of the series as well. Dude does amazing work. I stopped by his house recently and what do I find on his dinner table? 5 freshly created Wands. And they are each unique in their design, and beautiful! I held each one and gravitated towards one in particular and… well… I have to say it’s WELL worth the $40-ish that it costs for one of your own (All are handmade and vary in price). The only thing I regret is that I don’t have hair so that when I picked up this particular beauty, my hair could stand up on end like Harry’s did… And… enough exposition by me… you came here for the pics of the Wand! Want to contact AJ about purchasing your own wand? Shoot him an email at aj@berkshireguitars.com. And if you don’t want a wand but would like a custom guitar? Check out his family’s business at www.berkshireguitars.com as well. They do AMAZING work!× This page contains archived content and is no longer being updated. At the time of publication, it represented the best available science. Trees are one of Earth’s largest banks for storing the carbon that gets emitted by natural processes and human activities. Forests cover about 30 percent of the planet’s surface, and as much as 45 percent of the carbon stored on land is tied up in forests. But did global forests hold more or less carbon in the past? And could they store more in the future? Does it matter where those trees are growing? Scientists really don’t know. But before they can find out, they’ll need a reliable inventory of what is growing today. Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) recently worked with colleagues at the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey to create such an inventory for the United States. The map above was built from the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset (NBCD), released in 2011. It depicts the concentration of biomass—a measure of the amount of organic carbon—stored in the trunks, limbs, and leaves of trees. The darkest greens reveal the areas with the densest, tallest, and most robust forest growth. Over six years, researchers assembled the national forest map from space-based radar, satellite sensors, computer models, and a massive amount of ground-based data. It is possibly the highest resolution and most detailed view of forest structure and carbon storage ever assembled for any country. Forests in the U.S. were mapped down to a scale of 30 meters, or roughly 10 computer display pixels for every hectare of land (4 pixels per acre). They divided the country into 66 mapping zones and ended up mapping 265 million segments of the American land surface. Kellndorfer estimates that their mapping database includes measurements of about five million trees. “Forests are a key element for human activity,” says Kellndorfer. “Resource managers need to see forests down to the disturbance resolution—the scale at which parking lots or developments or farms are carved out by deforestation. We have to know how much we have, and where, in order to conduct sound management and harvesting.” Learn more about the creation of Kellndor
Just days after joining the Houston Texans as an undrafted free agent, defensive end James Rouse's rookie season appears to have come to an end before it could even begin. Participating in his first practice of the Texans' rookie minicamp Friday, Rouse suffered a torn Achilles, head coach Bill O'Brien confirmed to reporters Saturday. The injury will almost certainly keep the former Marshall standout on the sidelines for the entire 2015 season. While O'Brien conceded that the team still needs to determine Rouse's roster status going forward, he believes the young defensive end will get another chance in the NFL either way. Rouse struggled with injuries early on in his college career as well, appearing in just three games in 2011 and missing the entire 2012 campaign to follow.At a November 1 top-secret Israeli Cabinet meeting, the tension between Likud lawmakers and the country’s intelligence chiefs finally exploded. The chief of Military Intelligence, Major General Herzl Halevi, had come to deliver the Israel Defense Forces’ analysis of the terror wave plaguing Israel for the past month. The main causes, he reported, are tension over the Temple Mount; anger over the unsolved July 31 murder of the Dawabsheh family in the West Bank; and rage and despair among Palestinian youth who see no future and feel they have “nothing to lose.” Other factors include copycat activity and social-network influence, plus the declining influence of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is attempting with limited success to halt the mostly teenage violence. According to several attendees who spoke to reporters, the mood at the meeting was tense. Likud up-and-comer Ze’ev Elkin, the Ukrainian-born immigrant affairs minister, spoke for many present when he accused Halevi of “blaming Israel” and “acting as a spokesman for the Palestinians.” Elkin lectured Halevi that he’d ignored the role of Palestinian incitement. Halevi’s response: “Yes, there is incitement.” Put differently: Yes, sir, I’ll tell you what you want to hear. Privately, security officials use barnyard terminology when discussing the government’s Abbas-incitement charge. Behind the derision, though, they’re afraid. The nature of Israel’s political debate has changed. Likud ministers, once the ultimate hard-nosed realists, now treat intelligence professionals in much the same way that congressional Republicans treat climate scientists: as alien beings from an alternate reality. To see just how dramatically the Likud line has morphed in a few short decades, consider this passage from an early Zionist writer: “No indigenous population anywhere at any time has ever been able to accept the colonization of its country. Every indigenous people, whether developed or developing, views its country as its national home, in which it wishes to remain absolute master forever. It will never willingly grant entry to new masters, nor even to cohabitants or managerial partners. “This is true of the Arabs as well.… They may differ from us in culture, in endurance or determination, but there the difference between us ends.… They relate to Palestine with an instinctive love and passion that’s at least equal to what the Aztecs felt toward their Mexico or the Sioux toward their prairies.…” Indigenous populations, the author wrote, will resist the newcomers forcefully unless and until they conclude that the influx cannot be stopped. At that point, “influence will pass to moderate groups, and these moderates will come to us with proposals for mutual concessions, and negotiations can then begin in earnest over practical questions.…” The words are those of Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of the right-wing Zionist Revisionist movement, forerunner of today’s Likud. They’re from his seminal essay, “The Iron Wall,” written in 1923 — six years after Great Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, calling for a Jewish national home in Palestine, and three years after the first organized Palestinian revolt against Zionist immigration. Jabotinsky argued that the Palestinian violence of 1920–21 was neither banditry nor anti-Semitism nor an Arab misunderstanding of Zionist intentions, as many Zionists maintained, but rather natural resistance by one nation fearing another nation taking over its country. Accordingly, he wrote, it was pointless to try negotiating or buying off Palestinian leaders. Rather, Zionism should dig in behind a metaphorical “iron wall” until the Palestinians accepted the inevitable. Jabotinsky was reviled in his day as a racist and a warmonger by the mainstream Zionist leadership under Chaim Weizmann and later David Ben-Gurion. The “iron wall” thesis was a key point of disagreement, but not the only one. Most notably, Jabotinsky insisted the Jewish state must encompass all of historic Palestine, including what became Jordan. But on the Palestinian conflict he proved prophetic. He became a political pariah, but his iron wall thesis became a staple of Israeli defense doctrine. That is, until 1993, when the Palestine Liberation Organization formally agreed in Oslo to recognize Israel and negotiate those “mutual concessions” that Jabotinsky anticipated. To the Israeli military, an IDF deputy chief of staff once told me, the Oslo Accords were the Palestinians’ “surrender document.” The next step was supposed to be negotiating the terms. That year, 1993, was a watershed for Jabotinsky’s heirs in the Likud. If Israel’s military and intelligence communities considered the Oslo Accords a turning point in the Palestinian stance toward Israel, then the Likud now had to choose between Jabotinsky’s iron wall thesis and his commitment to the Greater Land of Israel. If the Palestinians were giving up their claim to exclusive ownership of the land, then it was time for mutual concessions. If concessions were impossible because Israeli territorial claims were inviolable, then a way to disregard the Palestinians’ new stance had to be found. Most of the Likud chose the Greater Land of Israel. Jabotinsky’s view of Palestinian anti-Zionism as fundamentally about land was abandoned in favor of a metaphysical, almost mystical vision of Palestinian opposition rooted in timeless, immutable hatred of Jews. As the Likud has morphed from realism to metaphysics, traditional Jabotinskyites like Dan Meridor and Reuven Rivlin have been marginalized or forced out. A growing proportion of the party’s younger generation consists of religious nationalists who don’t hide the mystical roots of their vision. And, as the retooled Likud has become entrenched in power, relations with the security services — the IDF, the Shin Bet and the Mossad — have grown steadily more strained. The new Likud version of reality has been evolving slowly over the decades since Oslo. In the past few weeks, with the terror wave as a backdrop, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been rolling it out, piece by piece, and it’s beginning to emerge as a coherent whole: Nazi roots of Palestinian nationalism; violence as a product of incitement from above rather than conditions on the ground; the need for full Israeli control of “all the territories for the foreseeable future,” despite the threat of binationalism; and finally, the October 26 announcement at a stormy session of the Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee that Israelis “will forever live by the sword.” Zionism, which first arose to end the Jews’ international pariah status, now promises to trap them there forever. Contact J.J. Goldberg at goldberg@forward.com This story "Benjamin Netanyahu Ignores Roots of Palestinian Violence — and Betrays His Party's Founders" was written by J.J. Goldberg.We are one year away from the theatrical release of Alcon Entertainment's Blade Runner sequel. Directed by Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario, Prisoners), the picture will be distributed by Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. domestically and Sony Pictures Releasing International overseas. Yes, Harrison Ford is back as Rick Deckard, with Ryan Gosling and Jared Leto along for the ride. We now have a title for the film, which will be called Blade Runner 2049. So, here's the question: Can decades of critical reevaluation and cult fandom overcome the fact that the original Blade Runner was a big box office disappointment back in 1982? Ridley Scott's Blade Runner was released to mixed reviews in the summer of 1982. Leonard Maltin hated it. Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert liked the visuals more than the plot/characters, but Ebert eventually joined the love train. The film opened on June 25, 1982 and opened with $6.1 million. The picture went on to earn $27.5m in its original theatrical release, which was basically equal to the film's $28m production budget. Moreover, the film was a victim of behind-the-scenes tinkering and poor test screenings which resulted in a more commercially friendly theatrical cut, a happy-ish ending, and the insertion of on-the-nose voiceover painfully delivered by Ford. The actor had never been shy in the past about naming that film as one of his less pleasant experiences. It wasn't until the first of around 36,812 alternate cuts (slight exaggeration) was released on VHS in 1992 that the critical tide started to turn. We got what is presumably "the final cut" on Blu-Ray and DVD back in 2007 for the film's 25th anniversary. Of note, the film's final domestic total is $32.8m thanks to a few theatrical reissues of one version or another over the years. And yes, this sequel will be arriving months after the film's 35th anniversary. You can make the case that Blade Runner is one of the most influential movies of the last forty years, as its distinct and overwhelming future world has basically served as the basis for a whole wealth of genre media in all media forms. But just because the filmmaking community and the current generation of film critics hold up Blade Runner as an ahead-of-its-time masterpiece (I like the film without necessarily loving it) doesn't mean that general moviegoers are going to line up for a sequel 35 years later. Oh sure, you'll have the critics and pundits checking it out either out of genuine interest in the property and/or the participants. And while "layperson" fans will be split down the middle concerning approval of this long-past-due date sequel, I imagine most of them will check it out as a kind of cultural obligation. But what of the general moviegoers who are too young to care about the film's cult status or old enough to have ignored the film the first time around? I'm not predicting doom and gloom, but Harrison Ford hasn't been a genuine "box office draw" outside of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films since What Lies Beneath in 2000. Ryan Gosling is a great actor but a non-entity regarding box office. Obviously, if Arrival is a giant smash then "from the director of Arrival, Sicario, and Prisoners" will have slight value. But this is an odd thing, a decades-after-the-fact revival to a film that was a pretty big disappointment on its initial theatrical release. Walt Disney's Tron managed to earn $33 million in 1982 on a "mere" $17m budget. Over the long haul, I will presume that both Tron and Blade Runner made it into the "break even" or "profit" column. That Tron: Legacy earned $400m worldwide back in 2010 is both an underrated marketing triumph and a clear case of the Mouse House making its sequel into a wholly new event for moviegoers who had no strong feelings about the original Tron. That's the job of Warner Bros. and Sony going forward, to make Blade Runner 2049 into a stand-alone event for those who have no feelings (or negative feelings) towards the original Blade Runner. Disney had a huge advantage of having Tron: Legacy operate as the "next big thing" 3D fantasy blockbuster opening on the same weekend as Avatar a year after the James Cameron movie made $2.7 billion worldwide. There are plenty of relative blockbusters dropping in October, especially in recent years, but it will have to capture the global zeitgeist unless it ends up not being uber-expensive. This is going to be an interesting one to watch either way. Despite the title, Blade Runner 2049 opens a year from today. As always, we'll see.Additional Notes This is a really simple but huge Monopoly board I've been working on. It's always been my favorite board game so I thought I would try to remake it in the Minecraft world.I created it with a mix of the worldedit mod and a little MCEdit. I tried to make everything as accurate as I could with blocks, trying to keep it the right size and scale. Everything was created by me from scratch except for the center logo which was imported in from an image file with a pixel art script.Lots of new things have been added to this! Check out the update log or video to see the changes..Need help installing this project? See my Projects Guide for full instructions and other helpful info.The size of the board itself is 291 x 291.In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a "government takeover." "Takeovers are like coups," Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. "They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom." The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the "public option" concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan. But as Republicans smelled serious opportunity in the midterm elections, they didn't let facts get in the way of a great punchline. And few in the press challenged their frequent assertion that under Obama, the government was going to take over the health care industry. PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen "government takeover of health care" as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats' shellacking in the November elections. Readers of PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times' independent fact-checking website, also chose it as the year's most significant falsehood by an overwhelming margin. (Their second-place choice was Rep. Michele Bachmann's claim that Obama was going to spend $200 million a day on a trip to India, a falsity that still sprouts.) By selecting "government takeover' as Lie of the Year, PolitiFact is not making a judgment on whether the health care law is good policy. The phrase is simply not true. Said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill: "The label 'government takeover" has no basis in reality, but instead reflects a political dynamic where conservatives label any increase in government authority in health care as a 'takeover.' " An inaccurate claim "Government takeover" conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. But the law Congress passed, parts of which have already gone into effect, relies largely on the free market: • Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private insurance companies. • Contrary to the claim, more people will get private health coverage. The law sets up "exchanges" where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don't have it. • The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors. • The law does not include the public option, a government-run insurance plan that would have competed with private insurers. • The law gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, so they can buy their coverage from private providers on the exchange. But here too, the approach relies on a free market with regulations, not socialized medicine. PolitiFact reporters have studied the 906-page bill and interviewed independent health care experts. We have concluded it is inaccurate to call the plan a government takeover because it relies largely on the existing system of health coverage provided by employers. It's true that the law does significantly increase government regulation of health insurers. But it is, at its heart, a system that relies on private companies and the free market. Republicans who maintain the Democratic plan is a government takeover say that characterization is justified because the plan increases federal regulation and will require Americans to buy health insurance. But while those provisions are real, the majority of Americans will continue to get coverage from private insurers. And it will bring new business for the insurance industry: People who don"t currently have coverage will get it, for the most part, from private insurance companies. Consider some analogies about strict government regulation. The Federal Aviation Administration imposes detailed rules on airlines. State laws require drivers to have car insurance. Regulators tell electric utilities what they can charge. Yet that heavy regulation is not described as a government takeover. This year, PolitiFact analyzed five claims of a "government takeover of health care." Three were rated Pants on Fire, two were rated False. 'Can't do it in four words' Other news organizations have also said the claim is false. Slate said "the proposed health care reform does not take over the system in any sense.' In a New York Times economics blog, Princeton University professor Uwe Reinhardt, an expert in health care economics, said, "Yes, there would be a substantial government-mandated reorganization of this relatively small corner of the private health insurance market (that serves people who have been buying individual policies). But that hardly constitutes a government takeover of American health care." FactCheck.org, an independent fact-checking group run by the University of Pennsylvania, has debunked it several times, calling it one of the "whoppers" about health care and saying the reform plan is neither "government-run" nor a "government takeover." We asked incoming House Speaker John Boehner's office why Republican leaders repeat the phrase when it has repeatedly been shown to be incorrect. Michael Steel, Boehner's spokesman, replied, "We believe that the job-killing ObamaCare law will result in a government takeover of health care. That's why we have pledged to repeal it, and replace it with common-sense reforms that actually lower costs.” Analysts say health care reform is such a complicated topic that it often cannot be summarized in snappy talking points. "If you're going to tell the truth about something as complicated as health care and health care reform, you probably need at least four sentences," said Maggie Mahar, author of Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. "You can"t do it in four words." Mahar said the GOP simplification distorted the truth about the plan. "Doctors will not be working for the government. Hospitals will not be owned by the government," she said. "That's what a government takeover of health care would mean, and that's not at all what we"re doing." How the line was used If you followed the health care debate or the midterm election – even casually – it's likely you heard "government takeover" many times. PolitiFact sought to count how often the phrase was used in 2010 but found an accurate tally was unfeasible because it had been repeated so frequently in so many places. It was used hundreds of times during the debate over the bill and then revived during the fall campaign. A few numbers: • The phrase appears more than 90 times on Boehner's website, GOPLeader.gov. • It was mentioned eight times in the 48-page Republican campaign platform "A Pledge to America" as part of their plan to "repeal and replace the government takeover of health care." • The Republican National Committee's website mentions a government takeover of health care more than 200 times. Conservative groups and tea party organizations joined the chorus. It was used by FreedomWorks, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. The phrase proliferated in the media even after Democrats dropped the public option. In 2010 alone, "government takeover” was mentioned 28 times in the Washington Post, 77 times in Politico and 79 times on CNN. A review of TV transcripts showed "government takeover" was primarily used as a catchy sound bite, not for discussions of policy details. In most transcripts we examined, Republican leaders used the phrase without being challenged by interviewers. For example, during Boehner's Jan. 31 appearance on Meet the Press, Boehner said it five times. But not once was he challenged about it. In rare cases when the point was questioned, the GOP leader would recite various regulations found in the bill and insist that they constituted a takeover. But such followups were rare. An effective phrase Politicians and officials in the health care industry have been warning about a "government takeover" for decades. The phrase became widely used in the early 1990s when President Bill Clinton was trying to pass health care legislation. Then, as today, Democrats tried to debunk the popular Republican refrain. When Obama proposed his health plan in the spring of 2009, Luntz, a Republican strategist famous for his research on effective phrases, met with focus groups to determine which messages would work best for the Republicans. He did not respond to calls and e-mails from PolitiFact asking him to discuss the phrase. The 28-page memo he wrote after those sessions, "The Language of Healthcare 2009," provides a rare glimpse into the art of finding words and phrases that strike a responsive chord with voters. The memo begins with "The 10 Rules for Stopping the 'Washington Takeover' of Healthcare.” Rule No. 4 says people "are deathly afraid that a government takeover will lower their quality of care – so they are extremely receptive to the anti-Washington approach. It's not an economic issue. It's a bureaucratic issue." The memo is about salesmanship, not substance. It doesn't address whether the lines are accurate. It just says they are effective and that Republicans should use them. Indeed, facing a Democratic plan that actually relied on the free market to try to bring down costs, Luntz recommended sidestepping that inconvenient fact: "The arguments against the Democrats' healthcare plan must center around politicians, bureaucrats and Washington... not the free market, tax incentives or competition." Democrats tried to combat the barrage of charges about a government takeover. The White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeatedly put out statements, but they were drowned out by a disciplined GOP that used the phrase over and over. Democrats could never agree on their own phrases and were all over the map in their responses, said Howard Dean, former head of the Democratic National Committee. "It was uncoordinated. Everyone had their own idea," Dean said in an interview with PolitiFact. "The Democrats are atrocious at messaging," he said. "They've gotten worse since I left, not better. It's just appalling. First of all, you don"t play defense when you"re doing messaging, you play offense. The Republicans have learned this well." Dean grudgingly admires the Republican wordsmith. "Frank Luntz has it right, he just works for the wrong side. You give very simple catch phrases that encapsulate the philosophy of the bill." A responsive chord By March of this year, when Obama signed the bill into law, 53 percent of respondents in a Bloomberg poll said they agreed that "the current proposal to overhaul health care amounts to a government takeover.” Exit polls showed the economy was the top issue for voters in the November election, but analysts said the drumbeat about the "government takeover" during the campaign helped cement the advantage for the Republicans. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat whose provision for Medicare end-of-life care was distorted into the charge of "death panels" (last year's Lie of the Year), said the Republicans' success with the phrase was a matter of repetition. "There was a uniformity of Republican messaging that was disconnected from facts," Blumenauer said. "The sheer discipline... was breathtaking." Read more coverage of PolitiFact's Lie of the Year, including complete results from our readers' poll, reader comments and extended excerpts of PolitiFact's interview with Howard Dean.Kitase interested in more Final Fantasy HD remasters 'If we had to pick one, it would be Final Fantasy XII.' Square Enix might pursue future Final Fantasy high-definition remasters, if sales of Final Fantasy X \| X-2 HD Remaster are successful. “We’ll have to wait and see if these remasters [Final Fantasy X \| X-2 HD Remaster] are going to be successful, first,” producer Yoshinori Kitase told RPGSite at E3. “If they do well, I think this will pave the way for more of the previous games to remade in an HD sort of quality. I mean, if we had to single out one of the vast number of Final Fantasy titles which we could make in HD, it would have to be Final Fantasy XII.” Kitase concluded, “What I can say though is that I hope the remastering of X and X-2 will trigger similar projects for more of the past games.”Wrestlemania 31 was the other day - what a finish - so what better time to have a look back at one of the best wrasslin' games ever made? It's been 12 minutes so far, and he's showing little sign of slowing down. Your fingers hurt. Fatigue is forcing your reversal timing to be off. His momentum is dangerously close to peaking, and you've just missed that high-cross body block. It's all going to hell, quickly, and all of your effort is going to go down the pan. You're screaming obscenities at the screen. This is why WWF No Mercy is still the best wrestling game ever made. There are few games out there that can put you through the ringer like that, physically and emotionally, but still end with you respecting the hell out of the game. Those epic matches stretch into the tens of minutes, the momentum swinging every way it can in a natural, believable, fair fashion - just like what happens in real wrestling in almost every match. (It's almost as if it's fake or something). You simply do not get it in any other fighting game. We've had 14 years for any other developer to make something fit to even lace up No Mercy's boots, and it hasn't happened. In the decade-and-a-half since AKI Corporation's best game came out, it has achieved legendary status for fans of the not-quite sport. It's unbeatable. It holds up, too. I've been playing wrestling games since I was wee, and I can honestly say - with the possible exception of the Fire Pro games - that I've never played a tights-and-turnbuckles game better than No Mercy. And that's from a modern perspective - I replayed the N64 game recently, repeatedly, for hours on end. Once you get past those shonky looks and the utterly pathetic combination of tinny music and 'videos' (read: the lowest resolution gifs that have ever existed), the core is rock-solid. This flies in the face of what publishers - mainly the dearly departed THQ - seemed to think wrestling fans wanted. WWF/E games after No Mercy pushed for pace, presentation and p...shallowness. They eventually nosedived to a level where they could only possibly appeal to the stereotypical representation of a pro wrestling fan. That's why it's so refreshing going back to No Mercy. It's a whipsmart game, which might be surprising given its association with such a dumb form of entertainment. Because of its integrity, just like Kurt Angle, it keeps on performing. Speaking of the Olympic one, that's another aspect that keeps the love flowing for No Mercy: its setting. Space Year 2000 was the middle of the Attitude Era - maybe not its high point, as the TV product was spiralling into nonsense by then - but you can't argue with Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Mankind and Chris Jericho. (Well, you could, but it wouldn't end well for you - they're big men.) Cheap nostalgia it may be, but the warmth you feel when you see those familiar faces - and realise you can unlock Ken Shamrock as a secret character - is unbeatable. No Mercy doesn't rely on gimmicks. It's very much like the Attitude Era of the WWF it represents: straightforward, simple, boiled-down. No bullshit, basically (even if I am wilfully ignoring a hell of a lot of rubbish that came out during said era). You don't see mini-game nonsense, you don't have to manage stamina by holding a button for a bit, and you're not wailing on your opponent with a forklift truck you're driving around. It's combat system is straightforward and organic; it's got real depth, and rewards skill. Yes, it's harder for newcomers to know what the hell they're actually doing, but it's worth sticking with it beyond the initial confusion. It seems simple on paper: you're given two attack buttons, a strike and a grapple, and holding either initiates a 'power' version of the move in question. Then the layers arrive. Different directions mean different moves, resulting in eight moves for each type of standing grapple, another bunch for a rear grapple, more for ones on the ground, more for ones on the ground when the opponent is facing a different direction, more for... You get the point. You're always covered. It's comprehensive. And that's empowering - especially when creating your own character. Wrestling is entirely about its characters, and their movesets are a big part of that - they're the calling cards. Being able to make your fake-fighting, tight-sporting musclebound freak have the precise set of moves you want, selected from hundreds, is just wonderful. Taking said MBF out into the open, however, has its issues. Battling the AI on higher difficulty levels is still an exercise in pad-throwing frustration, with your opponents managing to reverse approximately 98.67% of the moves you attempt to hit them with. It actually made me bite my N64 pad in frustration back in the day. This makes the single-player branching storyline - something that's brilliant when utterly divorced from this cheating bastard AI - a slog. On paper, your championship hunt is fantastic, a mode that perfectly marries wrasslin's fakeness with an actual sense of natural progression. A loss isn't the end of the game, most of the time it just sends you on a different path to glory. Unless of course you lose the championship match. Then you're just rubbish. Or the AI is cheating again. But I'll stop bitching about the AI, because if you get three friends around - preferably ones who either known how to play the game or ones who are willing to learn - you'll have some of the absolute Best Fun. It comes back to those 10-plus minute epic matches. For me, they're like a full-on FIFA match or an endurance race in Forza or Gran Turismo - the ebb and flow, the hard push to the finish, the fact it can all go to pot in a second. No Mercy is a competitive multiplayer masterpiece. A sadder reason why No Mercy lives on in legend is what happened to its creators, AKI, after its release. The studio went on to make a few other obscure, Japan-only wrestling games - as well as the Def Jam fighting games... then... well, it's hard to talk about, to be honest. The company morphed into Syn Sophia, and the studio's most recent release was an updated version of this thing. AKI might be dead, but it's no reason to lose hope entirely. Just five minutes - and a brain able to ignore how beautifully dated it all looks - is enough to convince anyone that WWF No Mercy still has the chops. When you add in Showdown 64, a mod that rips up and refits the entire game - well, that's when it actually becomes timeless. 2K Sports is dragging the WWE games back in the right direction. But while we all sit and wait patiently for the next great wrasslin' game to show up, sipping our Steveweisers and checking over our shoulders for any incoming RKO's out of nowhere, it's comforting to know a 14-year old classic is still just that.Lemko Corporation, a private software and systems developer, on Wednesday filed a complaint against Motorola Mobility alleging that it stole trade secrets and is financially benefiting from the misappropriation of Lemko’s source code. The company claims that Motorola hired an engineer who developed unique, protected code while employed by Lemko, and proceeded to implement the source code on Motorola’s servers without licensing the technology. The code in question relates to server side network-based positioning technology. Read on for more. “Lemko is committed to protecting itself against the theft of its software,” Lemko’s Raymond Minkus said in a statement. “Lemko will vigorously defend its intellectual property rights and will exercise its legal rights to prevent Motorola’s illegal sale which would result in the fraudulent conveyance of our source code to Google.” The complaint goes on to allege that Motorola admitted to Lemko that the code in question was present on its servers, and later attempted to conceal the unauthorized use of this technology by moving related development work to China. “By destroying evidence of its misappropriation, Motorola has also engaged in willful, deliberate and malicious conduct and is, therefore, subject to increased damages under the Illinois Trade Secrets Act, 765 I.L.C.S. Section 165/4(b),” Lemko’s complaint states. “Motorola’s conduct was done voluntarily and intentionally and its misappropriation is not the result of a mistake or accident. Further, Motorola’s acts were malicious, in that they were accompanied by a conscious and wanton disregard of Lemko’s rights.” Based in Schaumburg, Illinois, Lemko bills itself as “a premier IP software company that provides a complete mobile system on a server at the cell site (RAN) distributing the core intelligence to the edge and fulfilling the ITU’s vision for 4G next generation networks.” This new complaint is the latest move in an ongoing legal battle between Lemko and Motorola Inc. that has lasted more than three years. The company’s full press release follows below.Hey there tech-fiends, I hope you all enjoyed last week's Virulent Depravity stream. I've got another fantastic early stream for you today from French natives Fractal Universe. Before we begin, here's the usual weekly reminder that all prior editions of this series can be perused here. Back in 2015, a new act from Nancy, France called Fractal Universe impressed a lot of us in the tech-death world with their debut EP, Boundaries of Reality. I really enjoyed that effort and was hoping the band would take a leap forwards next time, and I think you'll agree with me they certainly have on Engram of Decline. Similar to their prior music, the band is still all about variety and diversity from song to song and moment to moment. Overall the songs on Engram Of Decline sound like a fair split between Gorod and Obscura soundwise, but the band's songwriting has evolved considerably and the music here is far more complex and ambitious this time around. The proggier side to Fractal Universe on Engram Of Decline takes on an almost Alkaloid feeling at times when some of the chant-like clean sung parts kick in, or when they decide to break things up with restrained yet potent acoustic guitar led clean passages. Likewise, the groove element present on Boundaries of Reality still acts as connective tissue in their music here, and actually has an increased presence this go around. I think it works and makes their songwriting more dynamic, though I suspect it might end up being a turn off to some. There's also a couple of really sick guest spots by well-known musicians on the album too. The first of which is an insane sax solo by none other than Jørgen Munkeby (Shining) on "Backworldsmen" that is pretty damn out there in an avant-garde gone Meshuggah way but somehow fits and makes me laugh all at once. Then the album's near 10-minute closing opus "Collective Engram" features a ripping guitar solo from The Faceless mastermind Michael Keene, as well as a second guest influx of saxophone playing, this time from Jean-Marc Florimond. Engram Of Decline is first and foremost, an incredibly technical record, but it's prog-death adventurousness and deliciously groovy nature is what makes it one I'll keep coming back to. This is an undeniably fun album with a lot to take in and enjoy from start to finish. So be sure to jam our early stream below and give it a shot. If you dig what you're hearing, the album drops this Friday, April 14th and can be pre-ordered through the Kolony Records Bandcamp page. Be sure to follow the band over on their Facebook page as well. Related PostsNEW ORLEANS - A shooting at a SUNO housing stemmed from an argument over the sale of a pair tennis shoes, according to the New Orleans Police Department. The SUNO student was shot around 1 p.m. Wednesday at an apartment complex in the 7000 block of Press Drive. According to the NOPD, the 21-year-old victim would later tell police he was called by an acquaintance who wanted to buy tennis shoes from him. When the acquaintance and another person arrived at the apartment, they tried to take the shoes without paying for them. As the student tried to stop the theft, one of the suspects pulled out a handgun and fired two shots at him, hitting him once in the left armpit, police said. The man then said he got his gun and fired back at the two men, who then fled.Issue 128 is the one-hundred and twenty-eighth issue of Image Comics' The Walking Dead and the second part of Volume 22: A New Beginning. It was published on June 11, 2014. Contents show] Plot Negan is shocked to know that after all the things he and Carl shared with each other, that the latter still wants to kill him. The following day, Rick and Eugene visit the mill, they both talk about Eugene and Rosita's increasingly cold relationship. He comments how he feels she doesn't truly want to stay with him and fears they might split up soon. Elsewhere, Andrea interviews Magna about what she and her group had to do to survive. Magna tells where she and her group came from, the place they lived for a good amount of time, how it fell and how much time they spent in the wilderness. In the Grimes' home, Carl takes Josh to his room, hoping to sell some carved items. Josh is impressed by Carl's carvings and asks him if he could make a unicorn carving for his girlfriend. Carl obliges him in return for a custom hoodie. Back at the mill, Rick and Eugene greet Olivia who's baking bread. They briefly meet Mikey, who is now an apprentice under
for Connor SportsTexas Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor (12) celebrates with Texas Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus (1) after hitting a solo home run in the second inning of play in a game against the Cleveland Indians on opening day at Globe Life Park in Arlington on Monday, April 3, 2017. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News) Banister pointed that direction, well before shortstop Elvis Andrus strolled by with an old-school boom box in his left hand, and said: ARLINGTON -- With his office door open before the game Sunday, Rangers manager Jeff Banister could hear the sounds of loud Latin music approaching from down the hallway. Ah, yes, believe it or not, Andrus hit cleanup for the first time in his career -- heck, the first time in his life -- in Sunday's series finale against Kansas City. The opportunity came a day after his walk-off RBI single Saturday to beat the Royals. Andrus maintained he didn't change his approach at the plate. "Just because you're hitting fourth doesn't mean you have to hit a homer," Andrus said. "You get hits and an RBI -- that counts, too." Andrus finished 1-for-4 Sunday with an RBI single in spot duty as the Rangers' cleanup hitter with first baseman Mike Napoli receiving his first day off of the season. Andrus' first at-bat as the No. 4 hitter came in the first inning. With runners on first and second and one out, Andrus struck out swinging on an off-speed pitch. But he made amends in the third. Andrus took advantage of a waist-high fastball on a full-count pitch from Royals starter Jason Hammel. His two-out single to right drove in Shin-Soo Choo from second base for the Rangers' first run. Andrus came to the plate with a runner in scoring position three times in his four at-bats. The last time, in the seventh, he flew out to center with runners at first and second and one out. Andrus' chance to hit fourth in the order isn't all that surprising considering he's a veteran leader and has developed more power in his swing over the last year. Andrus already has three home runs this season after setting career highs last year for home runs (eight) and slugging percentage (.439). "We talk about it all the time, when he was younger and to who he is now, he's a strong kid and the way his approach was he didn't really get to show how strong he was in power," Napoli said. "He's figured out how to drive the ball, not just trying to really stay inside of the ball and hit it the other way. It's cool to see him developing into the hitter he is now." Andrus has now hit in every spot in the batting order in the big leagues. Through only three weeks this season, he's already hit in six different spots. He became the fourth Rangers shortstop since 1977 to bat cleanup for the Rangers. "I don't think that Babe Ruth exists anymore," Banister said of his decision to bat Andrus cleanup. "When I look at the lineup and I think about the hitters we're going to put in the lineup, I don't look at it as, 'OK, this spot is supposed to be for some wall-banger that's going to hit balls out of the ballpark.' I look at the lineup as how do we connect hitters. Who do I want to have the extra at-bats coming around toward the end of the game? And then part of that is production. And then just how I create matchup situations, or try to stay away from matchup situations for the opposing manager. I like having that right-handed bat in that spot. When you look at our right-handed hitters, he's been the most productive. I don't look at it as a reward. This is more trying to construct a lineup that I feel is going to put runs on the board against their starter." Andrus said he first heard Sunday that he was hitting cleanup from Rangers leadoff hitter Carlos Gomez. "I think he's jealous," Andrus joked before the game. "If I go deep, I better hit fourth [Monday], too."Washington state saw victory this week for Initiative 594, which impose tougher background check requirements on gun purchases, of the sort that have gotten nowhere recently on the national level. From the ballot language, the Initiative will: apply the background check requirements currently used for firearm sales by licensed dealers to all firearm sales and transfers where at least one party is in Washington. Background checks would thus be required not only for sales and transfers of firearms through firearms dealers, but also at gun shows, online, and between unlicensed private individuals. Background checks would be required for any sale or transfer of a firearm, whether for money or as a gift or loan, with specific exceptions described below. Background checks would be required whether the firearm involved is a pistol or another type of firearm. Violations of these requirements would be crimes. People who Washington law tries to bar from firearms ownership include, also from the Initiative language: Washington law makes it illegal for convicted felons to possess firearms. It also makes it illegal for certain others to possess firearms, including people who: (1) have been convicted of certain misdemeanors; (2) have been issued certain types of restraining orders; (3) have been found not guilty of a crime by reason of insanity; (4) have been found mentally incompetent; or (5) have certain criminal charges pending. It is a felony to deliver any firearm to any person reasonably believed to be prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm. It passed with 60 pecent support. This led sources from Time to Mother Jones to The Atlantic to declare that taking it straight to the voters is the new way for gun control to succeed in an America allegedly paralyzed by over-powerful pro-gun lobbying to politicians. Progressives who get angry at the notion of big money manipulating the electorate will probably not be alarmed to note that, with the NRA choosing to toss in only around a half a million, that Washington's initiative had pro voices outspending anti enormously—Ballotpedia has pro forces spending over $10 million, and anti only around $600,000. Enemy of all freedoms Michael Bloomberg gave $50 million overall to one of the groups pushing this initiative, "Everytown for Gun Safety." (Big donors for 594 also included Bill and Melinda Gates to the tune of a million, and Paul Allen to the tune of a half million.) They have their eye on doing the same in Nevada in 2016, if they fail to get the legislature to pass such laws in the meantime. Colorado and Oregon saw such laws pass by initiative in the early '00s, but that strategy had gone into abeyance, largely due to lack of anti-gun funding, which Bloomberg and his operation has helped correct. David Frum pointed out some of the historical ironies in the gun control context of this happening in Washington: The passage of 594 takes on extra meaning because Washington state was the place where the gun lobby scored the electoral victory that supposedly proved its invincibility, the defeat of House Speaker Thomas Foley in his own district in 1994. Foley, a longtime supporter of gun rights, had helped pass two gun restrictions in 1993 and 1994: the Brady Bill restricting some handgun sales and the temporary assault-weapons ban, the latter inspired by a gun massacre at Spokane’s Air Force base that killed four and wounded 23. Then-NRA President Charlton Heston came to Foley’s district to campaign against him. Foley’s defeat seemed to prove forever the invincibility of the pro-gun cause. Initiatives may well prove to be a successful tack for gun controllers again in the future, more's the pity. While money does not equal victory in these sorts of contests, it behooves civil rights groups dedicated to the Second Amendment to take these efforts more seriously in the future. Such a strategy won't work everywhere, naturally, as see this week Alabama voters approving by 70 percent Amendment 3, which, as the Alabama Media Group's Al.com reports: The amendment was introduced to the state legislature by Rep. Mike Jones (R-Andalusia), and it specifies that the right to bear arms is a fundamental right for citizens of the state of Alabama. It will require'strict scrutiny,' the highest level of judicial review, for any restriction of that right. Background checks may seem mild, but they are the sort of regulation that can easily end up destroying people's lives for doing something inherently innocent but for the law: peacefully transfering ownership of their lawful property to someone who, in the overwhelming number of cases, will not use that property to harm anyone else. At best, such background checks are a purely ceremonial way to block the (in almost all cases) innocent from being able to own vital means of self-defense, and shouldn't be taken lightly by supporters or opponents. Things that leave people open to arrest are very serious, and merely ignoring government paperwork requirements in sales of property that, again, in the overwhelming number of cases are never used to harm the innocent, shouldn't be the cause of throwing someone in prison or imposing onerous fines on them. (A first offense under 594 will be a gross misdemeanor; each subsequent offense a class C felony.)A Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility on Friday for a car bombing this week that killed 11 people and wounded dozens near a central tourist district in Istanbul. The group — Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or T.A.K. — said the attack on Tuesday had been carried out in retaliation for Turkish Army operations in the Kurdish-dominated region of southeastern Turkey, and it warned tourists to stay away from the country. “The action was carried out to counter all the savage attacks of the Turkish Republic in Nusaybin, Sirnak and other places,” T.A.K. said in a statement, referring to areas in the southeast where the army has been fighting Kurdish militants. “We again warn foreign tourists who are in Turkey and who want to come to Turkey: Foreigners are not our target, but Turkey is no longer a reliable country for them.” T.A.K., which claimed responsibility in February for an attack on a military convoy in Ankara, the capital, that killed 28 people, is considered an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K.HERE’S THE MATCH report of Ireland’s Pool D decider against France. And here’s how we rated Joe Schmidt’s men. Rob Kearney: 8 With Ireland choosing to run the ball more often than kick it, it was a quiet opening half for the fullback, but he used the saved energy to brilliant effect, charging at Freddy Michalak for a 50th minute try. Tommy Bowe: 8 More than justified his place in the team. Back to his excellent best. A terrific athlete int he kick-chase and a strong presence in the wide rucks. Appeared to time his pass perfectly on his first half break into the 22… Keith Earls: 6 That dropped pass. It shook his confidence for a few minutes afterwards. Struggled to make a dent in the hefty French bodies at ruck time, but most certainly never shirked any tackle or task. Robbie Henshaw: 8 Created the opening for Bowe’s break and Earls’ drop and was then the catalyst that led to Kearney’s try. Very sharp in the carry with superb footwork that made him a difficult tackle for any blue shirt. Dave Kearney: 6 Barely put a foot wrong, but was short on work for the opening half, but found more space and opportunity to go chasing ball. Ian Madigan: 7 Thrown in to the deep end in the 27th minute when Sexton hobbled off and he was well able to swim. His confidence shone through when running set moves, but made some curious decisions and poor kicks when the play developed or broke down. Few in the world can claim to rival his standard of goal-kicking. Conor Murray: 9 Assumed the extra responsibility after Sexton’s departure, directing traffic well with good variation of passes on ruck ball that came to him at varying speed. Used his head to dot the try against the post. Source: Billy Stickland/INPHO Cian Healy: 6 After conceding the first scrum penalty he was guilty of some poor carrying choices. Rory Best: 9 Brilliantly immovable at ruck time and carried manfully against a solid big blue wall. Topped it all off with some brilliant tackles in the loose. Mike Ross: 8 Another enormous effort from the big man, solid in the srum and always a willing carrier when Ireland needed secure ball. Devin Toner: 8 A tower at the line-out and galloped around the park to chase down Frenchmen. Paul O’Connell: 6 Brilliant as ever, but unfortunately the agonising sight of him writhing on the field was tough to take for every Irish fan or anyone who has had the pleasure to watch him play. Peter O’Mahony: 8 Forced a brilliant early turnover and was soon choking the French maul. A brilliant way to set the tone. Left the field injured after already emptying the tank. Sean O’Brien: 10 An out and out tiger in defence and made this game a nightmare for any French attacker. Made one absolutely crucial read in first half when France attacked wide with Sexton down. Sensational line-speeed. Perfect hit. We hope the citing commissioner tuned in late. Jamie Heaslip: 8 The usual stuff from Ireland’s excellent workhorse. Terrific at the breakdown providing the muscle for Ireland. Replacement Iain Henderson: 6 Stepped in to some very big shoes and wore them like an old pair of slippers. As it happened: Ireland v France, Rugby World CupEight of Canada’s biggest grocery chains announced today that they would phase out pork raised in facilities employing restrictive gestation crates. Safeway, Wal-Mart, Costco, Sobeys (Thrifty Foods) and Loblaw (Real Canadian Superstore) are among the grocers active in Western Canada supporting more humane practices in pig rearing. The chains agreed to phase out pork produced with outdated practices by the end of 2022. “The Retail Council of Canada believes that sows should be housed in an environment where their pregnancy, health and well-being are taken into highest consideration,” the council said in a statement issued today. An undercover video shot last year by an investigator for the animal rights group Mercy for Animals depicted workers at Puratone’s Manitoba hog farm euthanizing piglets by slamming them against poles or the floor to shocking effect. Puratone is a major supplier of pork sold at retail outlets in Canada. The video also shows pregnant pigs confined to restrictive gestation crates and animals with bloody wounds and open sores. This video is very graphic and disturbing. The images sparked a flurry of news stories and outraged letters to newspaper last December. At that time MFA called on grocers to take action to prevent what they termed “extreme cruelty.” Puratone’s CEO Ray Hildebrand issued a statement insisting that the images do not reflect the company’s animal care rules. A review of the codes of practice governing pig care by the National Farm Animal Care Council and the Canadian Pork Council will be released for public comment June 1. The CPC warned substantial capital investments will be needed to physically change barns and considerable human resource efforts are needed to choose the right system and train stockpeople to a new way of handing animals.Image copyright Autocar/Ben Summerell-Youde Image caption A computer-generated image of what the new TVR might look like - although the final design will be unveiled later this year Sports car company TVR is to base its new factory in Wales, First Minister Carwyn Jones has announced. The plant will create 150 jobs on the Ebbw Vale enterprise zone, which is still hoping to be home to the £325m Circuit of Wales. New owners, who bought the British brand three years ago, will start production next year. The company has a 10-year plan, including four new models, and will begin making a few hundred cars a year. TVR had been looking at three sites around the UK. Mr Jones said: "This is yet another fantastic high profile investment for Wales and a great boost for our automotive sector. "TVR is another iconic and much loved, world-class brand that still commands a strong and loyal international following. I am delighted the next generation of TVRs will proudly bear the label Made in Wales." Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The history of TVR There have been 350 advance orders for the car already, after images of what it might look like were released late last year. TVR chairman Les Edgar said: "This is a fantastic opportunity both for TVR and the Welsh Government. "South Wales is becoming a major hub for automotive and motor sport technology and development and I am delighted TVR is investing here." The company hopes to be producing around 2,000 cars a year by 2022, targeting the UK and selected European markets initially. It will initially assemble the car in Ebbw Vale - bringing in the V8 engines from Cosworth in Northampton. Former F1 designer Gordon Murray is behind iStream carbon technology to give the new models extra strength. THE HISTORY OF THE TVR Image copyright Getty/Evening Standard Image caption The TVR at the London motor show in 1971 Set up in 1947 in Blackpool, producing its first model in 1949, TVR became Britain's largest independent sports carmaker It was founded by mechanic Trevor Wilkinson, who used three consonants from his first name for the company title The company is rescued from bankruptcy in the early 1960s New owner Peter Wheeler, with a background in the oil industry, takes over in 1981 and launches six models and produces 40 models a week The car appeared in a Daffy Duck cartoon and the John Travolta film Swordfish The company is bought by young Russian tycoon Nikolai Smolensky, the son of an oligarch, in 2004 Image caption The TVR Cerbera in 2001 Image copyright Getty Images/Paul Ellis Image caption The TVR factory in Blackpool closed in 2006 Image copyright Getty/Shaun Curry Image caption There was lobbying to try to keep the factory open The Blackpool-based company went into administration at the end of 2006 with 250 job losses but the name was bought back by Mr Smolensky He attempted to re-start the brand at St Athan, Vale of Glamorgan, but it came to nothing Former computer games developer Les Edgar led a syndicate to buy the brand in 2013 Analysis by Sarah Dickins, BBC Wales economics correspondent The automotive industry in Wales already includes 40 component manufacturers and more than 100 other firms in the supply chain. Ford and Toyota have engine plants and Aston Martin recently announced plans to assemble a new model in the Vale of Glamorgan. The Welsh Automotive Forum estimates 18,000 people work in the sector in Wales, with sales worth £3.2bn a year. But the impact of the sector is greater than just the number of people working in it. On the whole it's an industry that pays well. On top of that it has to be innovative. It is continually having to improve design and models to make vehicles cleaner and more efficient. Component makers also have to keep looking at the way they themselves work so they keep winning contracts to supply the car makers. As a result, it is an industry that tends to be high on training and big on investment in its people and machines. That means it is of more benefit to the Welsh economy than the same number of workers in other industries. TVR will bring much needed jobs to the Heads of the Valleys and a simplified assembly process, so its factory only needs to be 20% of the size of a conventional plant. It estimates this could reduce capital investment in the assembly plant by around 80%. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption First Minister Carwyn Jones and TVR chairman Les Edgar on the choice of Ebbw Vale The first minister would not be drawn on how the Welsh Government had supported the deal. But he said the news, hot on the heels of the Aston Martin announcement "sends out a strong, clear message that Wales is the location of choice for advanced manufacturing". Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns said it showed the Welsh automotive industry was "surging from strength to strength." He added: "Today's news is yet another strong endorsement of the quality of Britain's car industry, which has been creating jobs, taking on apprentices and contributing to building a stronger economy." Although an impression of the new car was released last year, the design of the first new vehicle is still under wraps with plans to unveil it towards the end of 2016, with production starting next year. Circuit of Wales chief executive Martin Whitaker welcomed the news as "fantastic" for the region. "Paired with Aston Martin's recent announcement, it reinforces our vision of Ebbw Vale and the south Wales region growing into a cluster of excellence for automotive and related industries," he added.P.T. is a demo for a game that doesn't even have a release date. Really, it's a piece of viral marketing: it was released as a free "gameplay experience" after Sony's press event at Gamescom in August, and "beating" it unlocks a trailer for Silent Hills, Hideo Kojima's upcoming take on the Silent Hill horror franchise. It's just a teaser, but this tiny game is still inspiring and scaring people nearly three months after its release. People are still playing P.T., analyzing its mysteries, finding new details in its twisting, creepily repeating hallways. YouTube users like Marszie and TheGrateDebate are still posting videos about the game. Folks are making fan films, analysis videos, and lets-plays. So, why are people still talking about it? It's a mystery "The nature of P.T. and its series of mysteries definitely lends itself plenty of lasting power," said Bob, one half of TheGrateDebate, and a fellow who has put in more than 60 hours unraveling the teaser's mysteries. "Hideo Kojima has said that P.T. was not made for a single person to solve, that it required people who spoke different languages to come together to figure out the game's final puzzle. Because of this, the game has at its core a social element that allows it to linger in the public mindset. "In addition to that is the fact that P.T. is a horror game, and a pretty damn good one at that," he continued. "We've seen the viral success of small, effective horror titles before: games like Slender, Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Among the Sleep come to mind. For one reason or another, horror games have a tendency to become viral, possibly due to our fascination with watching others get scared. P.T. is also very visually impressive, showing off a level of photorealism and detail that is simply stunning. "The greatest reason P.T. is still being discussed is due to the way it tells its story through clues and hints." "But of all these things, probably the greatest reason P.T. is still being discussed is due to the way it tells its story through clues and hints, as well as the possibility, however slight, that there's something in the game that has yet to be discovered. After all, no one has figured out what's going on with the blue, red, green and yellow flashlight colors that appear at the end of the game." Voidburger, the other half of the TheGrateDebate team, saw lasting appeal in P.T.'s genuine, earnest approach to horror. "Even though it was made to be as viral as possible, we somehow don't mind because there seems to be honest intentions behind it," she said. "When a game is filled to the brim with small details and interesting secrets, you can sense the enthusiasm and care the developers put into the project; it wasn’t just a cash-in to them. Having such love for little details is also something that I think is a main draw to the original Silent Hill series, and it's very exciting to see that spirit represented in P.T." Mystery also offers the possibility of an enticing reward for those who are willing to put the effort in. "It's somewhat rare that a game makes you really think about what's going on by obscuring the big picture and providing only little breadcrumbs to follow," said Voidburger. "It heightens curiosity, which goes hand-in-hand with horror, in my opinion. If you weren't curious about the plot, you might not subject yourself to the generally unpleasant experience of being scared, right? It’s an interesting psychological punishment/reward system going on in the background. "Audiences usually don’t like to be confused when being told a story, whether they’re watching a movie, reading a book, or playing a game. With horror, however, it’s beneficial to keep the audience confused, because it amplifies their fear. And nothing destroys fear like knowledge, so it makes sense to keep the facts few and far between in the horror genre, and make the player work for their plot fix. Just a little bit off Some of the scariest and most unsettling horror in the world takes place in the most mundane settings. What's the easiest way to freak people out? To change things in a "normal" environment so that they're slightly off. P.T. takes place in what first appears to be a boring, normal-looking house. But importantly, it takes place in one hallway in that house, over and over again. And things get subtly more hellish as the player moves through the space. "The story's reluctance to reveal itself certainly contributes to the teaser's perseverance," YouTube user Marszie told me via email. "But if P.T. were not so compelling from the outset I don't think all the story exclusions in the world could have inspired so much discussion. The ambiguities facilitate discussion — they give us something to talk about — but the reason we want to talk about them is because we enjoyed the game. "P.T.'s greatest asset is its looping hallway." "And we enjoyed the game for plenty of reasons, but P.T.'s greatest asset is its looping hallway. Not only does it invoke terror to traverse the same space over and over, knowing each time that something about it is going to be different, but it also invokes curiosity, or a desire to know what will happen next. It's a perfect example of how limitations bolster creativity; with unlimited funds and development time, I doubt anyone at Kojima Productions would've thought to set a whole demo in a single hallway." Over the Hills P.T. has clearly captured the imagination (and the sleep) of a critical mass of players. I've stated here that I fully believe P.T. will end up being a scarier, tighter experience than Silent Hills, the game that it's supposed to be teasing. I asked the YouTubers what they think P.T. will ultimately mean for the game — and the Silent Hill franchise as a whole. "I am looking forward to Silent Hills, but I'm also a little skeptical," Marszie told me. "Every aspect of P.T. that might be perceived as a flaw in any other game works because P.T. is short... What's more, the horror genre is cursed with diminishing returns. A horror movie is never as frightening in its third act as it was in its first, and that deceleration is only more dramatic in a video game, which can stretch onwards for ten hours or more. "I don't doubt that the team will be able to achieve a similar level of atmosphere in the opening moments of Silent Hills, but is it even possible to maintain it? Would you even want to? I don't think so. I think the development team should focus on writing a very interesting narrative, supported by very interesting characters, so that when the player inevitably becomes acclimated to the game and ceases to be scared by it, he or she has incentive to keep playing." Voidburger wants to see more, smaller games in the series. "There's some talk of Silent Hills being episodic," She said. "My biggest hope for the game — and this is something I've been craving for years — is that it's episodic [the way] The Twilight Zone was. Different writers with different stories being told in the same format, in the same weird universe, tied together by a sense of creepy wrongness. That'd be a nightmare come true!" I can't think of a better approach than a bunch of small, weird games — in the vein of P.T., made by different teams. A sort of Masters of Horror for the Silent Hill series. That's a perfect way to honor the spirit of P.T. on the scale of Silent Hills.If you’ve read Jeff Sharlet’s magnificent GQ account of his lost weekend amongst the “Men’s Human Rights Activists” at A Voice for Men’s conference last summer (or my take on it here), you know that some of the creepiest moments his account involved his friend Blair, a twentysomething writer who came along for the ride and ended up, by her account, being groped and propositioned by AVFM’s “director of collegiate activism” Sage Gerard. Sharlet never mentions Blair’s last name, but Elam outs her in a AVFM post with the lovely title “GQ’s Jeff Sharlet pimps out Blair Braverman for clickbait.” Braverman, like her friend Sharlet, is a writer. As in, a real writer, someone who’s won awards, whose work has been included in a number of anthologies, and who has a book coming out soon from Ecco/HarperCollins. Elam must be aware of this – he links to her website, where all of this information is easily found – but for some reason doesn’t mention it. Perhaps because Braverman, less than half his age, is being published by, you know, an actual big-name publishing house, while Elam will never be published by anything more prestigious than Paul Elam Press? (Sorry, Zeta Press. Because Paul is a Zeta male, a term he made up to describe the best kind of male.) Whatever the reason, Elam is content to portray “pretty young Blair,” whom he refers to repeatedly as a “girl,” as little more than a sort of journalistic honey trap brought to the conference in order to lure the men there into, I guess, acting like the predatory creeps they are? He also writes that Blair, who trains and races sled dogs, “is into dogs, but I want to make it perfectly clear that I don’t mean that in a sexual way.” Brilliant, Paul. You’re attempting to rebut a GQ piece that reveals you and your male followers to be a bunch of misogynistic assholes who are constantly saying inappropriately sexual things about (and to) every woman they find attractive … by being a misogynistic asshole saying inappropriately sexual things about a woman you find attractive. Unexpectedly, Elam’s comrades at AVFM, in their comments on his article, eschew crude sexual comments and focus on substantive points. Just kidding! They’re worse. Including the women. Tara Palmatier, a clinical psychologist who has affixed herself firmly to AVFM and who co-hosts a regular Youtube show with Elam, writes of Braverman in something other than clinical terms, describing her as “a disingenuous doe-eyed (one eye slightly smaller than the other and just a smidge crossed) wannabe double agent,” adding: Yo, MSM, next time you want to employ a “honey trap” to infiltrate the MHRM conference, spring a few more bucks for a more tempting and believable honey trap. Think Julian Assange grade. AVFM’s “activism director” Attila Vinczer – we’ve met him before – pipes up with a weird and exceedingly creepy, er, appreciation of Braverman that may well make your skin crawl: I sure recall Blair Braverman joining us in the lobby sporting her dark short shorts, shifting legs crossing one over the other and back again, rosy cheeks, blushing. Flirtatious? Hmmm. What other behaviour should she have had, being warned she would be raped? One must wonder, just what exactly was their collective intention? Well, judging by the pathetic Jeff Sharlet hack article, it is clear, they were looking for that sizzle. What better plan than bring a young woman, dressed and behaving seductively provocative, to lure some unsuspecting guy like a pretty nerium oleander. We recognized the poison this pretty flower had in store and sent her packing. Apparently all young women wearing shorts in June, and having legs that occasionally move, are trying to seduce creepy misogynistic assholes twice their age. Dean Esmay, AVFM’s “managing editor” and “chief operations officer,” adds his two cents: I remember noticing Blair and thinking she was an eye candy distraction whose job was to flirt with guys, and then thinking “nah don’t be sexist, she’s just nice.” My bad. She was there specifically to be a distraction A young woman being a young woman in the presence of Men’s Rights Activists – a clear case of entrapment! Longtime AVFM regular “Andybob” had some questions. I wonder how Sharlet prepped Blair Braverman for her role – apart from brushing the dog hairs off her person and instructing her to lose the goats. Did he coach her on how to drop a variety of rape jokes and references into conversations, or did she come up with it all on her own? I’ve seen no indication that Braverman was prepped, or made any rape jokes, or attended the conference as anything other than a curious (and ultimately quite horrified) visitor. (The bit about goats is a reference to one of the photos AVFM filched from Braverman’s Facebook page and used to illustrate the article.) GQ’s Sharlet – you know, the actual author of the piece that has the AVFMers so enraged – got some criticism as well. AVFM regular ManWithPlan referred snidely to Sharlet’s alleged “fat rolls.” Palmatier, a bit more creative, wrote that Sharlet-tan gave me the heebie jeebies from his first cold, slimy amphibian-like approach. (Are slugs amphibians? That’s what he reminded me of.) Oddly, none of the AVFMers accused Sharlet of trying to seduce them by crossing and uncrossing his legs. NOTE: Yeah, I used that cartoon once before. But. come on, it’s awesome. Share this: Facebook Twitter Reddit Tumblr Email More Google Pinterest LinkedIn Pocket Print Like this: Like Loading...The Iranian government says it will restrict the number of students admitted to humanities programs at universities, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. The announcement was made on August 25 by Abolfazl Hassani, the director of the government's Office of Development of Higher Education. It follows criticism of humanities studies last year by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He called the humanities a field of study that "promotes skepticism and doubt in religious principles and beliefs," and that it was worrying that almost two-thirds of university students in Iran were seeking degrees in the humanities. It also comes as, in the past three months, nearly 20 university deans have been sacked by Science Minister Kamran Daneshjou, most recently Yosef Sobouti of the Graduate University of Zanjan. Daneshjou was in charge of the Interior Ministry's election headquarters in the contested presidential vote last year. Saeed Peyvandi, a Paris-based expert on education, says that that the Science Ministry has started a coordinated, centralized policy to monitor and control universities, including students, professors, chancellors, and curriculums. Peyvandi adds that as a result of such policies, "independence of universities" will make no sense in Iran anymore. Daneshjou said in March that only academics who had "practical commitment" to the principle of "velayat-e faqih, or the rule of the supreme leader, could teach at universities. U.S.-based sociologist Majid Mohammadi says that the new policy of the Iranian establishment reflects its totalitarian attitude, which has become even more conspicuous during the past year. Mohammadi says that dismissing university professors, forcing them to retire or resign, and replacing them with those committed to the supreme leader shows that a cultural revolution is still continuing in the country. Khamenei had previously called universities arenas of "soft war," described students as "young soldiers" and professors as "commanders" who should confront soft war.Your message has been sent successfully The United States and United Kingdom achieved the dubious honor of being branded "Enemies of the Internet" for the first time. Watchdog group Reporters Without Borders released its annual report on which countries restrict access to the internet through censorship and surveillance this week. Advertisement: Repeat offenders China and North Korea made the list again this year, but the democracies of America and Britain joined the ranks thanks to the National Security Agency and the Government Security Headquarters' activities, respectively. Another democratic newcomer to the group? India, for its Centre for Development of Telematics. “The mass surveillance methods employed in these three countries, many of them exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, are all the more intolerable because they will be used and indeed are already being used by authoritarians countries such as Iran, China, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to justify their own violations of freedom of information," the group wrote in its report. GlobalPost took a closer look at the countries branded "Enemies of the Internet" in 2014: United States The report's authors slammed America's "highly secretive" NSA, which they said has "come to symbolize the abuses by the world's intelligence agencies." Advertisement: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed a government surveillance program in his leak of classified documents last June that included the mass data collection of the phone and internet records of millions of Americans. Through a close relationship with service providers like AT&T, Level 3 and Verizon, the NSA can monitor the web "at the infrastructure level" both in the United States and outside, according to the report. United Kingdom The report dubbed the United Kingdom the "world champion of surveillance" thanks to British eavesdropping agency Government Communications Headquarters. "As part of its project 'Mastering the Internet,' GCHQ has developed the world’s biggest data monitoring system," the report said. "Supported by the NSA and with the prospect of sharing data, the British agency brushed aside all legal obstacles and embarked on mass surveillance of nearly a quarter of the world’s communications." Advertisement: Snowden said last June that the UK was "worse than the US" when it came to digital spying. India India remained largely silent in the wave of condemnation that followed Snowden's revelations about NSA surveillance. According to the report's authors, it
booted it just barely over the crossbar. He was 60 yards away. “I realized,” McAfee says, “this was potentially a very good thing financially for me and my family.” McAfee’s parents followed him to Indianapolis. He helped his dad start McAfee Distribution, selling wood finishes. These days Pat McAfee is a corporation unto himself, a professional comedian and public speaker and owner of McAfee Distribution and a real estate company. Also he kicks footballs for the Indianapolis Colts. He kicks them very hard. Because he was right when he was 12. He was right when he was 14. He was more right than he knew. Pat McAfee might just have the most perfect kicking leg in NFL history. And he is having the closest thing the league has seen to a perfect season. * * * McAfee wants more, of course. Almost perfect means he’s almost satisfied. Almost. But to know what he wants, you have to know what he has done, five games into this season: As a kickoff man, he has kicked it 22 times. One was a planned dribbler down the field against Buffalo, and was downed immediately for a return of 0 yards. Of the 21 times he has kicked it as far as he can, he has recorded 21 touchbacks. Almost all went through the end zone. At least five went through the uprights. “Every one should do that,” McAfee says. “If it doesn’t, I failed.” This season he is the only kickoff man with all touchbacks on deep kicks. Sebastian Janikowski of the Raiders has allowed seven returns in 25 kicks. New England’s Stephen Gostkowski? Seven in 31 kicks. Two of the strongest-legged kickers in the NFL. No comparison. McAfee works with veteran Colts place-kicker Adam Vinatieri on the kickoff – “I’m picking a Hall of Famer’s brains,” McAfee says – and their connection is so good, special teams coordinator Tom McMahon gets out of the way. “I go shag balls and let Pat work (on his kickoffs) with Vinny,” McMahon says. “They’ve come up with something to get the extra yards. I won’t tell you what it is.” Vinatieri and McAfee wouldn’t, either, but both gave a boxing analogy. “Imagine a heavyweight fighter, punching someone in the face,” Vinatieri says. “You don’t make contact and just stop there. Your fist keeps going.” McAfee is nodding. “I take a crow-hop through the ball,” he says. “Basically, I’m trying to knock the (expletive) out.” Nobody has ever gone a full NFL season allowing 0 kickoff return yards. McAfee is one-third there. Says Colts long snapper Matt Overton: “Ask the guys on the kickoff team: Is it fun? ‘It would be if McAfee would let us make a play.’ They’re frothing at the mouth to tackle somebody. Pat won’t let 'em.” And kicking isn’t what McAfee does best. The man’s a punter, All-Pro last season, and this season he’s better. He averages a career-best 48 yards, eighth in the league, but his net average – punt yardage minus return yardage – is 46.5. The single-season NFL record for net punting is 44.2, set in 2013 by the Rams’ Johnny Hekker. Understand what is happening here? McAfee is having a kickoff season that has never been had. He is having a punting season that has never been had. He has swung his leg a total of 43 times – 22 kickoffs, 21 punts – and allowed 33 return yards. Combined. All season. And McAfee, he’s not happy about those 33 yards. “I would like that number to be a little less,” he says, crediting gunners Winston Guy, Clayton Geathers and Colt Anderson. “The goal is zero.” The goal is perfection. And no NFL punter/kicker has come this close. So how did this happen? The leg is one reason. The brain is another. The football he takes to the bedroom? That’s another. * * * “It’s kind of sad,” McAfee was telling me. “I don’t want to say I sleep with the football. But it’s damn near.” His punting secret is the way he drops the ball. McAfee’s got leg muscles; don’t get it twisted. He doesn’t lift for power, more reps – he does 80 squats at a time – but those leg muscles are absurd. The house, remember? He was a kid just kicking balls off the brick wall, rattling windows, because he didn’t like video games or watching TV. He liked kicking things. All sorts of things, and he still does. He has considered setting world records in various kicking disciplines, and more on that in a minute. For now, understand that McAfee has kicked soccer balls until the cover comes off. He did it once in practice in high school, firing a shot wide of the goal. The goalie picked up the ball and it was missing its leather, like something out of "The Natural." McAfee broke the kid’s arm at age 12. He kicks 75-yard field goals in practice now. A few years ago a Colts employee with a baseball radar gun asked McAfee to kick a soccer ball, just to see how fast it could go. McAfee warmed up with an 85-mph kick, then said he was ready to get serious. The employee turned over a picnic table, hid behind it, stuck out the radar gun with one hand and clocked McAfee’s second and final attempt at 124 mph. The world record is 129 mph. McAfee thinks he can get there, and you know what? Fine. We’ll go there now. As you read earlier, McAfee is a one-man corporation. He has plans, schemes even, to maximize his earning potential. One is a video he has considered making where he records himself breaking the world record for fastest soccer kick (129 mph), kicks one of his 75-yard field goals (the NFL record is 64 yards), surpasses the record NFL punt (98 yards, with roll) and drop-kicks a rugby field goal farther than the current record (85 yards). “I was going to say, ‘It’s the shoe,’ ” McAfee says. “It doesn’t matter the ball, it’s the shoe. I tried to do it this offseason but no shoe company took a hit at it.” So anyway, the bed. McAfee travels with a few items. Toothbrush and toothpaste. Change of clothes. Cell phone, charger. And a football. The drop is the key to the whole punt, see. When he first got to the NFL, McAfee hit the ball higher up in the drop, the optimum driving spot, and didn’t worry about direction. Let the gunners do that. Two years ago, with the NFL shifting to directional punting – not just on punts inside midfield, but on all punts – the Colts told McAfee to do the same. He watched film of punters like the Saints’ Thomas Morstead, noticed they were dropping the ball lower, and got to work. McAfee has a football field-sized lot behind his house – coming soon to the neighborhood: an NFL goal post – and he spent the offseason testing the new drop, seeing where the ball went with each tweak. His target area is outside the numbers, the better to hem in the return man. Brainiac that he is – forget his flamboyant personality; McAfee appears to have a genius-level IQ, and his memory is certifiably photographic – McAfee has turned the drop into a science experiment. Over time he has raised his drop a little, allowing him to swing his leg longer before making contact, and lifted the nose of the ball a bit. Perfection requires repetition, and a football goes wherever he goes so he can practice his drop 50 times a night, sometimes 100. Every night. Before he goes to sleep. “It’s pathetic, almost,” he says. No. It’s perfect, almost. Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyelNOVICE TABLET VENDOR Google has royally screwed up Nexus 7 shipments in the UK, having sent out thousands of orders to customers with incomplete addresses on the packages. Despite charging customers a tenner for delivery, Google managed to arrange that Nexus 7 devices are struggling to reach those who ordered them, as The INQUIRER team has experienced first-hand. We spoke to delivery firm TNT, which told us that because Google has sent out packages with incomplete addresses "thousands of customers" will be kept waiting for their deliveries while the firm carries out "recovery actions" to find the packages' rightful addressees. One person has revealed that their Nexus 7 delivery was addressed to "Basement flat, basement flat, London", which meant that because TNT was unavailable to deliver they had to go out of their way to collect the device. We've also heard from TNT that it's had a lot of calls about the issue, but it said it is advising customers to contact Google to ask for refunds and make their voices heard about the problem. As if to make matters worse, Tesco has revealed its pricing for the Google Nexus 7, and it is selling the 16GB model cheaper than Google, for £189. µNow playing: Watch this: Don't use Galaxy Note 7 on airplanes, warns FAA The feds are stepping in. Samsung has agreed to replace every single Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, after at least 35 reports that the phone's batteries could overheat and explode. But some argued the voluntary recall wasn't enough, since the phones were still on sale. Consumer Reports called for the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to do more. In a emailed statement Friday, the CPSC now says it's officially working with Samsung on a recall -- as well as evaluating whether a simple phone exchange is enough of a solution. In a separate press release, Samsung confirmed that it's collaborating with the CPSC, and also says it's no longer selling or shipping phones affected by the issue. "We are asking users to power down their Galaxy Note 7s and exchange them now," said Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America. The CPSC's involvement may change the pace of Note 7 exchanges, though. Samsung now says new Note 7s will be issued to existing buyers "upon completion of the CPSC process," and neither Samsung nor the CPSC offered a specific timetable beyond "as soon as possible." (It took 6 months for the CPSC to recall exploding hoverboards, to give you some context.) However, participants can also opt to receive a Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge and be refunded the difference in their purchase price, or borrow a Samsung J loaner phone while they wait for a new Note 7. In the meanwhile, the CPSC says it's "urging all consumers who own a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to power them down and stop charging or using the device." Separately, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a warning Thursday to airplane passengers, asking them not to turn on or charge a Galaxy Note 7 on planes. If you have a Galaxy Note 7, you can find out more about the recall at Samsung's official site. Update, 2:15 p.m. PT: Added Samsung statement.The Scotsman completed a convenient 10-2 victory against his compatriot Fraser Patrick in the second World Championship qualifying round. Former World Champion Peter Ebdon is out. Graeme Dott’s battle for a 16th World Championship visit is on, after defeating Fraser Patrick. His absence from last year has ended a magnificent fourteen World Championship appearances sequence, including three finals (2004, 2006, 2010) and the 2006 World Champion title. Dott has to beat the Chinese Yu Delu to claim his spot in the World Championship. Delu, who’s ranked 52, won his match against Mike Dunn 10-7 in the second round, Delu has never played in the World Championship final rounds. The 2002 World Champion Peter Ebdon, lost his second round match 7-10 against Stuart Carrington and won’t attend this year’s championship. The great Scottish player Alan McManus defeated Andrew Pagett 10-4 and will face Mitchell Mann in the last qualifying round. McManus’s World Championship appearance last year was incredible. He enjoyed a safe run to the quarter final by beating John Higgins 10-7 and then Ken Doherty 13-8, to play Mark Selby in the quarter final, Selby won the match 13-5. Ryan Day defeated Alex Davies 10-2 and will meet Jak Jones in the final qualifying round. Day made a fantastic 115 break in frame nine. Jamie Jones won his match against the Chinese Tian Pengfei 10-5 and will wait for the winner of the match between Adam Duffy and Sam Baird. (3-6 after the first session) For more scores.Located right on Las Vegas' famous Strip, Aria Resort & Casino puts guests close to the action when exploring this exciting city. All rooms at this property feature large windows, letting guests take in all the fantastic sights even when staying indoors. Guests staying at Aria Resort & Casino get to use in-room tablets to order room service or read thousands of newspapers. The rooms also have TVs and Wi-Fi, plus fully stocked minibars, robes, and laptop-sized safes. The bathrooms have both showers and soaking tubs. In addition to three swimming pools and a gym, this property has a spa and salon. While taking breaks from the casino, guests can check out the fine art collection. There are more than 20 restaurants and bars on site at this property, offering options ranging from Thai food to French fare, plus plenty of cocktails. The T-Mobile Arena is a six-minute drive from the hotel and Showcase Mall is 15 minutes away on foot.A University of Colorado, Denver administrator worries that white children may “forfeit their humanity” if they aren’t raised by sufficiently progressive parents. In an academic article, Naomi Nishi, who facilitates educational programs for professors and periodically teaches classes, argues that parents should employ “critical race parenting” to prevent white children from committing “racial microaggressions” against their peers. "Can we...begin at the core with our white children and work to ward off white identity and whiteness before children succumb and forfeit their humanity in order to join the oppressor?" [RELATED: ‘Whiteness’ journal mysteriously goes dark after exposure] Nishi goes on to suggest that white people are “constantly wielding racial microaggressions,” and that over time these microaggressions can cause “racial battle fatigue,” noting that children of color are especially susceptible to the “self-hatred” this causes. White children, on the other hand, are especially prone to committing racial microaggressions because they “learn a complicated dance of whiteness” that teaches them not only to “maintain and defend whiteness,” but to do so while claiming to be “colorblind.” Although her article focuses mainly on her own experiences as a parent, Nishi’s essay is preoccupied with whiteness among children, eventually asserting that “whites, to pay for their embracing of whiteness, forfeit their own humanity.” [RELATED: Prof: ‘meritocracy’ is a ‘whiteness ideology’] “Thus whites enter into this Faustian exchange even as children and begin the ‘sadomasochistic’ relationship where in their work to love whiteness, their souls waste away as they are quietly tearing themselves from humanity and real love,” she writes. Nishi then questions whether it is possible for parents to prevent children from developing a “white identity,” suggesting that parents ought to teach their kids “to reject whiteness and white identity.” “[C]an we instead begin at the core with our white children and work to ward off white identity and whiteness before children succumb and forfeit their humanity in order to join the oppressor?” she asks. Her article was published in the latest issue of the Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, alongside a half-dozen other articles on the importance of the emerging field of critical race parenting. [RELATED: Prof pledges to ‘deconstruct whiteness’ in all her courses] In the same issue, Christin DePouw, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, published an article skeptical of “white parents…who may be tempted to adopt a colorblind perspective” in the home. Roberto Montoya, who teaches at the University of Colorado, contributed an essay on how “how parenting in the era of Trump is Sisyphean.” Campus Reform reached out to DePouw, Montoya, and Nishi for comment, but did not receive a response from any in time for publication. Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @Toni_AiraksinenAccording to Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, artificial light may actually have an impact on our sleeping schedules. A study that he published last year suggested that electric light, especially from electronic devices can cause sleep deprivation. However, even beyond that, some researchers suggest that electric light could be responsible for changing the sleep patterns of an entire species over time. It has been well documented that prior to electric light, people had fairly different sleep schedules. Instead of sleeping in one whole 8 hour block, people would have a series of naps and wake in between. This is a process known as segmented sleeping. According to Wikipedia, Segmented sleep, also known as divided sleep, bimodal sleep pattern, bifurcated sleep, or interrupted sleep, is a polyphasic or biphasic sleep pattern where two or more periods of sleep are punctuated by periods of wakefulness. Along with a nap (siesta) in the day, it has been argued that this is the natural pattern of human sleep. A case has been made that maintaining such a sleep pattern may be important in regulating stress. Historian A. Roger Ekirch has argued that before the Industrial Revolution, segmented sleep was the dominant form of human slumber in Western civilization. He draws evidence from documents from the ancient, medieval, and modern world. Other historians, such as Craig Koslofsky, have endorsed Ekirch’s analysis. It is highly possibly that any number of variables resulted in the changing of sleep patterns over the centuries, especially during such a transitional time as the industrial revolution. However, the video below gives is a very interesting perspective on an age old mystery. Why did our sleep patterns change? John Vibes writes for True Activist and is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war.FILE - In this July 28, 2016, file photo, Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez speaks during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Valdez, Texas' first Hispanic female sheriff, announced Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017, that she will run against Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas’ first Hispanic female sheriff announced Wednesday she is running for governor in 2018, making her the biggest Democrat in the race to challenge Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, who is stepping down as sheriff after 12 years to launch her campaign, starts out as an underdog. Texas hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since 1990 and Abbott coasted to a 20-point win just three years ago against Wendy Davis, whose defense of abortion rights catapulted her to national political stardom. In Valdez, 70, Democrats are now putting up a far different candidate: a one-time migrant worker and Army veteran with more than 40 years in law enforcement. She was Texas’ first openly gay sheriff and has publicly clashed with Abbott over her handling of federal immigration detainers in the nation’s seventh-largest jail system. Several other lesser-known Democrats, including the son of a former Texas governor in the 1980s, are also running. But the true Democratic heavyweights took a pass, including Julian Castro, who was President Barack Obama’s housing secretary and is a former mayor of San Antonio. Texas Democrats have faced uncomfortable questions for months about whether they can field a credible gubernatorial candidate. Valdez, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent, downplayed how much money she would need to mount a serious campaign in a Texas, where the size makes statewide campaigns an expensive undertaking. “Texas and businesses are begging for a return of common sense, smart investments and just plain sanity,” said Valdez, who announced her candidacy at Texas Democratic headquarters in Austin. Valdez was among about 40 female sheriffs in the U.S., a number that amounts to only about 1 percent of the total sheriff population, according to the National Sheriffs Association. Abbott, who is facing re-election for the first time, approaches next year’s midterm elections in a better position than few other incumbent governors in the U.S. He has no serious GOP primary challenger and already has more than $40 million in campaign funds socked away. He remains popular among social conservatives who drive Texas politics and is steering the state through the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, which could become the costliest national disaster cleanup in U.S. history. He has pressed the White House for billions of dollars in additional recovery aid, and state leaders drew high marks in a recent survey of Harvey-affected residents by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Abbott’s campaign did not comment on Valdez entering the race but, not coincidentally, did release a statement about the Dallas Police Association’s political arm endorsing him Wednesday for re-election. Democrats are likely to target two of Abbott’s most divisive pursuits: his “sanctuary cities” ban signed in May; and a so-called bathroom bill targeting transgender people, which failed to pass amid backlash from big corporations such as Amazon and Google. The new “sanctuary cities” law, known as SB4, is Abbott’s toughest crackdown on immigration and was partly fueled by Valdez’s decision in 2015 that Dallas jails would stop automatically honoring federal immigration detainers for minor offenses. At the time, Abbott responded by threatening to pull $250 million in criminal justice grants to counties that followed Valdez’s lead, though Dallas never lost any funds. Ann Richards was the state’s last Democratic governor and 1994 was the last time Democrats won any statewide office in Texas — the longest losing streak of its kind in the nation. ___ Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber ___ Sign up for the AP’s weekly newsletter showcasing our best reporting from the Midwest and Texas: http://apne.ws/2u1RMfvIt was the Keith Richards of movie projects—no matter what insane obstacles came in its path, be it 9/11, Mel Gibson’s drunken anti-Semitic meltdown, the passing of Heath Ledger, the writers strike, fantastical desert showers, or alleged warring co-stars, it motored along, refusing to die. This weekend, Mad Max: Fury Road crash-lands into multiplexes. The first entry in the Mad Max franchise since 1985’s Beyond Thunderdome, it stars Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky, a muted rebel in a barren futuristic wasteland who’s lost his family and wheels. After escaping the albino War Boys, he aligns himself with rogue warrior Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) on a quest to transport five pregnant slave-wives from the clutches of Immortan Joe (original cast member Hugh Keays-Byrne), a water-hoarding masked tyrant who promises his sickly acolytes salvation in Valhalla, to a desert oasis. Max, Furiosa, the wives, and Nux (Nicholas Hoult), a War Boy defector, find themselves packed into a War Rig—a tricked-out heavy haul truck—barreling through the post-apocalyptic hellscape and chased by a rabid convoy of fire-breathing vehicles boasting pole-swingers, spear-throwers, and a chain gun-wielding giant known as “Rictus Erectus.” Their arrival is signaled by iOTA, a metalhead shredding a flamethrower-guitar in front of a giant stack of speakers. “He’s logical to that world,” director George Miller says of iOTA. “Pre-modern communications, there was always the music of war—the bugle, horns, bagpipes, drummers. Every war culture had some sound to signal the troops… ours is just weaponized, so it’s a flamethrower as well.” The idea for the original Mad Max began with Miller’s previous career as a doctor in an emergency room in Sydney, Australia, where he observed many victims of car accidents. He’d also lost several friends to car crashes as a teen. And, unlike the $150 million Fury Road, the first Mad Max was made on a shoestring budget of $350,000. “People say, ‘You came up with the first post-apocalyptic world,’ but the truth was in the first Mad Max movie we couldn’t afford to shoot in a modern day street,” says Miller. “You needed extras, buildings, and all these vehicles, so we shot it in deserted backstreets and decrepit buildings that cost us nothing. To explain this disintegrating world, I just put in a caption, ‘A few years from now…,’ so it came out of necessity. By the time we got to Road Warrior, we realized that we’d tapped into some universal archetype and were much more conscious of this post-apocalyptic world inspired by the oil wars.” Indeed, the dystopian world of Mad Max is steeped in allegory, with 1981’s The Road Warrior inspired by the oil crises of the ‘70s. “I’d lived in a very lovely and sedate city in Melbourne, and during OPEC and the extreme oil crisis, where the only people who could get any gas were emergency workers, firemen, hospital staff, and police, it took ten days in this really peaceful city for the first shot to be fired, so I thought, ‘What if this happened over ten years?’” Miller recalls. Fury Road, on the other hand, is set in a future society with dwindling resources—namely water—and also concerns women’s ownership over their bodies, with Immortan Joe’s five slave-wives escaping their birthing lairs and scrawling all over the walls, “We are not things.” Given the drought in California and America’s constant clash over reproductive rights, the film’s themes couldn’t be timelier. “We’re almost a desert, Australia, so it’s a crisis just like in California,” Miller says. “In the mid-aughts, I was in India and first heard the term ‘water wars’—that people in Kashmir and other places were fighting over water. Sadly, things don’t change a lot. In terms of the commodification of women, we’re becoming more and more aware of that. But everyone in this movie is a commodity—they wear the brand of Immortan Joe on the back of their necks.” Over the last ten months, Fury Road has been riding a wave of strident buzz. When the first footage of the film unspooled at last year’s Comic-Con, it prompted then-Sony Pictures president Amy Pascal to fire off a series of giddy emails—later exposed in the Sony hacks—branding it “the greatest trailor [sp] ever” and declaring “we need guys like George Miller to make movies for us.” Miller, of course, is the 70-year-old medical doctor turned visionary filmmaker who’s architected the Mad Max universe, from the 1979 original to The Road Warrior and on to Fury Road. But it wasn’t always that way. It’s taken 17 years for Mad Max: Fury Road to travel from the mind of Miller—a vision back at an L.A. crosswalk of “a continuous chase” involving “human cargo of five wives racing across the wasteland and fleeing a tyrannical warlord”—to the big screen. And for a while, it seemed like the movie gods had it out for the plagued production. Fury Road was set to begin shooting back in 2001, but filming was stalled due to the September 11 attacks, which caused the American dollar to plummet against the Australian dollar. “We were financed in American dollars and shooting in Australian dollars, and we lost 25 percent of our budget,” Miller says. “We looked to see what we could cut, but it would have compromised the movie.”He adds, “When 9/11 happened, it extended three months the time it would take to ship your equipment—these large containers of gear and all the vehicles—and the insurance got higher. We were geared up to do Happy Feet after Fury Road, so we had to start on that.” If that weren’t enough, Mel Gibson was set to reprise his role as Max Rockatansky, but had to exit the big-budget project after his well-publicized anti-Semitic tirade. And to answer your question, no, Gibson was never slated to cameo in Fury Road. “Never for Mel,” says Miller. “It would be like having Sean Connery turning up in Daniel Craig’s James Bond movie. It would pull everyone out of the movie when you’re trying to get them into it.” Then in 2006, during production on his Oscar-winning animated feature Happy Feet, Miller began courting fellow Aussie Heath Ledger for the role of Max. “Every time Heath [Ledger] would come through Sydney, he’d call in and we’d chat about Max,” says Miller. “He had that same thing that Mel and Tom Hardy have—that maleness, charisma, and restless energy, which you need to play a relatively still character. The world lost someone great when he went. Tom was the next to walk through the door that had that vibe.” Hardy announced his casting in June 2010. The plan at the time was to shoot two Mad Max films back-to-back: Mad Max: Fury Road and Mad Max: Furiosa, with the first being a live-action flick and the second an anime. “We were gonna do an anime of Furiosa, like Akira,” Miller says. “We were going to shoot in a place called Broken Hill in Australia out in the Outback, and it rained for the first time in 15 years, and what was the flat red earth of the wasteland was now literally a flower garden and the great salt lakes in the center of Australia had pelicans and frogs in them.” So, Miller moved production from Australia to Namibia, and filming finally began in July 2012. In lieu of a shooting script, Miller collaborated with comic book artist Brendan McCarthy on storyboarding the entire film, ending up with a total of 3,500 panels—nearly the same number of shots in Fury Road. Nearly all of the effects in the film were achieved without the use of CG—including the pole-swinging sequences, achieved by recruiting Cirque du Soleil performers and Olympic gymnasts. “The pole-swinging I never thought we could achieve,” says a chuckling Miller. “I never thought we could actually move the poles on the cars, and then one day I looked up and there were eight of them coming out of the desert swinging about. I thought, ‘Oh my god, we did it.’ And we got Tom up there! He’s afraid of heights, but he did it anyway. When he’s hanging upside down between the wheels of a War Rig as it’s hurtling through the desert, that’s Tom Hardy inches off the ground being suspended by two big cables.” In October, however, reports circulated that the film had fallen weeks behind schedule leading its studio, Warner Bros., to send its then-president Jeff Robinov out to the Namibian set to oversee production. In addition, rumors spread that Hardy had become very difficult on set, driving co-star Theron nuts with his intense method-acting routine. The alleged feud was addressed in a 2014 Esquire profile of Hardy. “That on the set of Mad Max: Fury Road, Charlize Theron found him weird and scary and wanted him kept away from her. That when the head of Warner Bros. went to visit the Mad Max set in Namibia, he offered to let Hardy spar with him so that he could work out his issues,” wrote Tom Junod. “We fuckin’ went at it, yeah,” Theron recently told Esquire. “And on other days, he and George went at it. It was the isolation, and the fact that we were stuck in a rig for the entire shoot. We shot a war movie on a moving truck—there’s very little green screen. It was like a family road trip that just never went anywhere. We never got anywhere. We just drove. We drove into nothingness, and that was maddening sometimes.” Despite their on set drama over the 130-day shoot, the two have since buried the hatchet. Theron even showed the Esquire scribe a gift Hardy left for her in her trailer: a self-portrait Hardy painted with an inscription that read, “You are an absolute nightmare, BUT you are also fucking awesome. I’ll kind of miss you. Love, Tommy.” And just this week, Hardy issued a public apology to Miller during a press conference for the film at Cannes: “I have to apologize to you because I got frustrated and there is no way that George could have explained what he conceived in the sand while we were out there… I knew [Miller] was brilliant, but I didn’t know how brilliant until I saw it.” Indeed, Mad Max: Fury Road is a modern day masterpiece; a relentlessly volatile, immaculately staged, and unabashedly feminist feature-length car chase. Miller claims he doesn’t know whether he’ll helm any sequels, although acknowledges that Hardy is “signed on for three more films,” and that they’ve “written backstories for everything,” including a Max Rockatansky novella and the aforementioned Mad Max: Furiosa screenplay. For now, though, he’s just happy to see his remodeled classic shine on the silver screen. “It’s a film you couldn’t kill with a stick, you know?” he says with a smile. “It just kept on coming back!”Update—February 5, 2015: Please visit our new alert on this issue, which targets Congress: USA: Urge Congress to Support AWARE Act to Stop Farm Animal Research Cruelty! Piglets crushed to death by their mothers, who have been scientifically bred for unnaturally high multiple births. Weakened and deformed calves born to cows who have been “retooled” to have twins and triplets when they usually bear only one calf at a time. Lambs born in open fields left to die excruciating deaths in an experiment to see whether their mothers, normally dependent on human help, would nurture their babies despite severe weather and predators. It sounds like a horror movie, but, as reported in The New York Times, these are just some of the very real atrocities that occur at the USDA’s U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, a sprawling complex of laboratories in Nebraska with the overarching mission to help meat producers make more money. And even more galling: it’s funded by your tax dollars. Farm animals—both in agricultural research and in on-farm production—are excluded from the protections of Animal Welfare Act, which sets standards for other kinds of animal research. But this glaring exemption does not mean this abuse should take place and be sanctioned by our government. We need you to speak out.It’s beginning to look like people have had enough of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. Protesters burned the childhood home of deceased socialist leader Hugo Chavez. From the Associated Press: Demonstrators lit the house in the city of Barinas where Chavez spent his early years aflame Monday afternoon along with several government buildings, including the regional office of the National Electoral Council, said Pedro Luis Castillo, a legislator who represents the area. The burnings capped a violent day in Barinas — known as the cradle of Chavez’s revolution — during which protesters clashed with national guardsmen, businesses were shuttered and roads were blocked with fire-filled barricades… “It is pretty symbolic that the citizens are venting their frustrations on the author of the Bolivarian revolution,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas. Ancestral home of Hugo Chávez is literally burning down. Rage manifest because 19 y.o. student Yorman Bervecia was killed by National Guard pic.twitter.com/PW1XP7sHMb — Thor Halvorssen (@ThorHalvorssen) May 22, 2017 Socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro has denounced protesters as fascists and compared them to Nazis. But while Maduro claims he and his fellow socialists are like Jews living under the Nazis, his generals were caught last week calling for snipers to help with crowd control. The discussion, which took place last month, was recorded and leaked to the media. From the Miami Herald: The meeting, chaired by Division General José Rafael Torrealba Pérez, took place in the last week of April as Venezuela’s socialist government continued to try to contain the unrest… “There will come a time when we will have to employ them [the snipers] and I want us to be ready for the moment that we have to employ them because the president will not remain at a green [preparation] phase, gentlemen,” Torrealba said, a likely reference to Maduro’s activation of the Zamora Plan, a war plan to be activated in the midst of imminent foreign invasion. “He [Maduro] has already signed a range of operations and as I said here [previously] … we could be at the beginning of a subversive urban war.” One unidentified general caught on the tape warns that using snipers against unarmed people would result in everyone in the room going to prison. He added, on a more practical note, that one photo of a sniper would be devastating to the government with the media. But Torrealba explained that the survival of the socialist state was going to come down to dead bodies in the street: In the end, “it will only be us [the military] that pulls through because … once people start to see dead bodies, and dead bodies begin to appear, then everyone will begin to stay at home,” Torrealba said. “You will remember my words, the armed forces are the ones that have to solve this problem.” So even as Maduro plays the victim, his goons are laying the groundwork for murder. Drop enough bodies and, eventually, people will decide they’d be safer at home. Recently we’ve seen crowds of people throwing objects at socialist President Nicolas Maduro. But Hugo Chavez has long been insulated from much of the public anger, in part because he’s been dead for several years and in part because higher oil prices meant life was better while he was alive. But now it
at the end of the year under a budget deal passed last year by Congress with strong Republican support. "This sequestration idea emanated from the White House and it will result in the loss of thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of jobs across this country," Romney said. "It will be bad for employment if it goes forward. It will also be bad for our national security." While the rhetoric was similar to past criticism of Obama, Romney's tone sounded more urgent with less than two months until Election Day and the latest polls showing him stalled or even falling back. The new CNN/ORC poll released Monday showed that Obama received a four-percentage-point "bounce" from last week's Democratic convention, giving him a 52%-46% advantage over the former Massachusetts governor. After the Republican National Convention in late August, the same poll showed the candidates at 48% each. The sampling error means both results were statistically even, but the trend from the CNN survey and another one by Gallup showed Obama "did gain strength from his convention, principally by energizing the Democratic base," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. The Gallup daily tracking poll released Sunday showed Obama opening up his largest margin over Romney since early July -- 49% to 44% -- which also was statistically even due to the margin of error. It was conducted September 2-8, a time window that included the entirety of the Democratic convention as well as a disappointing August jobs report that came out Friday. A week earlier, the same Gallup poll showed Obama with a 47%-46% advantage after the Republican convention. Romney campaign pollster Neil Newhouse advised against anyone getting "too worked up about latest polling." "While some voters will feel a bit of a sugar-high from the conventions, the basic structure of the race has not changed significantly," Newhouse wrote in the memo made public on Monday, adding that the nation's sluggish economic recovery remains the major issue and will "reassert itself as the ultimate downfall of the Obama presidency." The CNN/ORC poll also showed that Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson had the support of 3% of likely voters. It indicated Romney's support dropped by that amount with Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the race, while Obama's support went down only one point. However, third-party candidates are typically not on the ballot in all 50 states, making it difficult to predict the impact of a Johnson candidacy on a nationwide basis. In more bad news for Romney, Obama's campaign announced Sunday it raised $114 million in August, topping the challenger's monthly haul for the first time since April. Romney is considered to still have the overall money advantage due to his superior fundraising the three previous months and a huge lead in private contributions to super-PACs supporting his candidacy. The Obama campaign refused to celebrate, warning in a Twitter post that Romney will have "an even bigger September." "But now we know we can match them, doing this our way," the Obama campaign's tweet said. In Ohio, Romney took shots at the Democratic convention platform that initially omitted the word "God"before being changed on the floor, as well as the possibility of the congressionally mandated spending cuts in January. He noted that the budget agreement approved by Congress and signed into law by Obama last year requires the president to spell out what will happen if the mandatory cuts get activated by congressional failure to reach a deficit reduction compromise. "I know it is an election year and so he hasn't been willing to do what the law, even the law he signed, required," Romney said of Obama. "He hasn't put out those cuts. He won't describe all the jobs that are going to be lost." Attempting to link the issue to accusations of White House leaks of classified details of special forces operations, Romney added: "It seems we have found one secret related to national security that he is willing to keep." White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that the details of possible sequestration under the budget deal would be made public by the end of the week. Carney noted the mandated spending cuts -- including the military -- had been added to the agreement to motivate legislators to work out a deficit reduction compromise that would render them moot. Obama's goal in last year's tense negotiations on raising the debt ceiling was to prevent "a default by the United States for the first time in its history on its obligations," Carney said, adding that it appeared then that House Republicans "seemed to relish the prospect" of such a default occurring. Carney also criticized congressional Republicans for what he called obstructionism that prevented progress on key issues such as deficit reduction. In particular, he labeled as politically obstinate the GOP refusal to consider letting any of the Bush-era tax cuts expires to raise more revenue as part of a deficit reduction plan. "You cannot stand on your maximalist position and just hold your breath," he told reporters at the White House, later adding "that was and continues to be the fundamental obstacle to putting in place a plan that would cut our deficits by $4 trillion and make huge progress in getting our fiscal house in order." Romney said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" program that the debt ceiling agreement was a bad idea and Republicans should have opposed it. One of the congressional Republicans who backed the plan was Romney's running mate, conservative House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. The two campaigns also continued to battle over Medicare, the government-run health care system for senior citizens that is a key issue in Florida. Romney and Ryan say Obama has failed to offer a serious plan to address the structural issues that threaten Medicare insolvency as the U.S. population ages and health care costs continue to rise. Obama says Medicare reforms in the broader 2010 health care overhaul law extend the program's solvency, and he is willing to include further changes as part of a comprehensive deficit reduction agreement. Romney, who has made repealing the broader health care act a central campaign promise, made clear Sunday he would keep the more popular measures in the law, including allowing those under 26 years of age to remain on their parents' health care plans and guaranteeing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. He has previously said he wanted to get rid of the Obamacare law despised by Republicans and replace it with something better, and his comments on "Meet the Press" showed his desire to stake out more flexible turf on the issue. "There are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I'm going to put in place," Romney said. Romney and Ryan argue their plan would save Medicare in the long run by adding private sector competition. Democrats oppose any effort to change the basic concept of Medicare as a government-provided benefit, but have signaled willingness to raise the age of eligibility in the future and consider other reforms. Ryan, meanwhile, attempted to clarify the GOP ticket's deficit reduction plan on Sunday, saying he and Romney wanted to increase tax revenue by ending loopholes and deductions for the wealthy without raising rates. However, he refused to elaborate when pressed on the CBS program "Face the Nation" on which loopholes would get closed, saying those decisions should be made in a public debate. Romney's tax plan calls for 20% cuts to current income tax rates, which were lowered during the Bush administration that preceded Obama's presidency. Obama wants to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for all income below $250,000 for families and $200,000 for individuals as part of a deficit reduction package that he says would mean wealthier Americans return to higher tax rates of the 1990s.India will soon get a single emergency contact number -- 112 -- similar to 911 in the United States. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has approved the proposal of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for a single emergency number across the country. The existing emergency numbers -- 100, 101, 102 and 108 -- will continue to exist as secondary numbers. If you dial any of them, you will be re-routed to 112. “These numbers will be closed in a phased manner (following a public awareness campaign),” the DoT said in its response to the telecom regulator. TRAI had earlier recommended having all phones in the country to use GPS systems to be able to pinpoint the location of the caller, but the DoT had rejected that proposal saying that a large percentage of low-cost handsets in the country do not support GPS. TRAI, in a statement issued, reiterated its recommendations for deciding on a sunset date for incorporation of GPS feature in all mobile handsets so as to obtain more accurate location information of the caller. The telecom regulator also supported the early implementation of the guidelines, issued by the union ministry of home affairs, for Nationwide Emergency Response System. (With inputs from agencies) First Published: Oct 02, 2015 15:44 ISTHillary Clinton didn't mince words while addressing graduates at her alma mater, Wellesley College. Things don't get easier in the real world, she explained, "the work never ends" -- and apparently neither does the fundraising. Clinton used the commencement speech to shamelessly plug her new "Resistance" group that's fueled exclusively from dark money. "I'm going to devote a lot of my future to helping you make your mark in the world," she told the class of 2017. "I've created a new organization called Onward Together to recruit and train future leaders, organize for real and lasting change." The message was clear to the upper-class crowd gathered on campus. Any fresh-faced graduate looking for a place to start could look to Clinton's organization. And if any of their well-to-do parents have any cash left after paying Wellesley's $48,802 tuition, Clinton could use a donation. Registered with the IRS as a 501(c)4, Clinton's group can collect donations without disclosing the identity of their donors. As the group's website notes though, those donations "are not deductible" but they are unlimited, one of the main advantages of so-called "dark money." And Clinton could use the cash. Rather than just going into that good night, the failed presidential candidate is reportedly pouring over analyses of her loss. Maybe she will run again, or maybe she just needs to pad her retirement plans. Either way, Clinton can do both with dark money. Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.Illustrations by Paul O'Reilly At Play in the Carceral State is a week-long series investigating play in, around, and about prisons and prison culture. Learn more here. Original published on October 27, 2016 Sterling Correctional Facility is not the kind of place where people are known to play nice. A maximum security prison 130 miles northeast of Denver, it houses some of Colorado's most egregious offenders: murderers, bank robbers, even a few serial killers—rule-breakers of all kinds. Yet, every afternoon, half a dozen inmates gather around a table in the common room to join forces against imaginary foes in a cooperative game of Dungeons and Dragons (1974). D&D, a role-playing game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, as been played by over 20 million people since it was first published in 1974. Per the game's rules, the inmates choose imaginary characters and roll dice to determine their strengths and skills. As a party, they work their way through fantasy worlds—solving puzzles, vanquishing enemies, and acquiring treasure. The course of the game is guided by a dungeon master (known as a DM) who has spent hours preparing for the session, using his imagination to create worlds and storylines and to develop quests for his players. Some DMs use books with pre-fabricated stories and plots; others—including the inmates at Sterling—prefer to do a lot of this creative heavy-lifting themselves. Dice, including the D20—a 20-sided die that's the hallmark of a gaming session—aren't allowed behind bars, so the inmates have gotten resourceful and instead use a set of 20 playing cards to make "rolls." Photo by Reichart Von Wolfsheild Over the course of the three hour sessions, the players, who represent many different races and in some cases gang affiliations, set aside their differences and assume the virtual skins of their characters: elves, dwarves, halflings, etc. As the dungeon master leads them on quests to kill mythical monsters, concrete and iron bars give way to a haunted forest, a dragon's lair, or a castle's keep—dungeons of another kind. Not Your Typical Gamer A 6'6", 33-year-old Melvin Woolley-Bey cuts an imposing figure at Sterling. Since the age of 18, he's been charged over a dozen times for thefts, burglaries, and drug possessions. For all intents and purposes, the Department of Corrections (DOC) is home. When Bey was a boy, he wanted to be a playwright. "Live theatre has always held my imagination," he says, "To depict the passage of time and the growth of individuals within the confines of not just linear time, but the stage itself is… intense. It offers a challenge that I think pushes writers to their limits." However, during his teens, his home life collapsed, and he found himself on the streets where he fell into drugs. When Bey first stepped foot in Sterling, he noticed a group of inmates playing D&D. Bey had been drawn to the game in his teens because of its similarities to theater, but it had been years since he played. He joined the game and quickly found in it a welcome opportunity to shed the hardened persona that helped him survive on the streets. Melvin Woolley-Bey (right), age 15, with two friends at a Star Wars convention. Photo courtesy of author For the last couple years, Bey has been playing in a group led by dungeon master Aaron Klug—a reclusive inmate with an affinity for numbers and systems, but who struggles to connect with other people. When it comes to commitment to D&D, no one can beat Klug, who lives and breathes gaming. When he's not running the game, he's in his cell drafting character sheets and drawing maps. "I've been playing games since I can remember," Klug says. "It's the one thing that few can beat me at. In the system or on the streets, it's what I do." Like Bey, Klug's been in and out of institutions since his teens. He is currently serving an eight-year sentence for robbing a bank back in 2010. Police knew Klug was their suspect, but didn't know how to find him. After three months of detective work, they ran an online search and noticed he'd registered for a local D&D event. The event posting read, "Adventure awaits as you journey to the Nentir Vale and face down savage beasts and lurking evils at the edge of civilization." They showed up to the event and arrested him on the spot. The next day, it was in the headlines: "Fantasy Game Player Arrested in Real Life Robbery." Naturally, the first thing Klug did in prison was start up a game. Maps by Aaron Klug, based on dungeons from The Flagship of Paizo Publishing—Rise of the Runelords Currently, Bey plays a female halfling (he offers in a high-pitched tone—clearly his role-playing voice). Role-playing a female character in prison seems like it would take guts, but Bey isn't worried. "When you're in a setting like prison," he says, "where so much depends on bravado and presenting a credible threat, to sit down and play a game that has the word 'faerie' anywhere in it takes a certain self-confidence that I think demands respect." Then again, Bey may be downplaying what it took to earn that respect in the first place. A couple years ago another inmate who was not a member of the group had gotten into the habit of interrupting their game to taunt the players. With each interruption, Bey became increasingly irate until one day, he couldn't take it anymore. "I told you to quit messing with us while we're playing our game," he screamed as he jabbed his pencil into the bully's thigh multiple times. Bey's justification: "In the facility, we have three hours a day of pod time where we have access to the tables and we're not locked down. So we have very little time to game and this time has to be shared with phone calls, showers, etc. The last thing we need is a level six npc distracting the players." Prison officials sent Bey to solitary confinement, where he convinced the inmates in neighboring cells to play a game with him by yelling through the ventilation shafts. Dungeons Masters and Prison Bosses So, how do correctional officers view role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons? According to Klug, most of the guards at Sterling tolerate the game, even looking on with bemused curiosity and asking questions. Perhaps they are struck by the unexpected juxtaposition of some of their most notorious troublemakers slipping into the skins of elves and other fantasy creatures. Some even go so far as to encourage it: "They like that it takes a lot of imagination. I've even had correctional officers go to the office and print up dungeons, new rules and all kinds of stuff for our game," Bey says. However, over the years, there has been the occasional guard who read sinister motives into the game. A couple years ago, Bey says, "a lieutenant took an active interest in breaking up our game, taking our pieces and sending out maps to the board to make sure they weren't escape plans. Original art by Paul O'Reilly As it turns out, that wasn't the first time correctional officers have suggested D&D could pose a security threat. Back in 2004, at Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, inmates were banned from playing D&D, and Dungeon Master, Kevin T. Singer's, gaming materials were confiscated, including a 96-page handwritten manuscript outlining a campaign he was developing for the game. Singer sued the prison, claiming the seizure and ban violated his free speech and due process rights. At the trial, Captain Bruce C. Muraski, the prison's security supervisor and also the man responsible for the confiscation, attempted to justify the prison's decision. He testified that role-playing games like D&D "promote competitive hostility, violence, and addictive escape behavior, which can compromise not only the inmate's rehabilitation and effects of positive programming, but endanger the public and jeopardize the safety and security of the institution." Singer appealed the decision and six years later, it escalated to the United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. There, Singer presented testimony to show that D&D—and roleplaying games in general—were effective tools for rehabilitating inmates, yet the appeals court upheld the ban. While inmates have access to many games in prison, D&D is one of the few that is actually cooperative by rewarding players who work together. What's more, evidence suggests that games like D&D foster—not competitive hostility as suggested in the trial—but positive social behavior that could serve them in the outside world. In 2012, a research group at the University of Ohio set out to study how playing videogames cooperatively or competitively impacted subsequent cooperative behavior. Groups of participants were tasked with playing the first-person shooter Halo 2 (2004) in either a competitive player vs. player mode or a cooperative mode where they teamed up with the other player and had to work together to beat a computer-generated opponent. After each game, the participants were given a dilemma. They were given four dimes that they could either keep or give to the other player. If they gave the dimes to the other player, the dimes would double in value for that other player. In game theory, this type of situation is sometimes referred to by economists as the Prisoner's Dilemma. The researchers found that when playing in cooperative mode, the participants were significantly more likely to give away the dimes and both players walked away with more money. When playing competitively, they were more likely to keep the dimes for themselves. Klug has been playing D&D his entire life—in and out of prison. When I first spoke with him, I asked what challenges he initially faced as a DM that were specific to playing behind bars. He said that no matter how unified his players tried to be, initially "Our parties couldn't get along to save their character's lives." They lacked teamwork and played competitively even when faced with a shared goal. What's more, they would repeatedly make decisions to maximize their own profit, even at the risk of undermining the mission and hastening the group's demise. Yet after years of playing, Klug says his gaming group has gotten a lot better at working together as a team. Bey agrees: "Above all, without fail, any gang ties, religious obligations or racial affiliations are superseded by the game." Around the gaming table, nobody is black or white or Latino; they are elves, dwarves, and halflings. The game is about bringing people together in a way that overcomes differences. "I believe in a world where a 90 pound geek can become a sword-wielding barbarian or a science dunce can learn to manipulate an alchemist class… and then bring these two together in a common interest." Research suggests that role-playing games like D&D can be powerful therapeutic tools. Back in 1994, a psychologist named Wayne D. Blackmon published a case study showing how D&D was used to help rehabilitate a suicidal 19-year-old who was not receptive to talk therapy. Through fantasy role-playing, the patient was able to access and express threatening fears and emotions in a structured, safe environment. Blackmon has since championed the use of D&D to help patients "to explore their mental dungeons and slay their psychic dragons." For Klug, the D&D table is the only safe space available in prison to be introspective. Despite being in the system for most of his life, Klug is not designed for life behind bars where recreation (both official and unofficial) is centered around physical activity and socializing—two things Klug struggles with. "Rehabilitation in the DOC is structured in a way that gives no alternatives. Not everybody is built the same. I don't care about construction classes or dealing with people." The D&D table may be the one place Klug can look inward and engage in the kind of problem-solving where analytic introverts shine. As Klug puts it, " Dungeons and Dragons is my rehabilitation that I can deal with to escape into my own reality to solve my own problems." So what if role-playing games can be proven to be rehabilitative? Does that mean inmates should be entitled to play? Ultimately, that was the question at the fulcrum of the Singer trial. Correctional institutions in America have suffered from a conflicted sense of self-identity. On the one hand, they're meant to be rehabilitative, with the stated aim to provide inmates with tools and coping mechanisms to help reduce the chance of recidivism. On the other, they're punitive—designed to punish the nation's most appalling rule-breakers by confining them to a place of limited stimulation where they are forced to look inward and confront their own decisions day after day. In the Singer trial, the court ruled that, "punishment is a fundamental aspect of imprisonment, and prisons may choose to punish inmates by preventing them from participating in some of their favorite recreations." If fantasy escapism becomes too fun… if it becomes itself a distraction from the suffering one has caused… then is it really something that belongs in prison? Perhaps we need to reframe the way we think of escapism. A psychologist named Frode Stenseng at the University of Oslo differentiates between two types of escapism: "self-suppression escapism" and "self-expansion escapism." The former is an avoidance tactic while the latter actively seeks new skills and strengthens character. Which kind of escapism the inmates at Sterling gravitate to is perhaps best illustrated by the moral alignment they choose for their characters. In D&D, a character's moral compass is known as their 'alignment' and is determined by two axes: good/evil and lawful/chaotic. On one extreme are the lawful good characters, defined by their sense of compassion and affinity for the rules. On the other, chaotic evil—callous rule-breakers driven by self-interest. Despite their often erratic real life behavior, Klug noted that his players gravitate towards lawful good characters. Sometimes, this role involves self-sacrifice—a trait not usually associated with prison life. Yet these inmates are game to try. After all, everyone likes to think of him or herself as a good person, and the best way to get there could be through a little practice and a daily dose of game therapy. Have thoughts? Swing by Waypoints forums to share them!This post is fully in response to this amazing theory from AnalyzingA (pictures from there as well). Back in Season 1, episode 16, Aria finds out Hanna gave her mom the ticket to the art exhibit that she was going to with Ezra. Aria is extremely mad and they have what I think is the biggest fight that we’ve ever seen any of the four liars have with one another. Aria is seen at the end of the episode writing furiously in her diary. It wasn’t until I saw these screencaps that I had any idea what she wrote in the diary, as it only flashes on the screen for a second or so. In case you can’t read that, check out the theory I linked above. It has the full text (the parts that are legible, at least). But basically, Aria is writing about Mrs. Potter (the woman from the bank who Ashley stole money from her safety deposit box). What’s interesting is that Aria is writing about James Leland, the guy who shows up to town claiming to be Mrs. Potter’s only living relative. There are two VERY odd things about this: 1. Aria writes this in her diary in S1E16. James Leland doesn’t show up until S1E17. How in the world would Aria know about him before he showed his face at Ashley’s bank?? Aria never even had mentioned knowing anything about Mrs. Potter, let alone her nephew. In fact, keeping that a secret was what A had on Ashley that she used to blackmail her with to get her to give Ella the ticket to the art exhibit. Suspicious. 2. If you look at the wording Aria uses in the diary entry and then watch the scene in S1E17 when Hanna discusses James Leland to Ashley on their porch, you will notice the wording is EXACTLY the same. Word for word. I really don’t know what to make of it… but Aria wrote the script for that scene. Sometimes I waiver on my feelings about Aria being A, but I am just completely at a loss as to how this could be explained UNLESS Aria is A. She not only predicted the future… she wrote it. Thoughts? 11:30 am • 1 July 2013 • 360 notesJeff Sessions and Donald Trump. AP Photo/John Bazemore Senior Trump administration officials have signaled that the US's protracted drug war will return to full force, but law enforcement, long tasked with manning the front line of that war, may not welcome the return of the duties and dangers it entails. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly have both spoken of cracking down on the drug trade and drug use, singling out marijuana, which Sessions has called "only slightly less awful" than heroin. "Let me be clear about marijuana," Kelly said during a speech this week in Washington, DC. "It is a potentially dangerous gateway drug that frequently leads to the use of harder drugs." "Its use and possession is against federal law and until the law is changed by the US Congress we in DHS are sworn to uphold all the laws on the books," Kelly added. Sessions was similarly harsh when speaking about marijuana during a speech in March. "I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store," Sessions said. "And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana — so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that's only slightly less awful." President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence at a ceremonial swearing-in for Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, left, in Washington, January 25, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst Law-enforcement officers, however, have consistently rated marijuana as one of the least-threatening illegal drugs. A Drug Enforcement Administration survey of more than 1,400 state and local law-enforcement agencies for the 2016 National Drug Threat Assessment found that less than 5% said they saw the drug as their "greatest threat," while only 5.4% said marijuana was the biggest driver of violent crime. "Most law enforcement would like to see some type of legalization or decriminalization for marijuana," Raeford Davis, a former North Charleston police officer, told Business Insider. "The only ones that oppose that are what I would call 'dead-enders' in policing... Legalization is coming and law enforcement officers welcome that." Among the public, support for legal marijuana recently hit an all-time high— 61%. The greatest drug threats over the last decade, according to law enforcement. DEA 2016 NDTA Davis said police officers he has spoken to agree that the current approach to drug enforcement is not working. Differences in opinion emerge over what to do next. In states where marijuana has been legalized or decriminalized, officials, like Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, have cautioned the federal government against reinstituting a hardline policy on the drug. Beyond the focus on marijuana, however, research has shown that strict enforcement has missed the mark when it comes to reducing or eliminating drug trafficking and use. A 2012 study conducted by the University of Florida found threats of severe punishment were "generally weak and insignificant" in reducing drug use. A 2013 British Medical Journal study found that between 1990 and 2007 the average price for heroin, cocaine, and marijuana fell by more than 80%, while average purity increased 60% for heroin, 11% for cocaine, and 161% for marijuana. The get-tough policies that the Trump administration has hinted "will have zero effect as far stopping distribution or use," Davis said, leading instead to more conflict between police and the communities they serve. That conflict could cost police "trust and respect in the community, and then you do not get cooperation from them when you're trying to investigate real crimes, like murders and robberies and shootings," he added. Baltimore police near the intersection of North and Pennsylvania Avenues, the site of unrest following the funeral of Freddie Gray, June 23, 2016. Associated Press/Patrick Semansky At the height of the drug war, in the 1980s and 1990s, tougher law-enforcement efforts and criminal-justice policies spurred more arrests and introduced longer sentences for drug crimes. Between 1980 and 2015, the number of people in US prisons for drug-related crimes spiked from 40,900 to 469,545, according to the Sentencing Project. Mandatory-minimum requirements — which some of Sessions' appointees want to keep— meant many non-violent offenders were given sentences of 20 years to life. "The people we put away were low-level drug users, not violent criminals," Tim Longo, a member of the Baltimore police between 1981 and 2000, told the BBC. "We were casting a wide net and catching a lot of people, but most of what we got were guppys and minnows." The aggressive strategy has "broken down police departments," according to Davis. "Even hardened drug enforcers will tell you we can't arrest our way out of this." To their credit, both Sessions and Kelly have spoken of anti-drug policies other than law enforcement. AP In his March speech, the attorney general mentioned treatment, education, and prevention, though he did not elaborate on what policies he would pursue to those ends. Kelly, in an NBC interview, downplayed the role marijuana had in driving the international drug trade and mentioned a move to shrink the market for illegal drugs. "The solution is a comprehensive drug-demand-reduction program in the United States that involves every man and woman of goodwill," he said. However, at a time when an opioid epidemic has killed or harmed tens of thousands, more muscular law-enforcement policies would likely impede public-health efforts, Leo Beletsky, a public-health and drug policy expert at Northeastern University, told the BBC. "The tactics they're talking about would just fuel the crisis," he said. "Our current [enforcement], particularly the street-level enforcement, is just ineffective," Davis told Business Insider, "and it just really unnecessarily criminalizes people and, in fact, increases crime with the drug-related violence."Billionaires Rupert Murdoch and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have come out strong for an amnesty plan that could grant U.S. citizenship to more than three million illegal aliens and their family members. A new amnesty plan by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) would legalize millions of illegal aliens currently in the U.S. who are shielded by the Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and others who qualify for the amnesty. Under Lankford and Tillis’ legislation, known as the Succeed Act, 3.3 million illegal aliens would be eligible for the amnesty, as Migration Policy Institute figures show, and eventually be able to obtain U.S. citizenship. Current legal immigration law allows naturalized citizens to legally bring foreign family members to the U.S. as well, meaning an amnesty for 3.3 million illegal aliens could result in an overall chain migration upwards of six to eight million foreign nationals. For Murdoch and Bloomberg’s pro-immigration New American Economy big business organization, the amnesty deal means not only more consumers for corporate interests, but cheaper labor and more stagnant wages as corporate profits look to gain the most from mass immigration. In a statement by New American Economy President John Feinblatt, the pro-cheap labor group boasted that amnesty for illegal aliens is a “pragmatic approach.”Another football season, another opportunity to laugh at the message board crazies who take this game we love much, much too seriously. As always, the language in this post is horrible. If you are easily offended, read no further. Seriously, people. This edition focuses on the fans of UGA, Oregon State, K-State, and UConn. While fornication seems to be the theme of the day, we also have references to coach firings, xanax, JFF (why?), seduction, farting, Chick-Fil-A, rednecks, cupcakes, nitrogen, toilets, holding, Madden, uniform sexuality, turd polishing, and consumption of mass quantities of alcohol. Enjoy. "I came back for THIS??" via cdn0.sbnation.com So a high snap cost us the game, or at least overtime. MOTHERFUCKIGN GEORGIA See you in the Chik-fil-a bowl Clemson.\ I say this every year, and I always regret it. FIRE MARK RICHT!!!!!!! I need a xanax. These fucking linemen.... And WTF! PASS INTERFERENCE!! I think a lot of people are ignoring the elephant in the room here, which is how UGA has managed to get back to getting 870989868 penalties a game. Oh, best running back duo in the nation? lol 3 straight throws. Fuck my stupid life. And fuck John Manziel. Offensive line: WHAT THE FUCK Tryouts for LT will be held tuesday afternoon at the IM fields. Sign-up in Tate Plaza Tuesday 10-1PM. All are welcome. Why couldnt we have just played a team like western Missouri technical institute. I bought too much pizza and not enough beer. I'm such a failure. Oh how the tables have tur.... fuck my life. THAT. MOTHER. FUCKING. BLIND SIDE. Can we get an LT please Why the FUCK couldnt we recover that for A TD? I really feel liek GEorgia is the most hapless team ever How would I know it was Georgia if they didn't crush my hopes at least once a season? We might as well call it Georgia-ing from now on. If you can stop a nose bleed, come to practice Tuesday and we'll give you jersey and see what you can do. We're desperate.. Fuck that fucking tiger. It's like a goddamn walking nightmare FUCK ALL OF YOU. FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU. I'M TOO DRUNK FOR THIS SHIT. oh god clowneys gonna kill us It's 2013. Where the fuck is the 1st down indicator on the broadcast? I hate our uniforms right now. I don't know what's real anymore... Dear UGA fans: Don't hate Clemson; hate our piss poor fucking excuse of an offensive line that's supposed to be "seasoned". That look on Aaron's face during that player preview. I can't tell if he was trying to be seductive or trying not to fart. God dammit. FUCKING FUCK. Can we please have one season where our hopes and dreams aren't crushed? :( Can Mark Richt lose control of his job now? Please? And Clemson holding on almost every play now. How come nobody ever holds against Georgia? Seriously, y'all...These trashy redneck fans are making me SO mad. Can please go back to scheduling cupcakes for the first game? Seriously via assets.sbnation.com This is fun! I like shootouts against FCS teams! There is no "D" in Oregon State Beavers Just sayin'' EWU stands for Everyone's Wide Upen Yeah I know just roll with it Every year we're supposed to be good we absolutely suck. Every year we are supposed to suck we are good. I've learned that this is just a fact of life as a Beaver fan. This is my suggestion 1. Fire Riley 2. Fire Banker 3. Don't play FCS teams opening week insert I ain't even mad meme pic here Sigh HORRIBLE strategy at the goal line brain dead horrible terrible embarrassing Why EVER schedule a good FCS opponent? What is the advantage you gain from it? No poll voters care about the relative quality of the FCS team you play. None. Pick a bad school, pay them AS MUCHAS YOU NEED TO, and ease to a victory, a la Nicholls. How can such a thing be possible when... Pre-season polls ranked the Beavers #25 and The Beavs have new uniforms and The QB controversy was resolved weeks ago when Mannion earned the top spot and Reportedly, last season proved that Banker has all the defensive answers and Coach Riley said he felt good about the upcoming season and and, and, and, and... Oh, yeah, you have to actually play the games GET SOME FUCKING PASS COVERAGE YOU FUCKTARDS There's 49 points and god knows how many yards of offense allowed that OSU won't ever get back - to a goddamned Big Sky team. Well the toilet has flushed
and no suspects are at large, and no residents are in danger. HPD has ongoing presence on Annawan St. through the night. The scene is stable and safe. No suspects at large. No residents are in danger. — D/C Foley (@LtFoley) October 12, 2016 Multiple neighbors described the flight students, including Freitekh, as always wearing blue shirts from their school. Eric Bass, whose girlfriend lives in the apartments, said, "All I ever seen them in is their uniform. I've never seen them dress in regular clothing." He also said they seemed nice: "They seemed like pretty nice people. They was buying, ordering pizzas. They say hi, stuff like that." Neighbor Wanda Sanchez agreed. "They was trying to be pilots. They never had anything like, bad. They were always good, quiet. There was never a problem. They always laughed. They had fun. They were a few friends." Pratt and Whitney released a statement saying it does not appear that any of their employees were involved and that their operations have not been impacted.Turkey has already warned its Nato partners that it is taking steps to establish a safe haven free of government influence around its border with Syria. By investigating an Iranian link to the car bomb that killed eight - including children - in the city of Gaziantep on Monday, Ankara has fuelled fears the Syrian civil war is spiralling into a regional conflict. Senior Turkish officials have expressed alarm about the rise of groups linked to the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) since the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad's regime in the north near Aleppo. Bulent Arinç, the deputy prime minister, told Turkish television that the attackers could be state-sponsored but that the government's suspicions were not limited to Damascus. "This [investigation] is not limited to Syria. We are investigating all potential foreign sources that could have had a finger in such an attack, including Iran, and others," Mr Arinç, a close ally of the Turkish leader, Recip Tayyip Erdogan, said. The PKK, a 1970s-style terrorist movement, has enjoyed protection from the Syrian regime in Kurdish parts of Syria for decades. But the emergence of groups tied to it as the defacto rulers of swathes of territory has complicated Turkey's response to the revolt forcing the collapse of Mr Assad's dictatorship. Turkey is reported to be keen for military intervention to stabilise Syria sooner rather than later. US and Turkish officials held a first "joint operational planning" meeting in Turkey yesterday to plot responses to events in Syria. Military, intelligence and diplomatic officials assembled to swap plans and form working groups to coordinate the two countries' approaches, days after President Barack Obama warned that he had drawn a red line for US intervention around any potential use of chemical weapons by the Syrian military. Stratfor, the American research outfit, has warned Turkey faces a backlash from the Syrian conflict. "If Ankara is expanding its involvement in Syria, it will do so in a measured fashion because it will be fearful of pushback from the Syrian regime and Iran via the Kurds," the report said.Whiteferns bowler Amelia Kerr is quickly making a name for herself on the international stage at only 16 years old. The teen cricketer from Tawa College is in the squad for the ODI series against Australia which starts Sunday [NZT] at Eden Park’s outer oval. She made her debut late last year against Pakistan, and then last week, she was given time off school so she could join the side for the third T20 against Australia in Adelaide. Kerr made the most of the opportunity taking two wickets as New Zealand claimed a 2-1 series over the Southern Stars The legspinner has cricket in her blood as her father Robbie and mother Jo both played first class cricket for Wellington, and her grandfather Bruce Murray played 13 Tests for New Zealand. Kerr’s rise through the ranks has come as no surprise as she was the first person to ever score a T20 century at the Basin Reserve as a 12-year-old. Two years later she made her domestic debut for the Wellington Blaze. Kerr is hoping she can continue to impress the selectors and be a part of the squad for the World Cup in England in June and July. “It would be a cool experience and I’d love the opportunity to play,” said Kerr Even if she doesn’t make the world cup squad, coach Haidee Tiffen expects her to be around for a very long time. “She brings that youthfulness that is important in a team, you need that experience but you also need that youth to keep players on their toes,” said Tiffen. “Amelia is a special player and she will have a long career for the Whiteferns I'm sure.” Newshub.David Goldberg, the chief executive of online questionnaire company SurveyMonkey and husband of Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, died suddenly on Friday. The 47-year-old father of two was a respected Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose death drew widespread industry tribute. A spokesperson for SurveyMonkey said the company, which was founded in 1999 by Ryan Finley, was “deeply saddened”. “Dave’s genius, courage and leadership were overshadowed only by his compassion, friendship and heart,” SurveyMonkey said in a statement. His brother, Robert Goldberg, described his family’s “incredible shock and sadness”, in an online post asking well-wishers to post photos and memories to his Facebook profile page. Tributes to Mr Goldberg were posted to social media across the Silicon Valley community. A spokeperson for Facebook said it executives were “heartbroken by this news”. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said in a post that Mr Goldberg was “an amazing person and I am glad I got to know him”. “One of the truly great people on the planet, Dave was of almost unimaginably remarkable character,” said Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief executive. A Harvard graduate, Mr Goldberg began his career as a Bain consultant before working at Capitol Records. Launch media Mr Goldberg then led Yahoo’s music business for six years, during which time, in 2004, he married Ms Sandberg, then a senior sales executive at Google. In April 2009, Mr Goldberg became chief executive of SurveyMonkey, where he pioneered the now-widespread approach of raising late-stage capital from private investors instead of going public. In 2013, the company – which has been profitable for many years - joined Silicon Valley’s “$1 billion club” when it raised $800 million. It has more than 400 employees in its Palo Alto headquarters and around the world. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015Today's Pick: WNUF Halloween Special 31 Days of Drew 2 (2014) 31 Days of Drew (2013) (2013)I'm not a huge fan of found footage as a sub-genre (read: gimmick) for horror films. It can be used effectively, but the hit-to-miss ratio highly favors the duds. Authenticity is the hardest thing to capture in a found footage film, and the golden standard for the technique has been made:is so believable that you could easily prank your more gullible friends into thinking it really is some infamous lost piece of urban legends goodness. To be fair,isn't the most compelling story, but that's not what the film is interested in achieving. It is going straight for your nostalgia gullet. This is a movie where the commercials are some of the best parts! There's a genuine feel to the all the local spots, and their some of the most humorous bits in the film. I even love that they replay throughout the broadcast, and the viewer who taped this fast forwards through them!It's that dedication to the aesthetic and tone that makessoar above 99% of its found footage contemporaries. The filmmakers even recorded the film on video, and then copied the tapes multiple times in order to get real tracking errors and distortions. I don't see any of the POV found footage films of today going to such lengths to replicate the technical deficiencies of their medium.The movie isn't just worth it for the aesthetic though. The characters all feel like real public television personas, and they even come off as charming in an appropriately clunky way. The film may be slow going, but it's all in service of making you actually like the characters. Having them get you to laugh and poke fun at their surroundings makes some of the scarier stuff more effective. But, don't expect a creepfest. This movie is all about fun.And boy is this movie fun. These last few recommendations are films that really celebrate the motifs, imagery and spirit of Halloween, and this is definitely a top tier contender. It'll transport you back to a simpler time, and if you never experienced the kind of televisionpresents, then its a great window into a bygone era for the younger generation.For tomorrow's film, make sure you're wearing your skeleton, jack-o-lantern or witch mask, and get ready to watch the magic pumpkin. Waaaaaatch...The president decided to bring forward his signing of the Republican tax bill after watching TV – but had no time to face full scrutiny from the media in attendance Last Christmas Barack Obama gave a press conference lasting 86 minutes, as he did at the end of every year. Donald Trump insists on doing things differently. Trump will personally save up to $15m under tax bill, analysis finds Read more The US president invited Friday’s White House press pool into the Oval Office to watch him sign Republicans’ massive $1.5tn tax overhaul into law, determined to sum up 2017 on his own terms. It was a fitting Christmas parting with Trump at his Trumpiest: making exaggerated boasts about his achievements and hyper-sensitive to the media. “I was going to wait for a formal signing some time in early January but then I watched the news this morning and they were all saying, ‘Will he keep his promise? Will he sign it by Christmas?’” said Trump, who often seems to pay closer attention to TV than advisers or pollsters. “And I called downstairs and I said: ‘Get it ready, we have to sign it now.’” Sitting behind the Resolute desk, he repeated this line of reasoning twice more just to make sure everyone got the point. “I didn’t want you folks to say I wasn’t keeping my promise. I am keeping my promise. I am signing it before Christmas. I said that the bill would be on my desk before Christmas and you are holding me literally to that. So we did a rushed job today.” Stretching his arms wide, he protested: “It’s not fancy but it’s the Oval Office. It’s the great Oval Office!” The tax package, the biggest such overhaul since the 1980s, slashes the corporate rate from 35% to 21%. “Corporations are literally going wild over this, I think even beyond my expectations, so far beyond my expectations,” Trump said. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump: the centre of attention. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters The president insisted that a typical family of four will benefit from tax cuts – “The numbers will speak” – and praised companies for making contributions to their employees. “They all said it’s because of the tax bill.” He said the New England Patriots owner, Bob Kraft, called and said that, because of the tax bill, he will build “a tremendous paper mill”. Democrats had opposed the bill as a giveaway to the rich that will hurt the middle class and add $1.5tn to the $20tn national debt during the next decade. Opinion polling suggests it is deeply unpopular. But the exultant Trump made the highly questionable claims that he has more legislative victories than any other president and that: “The bottom line is this is the biggest tax cuts and reform in the history of our country. This is bigger, actually, than President Reagan’s many years ago. I’m very honoured by it.” It was an apt bookend to a year that began with then press secretary Sean Spicer’s false claim that the Trump’s inauguration attracted a bigger audience than Obama or anyone else’s. The tax reform legislation also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. Trump added: “Essentially I think it ultimately leads to the end of Obamacare. Essentially I think Obamacare is over because of that.” The president took up a pen and made a very elaborate signature as if savouring every stroke, then thanked the “fantastic” Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, recalling that they sometimes spoke at two or three in the morning while shepherding the bill through. The president insisted: “I’ll be working very hard over the holidays.” But in lieu of a press conference like the one Obama usually gave to round off the year, Trump offered the press a gift of free pens and took a few off-the-cuff questions. Trump tax plan: the key points from the final bill Read more Soon after, he strode alone from the Oval Office with a spring in his step, watched by about a hundred journalists including TV reporters with microphones poised and photographers balanced on stepladders. He did not take questions but mouthed something and gave a modest fist bump, then boarded Marine One on his way to his Mar-a-Lago estate in the Florida sunshine. At 11.22am local time, against a backdrop of the south lawn fountain with the Washington Monument looming beyond, the helicopter lifted off, blowing cold air in the faces of the watching media. Facebook Twitter Pinterest President Donald Trump greets people on the tarmac as he arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, in West Palm Beach, Flordia Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP Later, Trump arrived in Air Force One at Florida’s Palm Beach international airport and was greeted by around 100 supporters on the tarmac. Potus walked over to shake hands with members of the crowd, who cheered and chanted “USA! USA!” According to the White House pool reporter, a sampling of signs in the crowd was “Trump Strong”, “Welcome Home President Trump! #MAGA” and “Keep on Tweeting”. McConnell mocks ‘political genius’ Bannon The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, used a holiday season press conference on Friday to mock the former White House adviser Steve Bannon’s “political genius” for costing Republicans an Alabama Senate seat. McConnell, of Kentucky, made the remark 10 days after the Bannon-backed Roy Moore lost a special election to Doug Jones, giving Democrats their first victory in an Alabama Senate race in a quarter-century. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mitch McConnell. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images Moore faced allegations of improper conduct with teenagers decades ago and touted extremist views that repelled many women and minorities. “The political genius on display, throwing away a seat in the reddest state in America, is hard to ignore,” McConnell told reporters. Bannon, who was President Donald Trump’s strategist, has returned to the rightwing Breitbart News and has been openly seeking other GOP candidates who like Moore would support toppling McConnell as majority leader. Though Trump also backed Moore, McConnell said he believes the White House “will be in the same place I am, want to nominate people who can actually win”. Following a summer that saw Trump criticize McConnell for the Senate’s failure to repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, McConnell described a “really good” working relationship with Trump. He said the $1.5tn tax package Republicans pushed through Congress this week had “brought everybody together”. Associated Press contributed to this reportNEW DELHI: Actor Abhay Deol roasted fellow Bollywood actors on Facebook on Wednesday for endorsing fairness creams and called their ad campaigns “demeaning, false, and racist”.In a series of sardonic Facebook posts, Deol aimed at Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Vidya Balan, Shahid Kapoor and others, while sharing the various ads they have done for fairness products, and mocked their promises of a fair skin.His posts received overwhelming response, with likes running into thousands on each post by early evening.Deol’s anti-fairness cream tirade comes merely two weeks after attacks on individuals from African countries in Delhi-NCR, which had reignited the debate on racism in the country. In a post featuring Shah Rukh’s ad, Abhay Deol translates the tagline and writes: “(Translated) - ‘Being a man why are you are still using a women’s FAIRNESS cream!?’ He’s clearly trying to make you a man, becoming whiter is just a side effect.”Deol posted another ad that showed actor and producer John Abraham holding askin colour shade card in his hand. Here, Deol writes: “WE ARE NOT A RACIST COUNTRY! I will prove it to you. In the pic below, John holds a card with shades from white to dark. Hey! You can see the promise of darker skin too if you read the card from left to right! He’s not telling you to go from right to left! Duh! Even if the writing on the tube reads ‘Intensive FAIRNESS moisturiser’.It just means its ‘FAIR’ to all who use it.” After few more posts, the actor condemned the idea of campaigns that portray white skin as superior. “There’s a lot more of these campaigns that are blatantly, and sometimes subtly, selling you the idea that whiter skin is better than darker skin. No one at the top of their game in any field is going to tell you that it is demeaning, false, and racist,” Deol wrote. “Respect Mr Abhay Deol. Deepika Padukone, you are doing a great job by spreading awareness on depression and how to tackle it, but this ad is a big thumbs down,” wrote one Saarika on a post with a fairness cream ad featuring Padukone.WASHINGTON, January 16, 2014 – Last week, Richard Vedder and Christopher Denhart wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal arguing that college enrollment is going to start dropping, and rapidly. They argue that a college education is a no longer a ticket to the middle class, that college degree holders are earning less now relative to non-college degree holders (they did not cite from when to when nor provide a link to verify their findings), and that college is now more expensive than ever before, leading to mass underemployment. These authors point to a drop in college enrollment already, and that the trend against going to college will carry forward. Unfortunately for Vedder and Denhart, they are exercising selective use of statistics. They are not telling their readers the whole story. College enrollment will continue to increase even as tuition prices inflate. Firstly, Vedder and Denhart write that college enrollment has dropped 1.5 percent over the past year. That is entirely true, but only part of the story. From the data provided by the National Student Clearinghouse, it is clear that the decline in college enrollment is largely from for-profit four year universities. Traditional colleges, the kind of colleges the readers of Vedder and Denhart’s piece were likely imagining, increased their enrollment. Public four-year universities increased their enrollment by.3 percent, and non-profit four-year universities increased their enrollment by 1.3 percent. By no means are students giving up on traditional schools. Most college students are pursuing majors in fields that require a BA. Of the top-ten majors with which college students graduate, seven undoubtedly require a bachelor’s degree to get a job in that field (like biological and biomedical sciences, engineering, and business). Science and engineering degrees are growing twice as fast as other fields. The reality is that college students are largely pursuing degrees that they will undoubtedly need for their first jobs. Vedder and Denhart are correct to note that college graduates are narrowing the pay gap between themselves and those with only high school degrees. They write, “For those in the 25-34 age range the differential between college graduate and high school graduate earnings fell 11 percent for men, to $18,303 from $20,623. The decline for women was an extraordinary 19.7 percent, to $14,868 from $18,525.” So college degree holders are still earning more than those with high school diplomas, just by less. But that’s not the whole story. According to the same College Board datathat Vedder and Denhart used, those with a bachelor’s degree can expect to make 65 percent more than those with just a diploma. For those considering a college degree, that number will look enticing. Perhaps that’s why children and high school students are buying into the idea that more education will pay off in the long term: fully 88 percent of K-12 students agree with the statement, “The more education, the more money I will make.” Few of them believe that college is no longer needed. Student loans have become the new normal. The rising cost of college is less daunting to this emerging cohort of high school students because everyone has loans. With federal government subsidies and wide availability, there is simply no reason for this cohort of kids to turn down the college opportunity. No data suggests otherwise. Vedder and Denhart are guilty of writing a horribly misleading post on the Wall Street Journal. The higher education bubble is not popping–if anything, it’s booming. And it will continue in that direction for many years to come.For North Koreans, the definition of success is when you can eat an occasional egg, preferably with a bowl of rice, instead of the unappetising concoction of corn and weeds on which most of the population survives. Until recently, a sizeable segment of the North Korean population could afford the basic foodstuffs that are taken for granted elsewhere. Through their hard work and ingenuity, North Koreans had pulled themselves out of the famine of the 1990s that had killed 2 million people, almost 10% of the population. This wasn't prosperity by any definition of the word, but it was at least survival. North Korea today is in the throes of what can only be described as a great leap backwards, plunged into misery by the missteps of its 68-year-old leader, Kim Jong-il. A currency revaluation late last year, designed to restore the integrity of the socialist system, wiped out the savings of anybody with more than $30 to their name, and caused the collapse of the markets where many bought their food and earned their meagre living. The North's refusal to negotiate over its nuclear programme and various provocations against South Korea, the biggest being the suspected torpedo attack that killed 46 sailors on a South Korean warship in March, has led to a sharp reduction in donations of food from South Korea and elsewhere. An Amnesty International report on Thursday said North Koreans lack not only food, but the most basic medical care. The report described hospitals that sounded more like torture chambers with major surgery performed without anaesthesia. "Five medical assistants held my arms and legs down to keep me from moving. I was in so much pain that I screamed and eventually fainted from the pain,'' a 24-year-old man, who had his leg amputated from the calf down after falling off of a train, told Amnesty's researchers. The statistics cited in the report were equally grim: North Korea's spending on healthcare is less than $1 per capita, among the lowest in the world. At least 5% of North Koreans have tuberculosis. Forty-five per cent of children under five are stunted as a result of malnutrition. Children and the elderly suffer from acute intestinal blockages from eating indigestible foods such as tree bark, roots and cobs. The poor diet also weakens the immune system, making people susceptible to common disease. "In view of the enormity of the food crisis in North Korea, health issues cannot be separated from the food insecurity that has gripped the country for almost two decades,'' the report said. Despite the perception of North Korea as the basketcase of Asia, the country once had an enviable healthcare system, with a network of nearly 45,000 family practitioners. Some 800 hospitals and 1,000 clinics were almost entirely free of charge for patients. They still are, but you don't get much at the hospital these days. The doctors, who are barely paid, expect gifts from their patients. The hospitals often have no heating, running water or electricity. You need to provide your own food, blankets, bandages, medicine. A North Korean doctor told me that patients who needed intravenous fluid had to bring their own bottles, preferably beer bottles. "If they brought in one beer bottle, they'd get one IV. If they brought in two bottles, they would get two IV's,'' said the doctor who is now living in South Korea. "It sounds to embarrassing to admit, but that's just the way it is.'' The school system that once allowed North Korea's founder Kim Il-Sung (father of the current leader) to boast his country was the first in Asia to eliminate illiteracy has now collapsed. Students have no books, no paper, no pencils. A 17-year-old girl from Musan, a border town, who I met earlier this year in China, said many of her friends had dropped out of school because they couldn't afford the cash gifts they were expected to give their teachers. North Koreans I've spoken with despair that their country has been thrust into reverse, the scant progress made since the famine of the 1990s now unravelling. "Things had got better for us around 2004. We were getting by. Now it's got hard again. My mother hasn't eaten white rice in two years,'' said a 28-year-old woman from Pyongsong, in the northern outskirts of Pyongyang where many of North Korea's scientific institutes are headquartered. She said people were already dying of starvation last October when she escaped from North Korea and that she'd heard conditions had deteriorated further after the currency revaluation. Her mother worked at one of the lowest level jobs in the market – as a porter, pushing one of the simple wooden carts used to transport merchandise for lack of motor vehicles. "Now she can't even do that any more." A chatty 56-year-old woman, also from Musan, told me her family had been surviving, until the currency reform wiped them out, by buying bottles of cooking oil to divide into small plastic bags to sell since most people couldn't afford to buy more than a few grams. The woman, who left in mid-November, said her family feared another famine. "It was terrible in the 1990s. If you walked around the streets, you would see bodies lying everywhere,'' she said. North Koreans heaped scorn on the currency reform, announced on 30 November. With less than 24 hours notice, all of the money in circulation was abolished and the markets closed. People were issued with a limited quantity of new money to buy subsidised food from state stores. The problem was that the state stores didn't have enough food. People stampeded to get what little there was to buy. Some took their own lives and there were reports of rioting. Eventually the ruling Workers' party backed down. They issued an apology, and to underscore their regret executed Pak Nam-ki, a 77-year-old party cadre who was blamed for bungling the economic policy. Although the markets have since been reopened, the episode left the regime badly damaged, economically and politically. Kim Jong-il, who is in poor health, is trying to install his twenty-something youngest son, Kim Jong-eun, as his successor, with the hope he can take the regime established by his father into a third generation. His confidence that he can do so might be a result of the feat he pulled off after the death of his father in 1994. With North Korea's economy in freefall and the Soviet Union having collapsed, Kim not only took power, but preserved North Korea's political system, defying all predictions of the regime's collapse. If the North Korean regime manages to do it again, it will be nothing short of a miracle. "I don't think it will be like the 1990s, when people died because they didn't know any better,'' said Lee, the woman from Musan. "People are complaining now. They know the general [Kim Jong-il] is doing a bad job.." Barbara Demick's book about North Korea, Nothing to Envy, won the 2010 Samuel Johnson prize this monthThe scoring chances, skill and intensity that have made 3-on-3 overtime a must-see part of the game this season will be on display in a revamped format for the 2016 Honda NHL All-Star Game at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Jan. 31. The NHL and NHL Players' Association announced Wednesday that the All-Star Game will be transformed into a 3-on-3 All-Star Tournament comprised of three 20-minute games played by divisional all-star teams competing for a winner-take-all $1 million prize. The NHL has experienced a significant rise in the percentage of games that end in overtime instead of the shootout largely because of the implementation of the 3-on-3 format for the 2015-16 season. Entering play Wednesday, 67.9 percent of the games that have extended beyond regulation have ended in overtime (38 of 56). It was 44.4 percent last season (136 of 306), when the NHL was still using the 4-on-4 format in overtime. "The NHL All-Star Weekend festivities provide a unique opportunity for our fans, players, clubs and business partners to come together in one city to celebrate the game at its highest level," NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said. "We are introducing a creative new format this year in Nashville not only as a way to enhance the competitiveness of the event, but also as a vehicle to highlight and emphasize the incredible skill, speed and athleticism it takes to play our game." Each divisional all-star team will have 11 players: six forwards, three defensemen and two goalies. Fans will select one player from each division, without regard for position, in the 2016 NHL All-Star Fan Vote. The players voted in by the fans will also be named captains of their respective team. The remaining 40 all-stars will be named by the NHL Hockey Operations Department. There will be at least one representative from all 30 teams. The four division-leading NHL coaches following games played Jan. 9 (best points percentage) will be automatically selected as the coach for their respective division team. The first two 20-minute games will be the semifinal round, with the Central Division all-stars playing the Pacific Division, and the Metropolitan Division all-stars playing the Atlantic Division. The winners will play for the championship in the third game. The schedule will be determined at the 2016 Honda All-Star Skills Competition, which will be contested between the Eastern and Western Conference all-stars on Jan. 30. The winning conference earns the right to select when their semifinal matchup will take place, first or second. The teams will change ends at the 10-minute mark of each game. A shootout will determine the winner if the game is tied after 20 minutes. The prize pool of $1 million will be paid in its entirety to the championship team. "The players are excited for the refreshed All-Star Game format this year," NHLPA special assistant to the executive director Mathieu Schneider said. "We anticipate that the 3-on-3 All-Star Tournament in Nashville will be entertaining for fans to watch as the players display their exceptional talents." ---ANALYSIS: Why cyberwarfare is the great equalizer Gen. George Patton talks strategy with Col. Lyle Bernard fin Brolo, Italy, in 1943. (Photo: Associated Press) (Editor's note: WWII General George S. Patton once declared that "fixed fortifications are monuments to man's stupidity." In this guest essay, Brian Contos, chief security officer at forensics firm Solera Networks notes how that observation is particularly apropos to cyberwarfare.) History has taught us how technology can shift advantage. Steel gave the Romans advantage over the iron weapons possessed by Greeks. Infantries armed with muskets gave the Ottoman Empire advantage over forces dependent on longbows, swords and armor. In the 20th century, Germany rose to military strength with emphasis on armored warfare: tanks. The Germans didn't invent the tank. The British and French had fielded more tanks during WW II. But it was the Germans who understood the advantage that the mastery of armored warfare would provide and were highly successful in a number of tank battles. Today, information warfare, also called cyberwarfare, while still in its infancy, is equally disruptive. Cyberattacks can include stealing valuable corporate research, intercepting military communications and the destruction of computer systems. These attacks can be used to augment traditional, kinetic attacks – those using troops and guns, or to destroy physical assets such as power generation facilities or systems used to control emergency services. Cyberattacks present a great risk to industrialized nations, which are highly connected and extremely dependent on computers from the electric grid and financial services to transportation and national defense. Developing nations, such as emerging and frontier countries throughout parts of Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia are less dependent on computers. As a result, they have a lower cyber risk profile. Many developing nations see cyber as an equalizer – a mechanism to shift advantage in the face of superior technology and numbers. As a result, these countries are making investments to develop talent, techniques and technology related to information warfare. For example, it's difficult to get empirical evidence about North Korea, but it has been sited that in North Korea approximately 500 "cyber warriors" graduate every year. Many developing nations are also emphasizing STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – and offering scholarships and job placement for students pursuing these studies. Government and quasi-government organizations are being formed to focus on this new warfare domain rather than traditional military might. With this expanding global attack surface, new strategies related to policy and deterrence are needed. Information warfare is an attractive domain for developing nations because unlike land, sea, air and space, it's asynchronous. The amount of resources and effort that a country must employ to launch a cyber attack is significantly lower than fielding tanks, launching satellites, developing a clandestine agency or refining uranium. The barriers to entry are so low that nation-states no longer have a monopoly on war and minor actors such as organized crime groups, hacktivists and terrorist can also engage independently or at the behest of nation-states. Deterrence is difficult with cyber warfare. Unlike nuclear missiles, there is no mutually assured destruction as in the Cold War. Denying a country access to nuclear material and/or establishing punishments is possible but this concept does not work in the cyber domain. What is possible is the establishment of international partnerships fostering coordinated, rapid threat detection and response. We must build our security strategies with the understanding that despite having strong or weak security, given the proper resources, time and motivation, compromise is virtually imminent. Public and private sector organizations have been focused too long on incident prevention without adequate controls for incident detection and response. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/19p1ecUOn April 28, Shah Rukh Khan became the first Indian actor to deliver a TED Talk (in Vancouver, Canada). And his speech — about humanity, fame, love, India and his work — has been widely appreciated for its message, warmth and appeal. As people across the country respond positively to the talk, HT caught up with the actor to chat about the speech, India, love, and more. Your first-ever TED Talk has got a great response in India. You must be really happy. I’m extremely glad that people liked it. It was more than just a talk; it’s something that I’m trying to convey that I believe our country teaches us. Or at least, what my life in my country has taught me. If I get so much love, then obviously, love does exist in our country. Hamaare desh ke logon ka dil jo hai woh pyaar se bhara hua hai (the hearts of the people in our country are full of love). If you are able to translate that for the rest of the world, that’s fantastic. Shah Rukh Khan was last seen in Rahul Dholakia’s Raees. In that sense, do you feel the world ought to know about the real, modern India? Absolutely. We have such amazing things happening around [the country] in all the fields. If that feeling of love and all these developments go hand-in-hand, we’ll make a better and happy place for ourselves to live in. If people, especially those who attend TED Talks — and they’re amazing achievers, thinkers and innovators — can get that message, that’d be great. 11th May Ted.com I talk of a journey,mind numbing acronyms,my country,Future Us & Love made in India. A post shared by Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) on May 5, 2017 at 12:06am PDT You’re considered the king of romance. Did it feel natural to talk about love? I feel that as an actor and also as someone who’s known for romance and love, I think it was very important for me to speak about love instead of just talking about Indian films or Bollywood, or only chat about how an actor thinks. I wanted it [the talk] to be more universal in its appeal instead of being about what I do as an actor. Instagram will be so much prettier now. Please welcome my friend, the lovely @katrinakaif A post shared by Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) on Apr 30, 2017 at 10:44pm PDT You get invited to so many global platforms to speak your mind. What does it feel like? I truly believe that when I go [for such talks], I represent 1.25 billion people. I represent them not because I’ve been given that mantle or I’m the best choice, but because I have had the love of all those people, and that has made me the star that I am. I think it all comes from your heart when you are loved so much by 1.25 billion people. So, you are gracious, grateful and thankful to the motherland that you are born in and belong to. The bottom-line is: there is no country better than India. After Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa in '94, Sunil n Chris come together to make 105... well played boys! Ami @KKRiders... A post shared by Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) on May 7, 2017 at 10:54am PDT If given an option, would you like to take on the mantle of ‘India’s global ambassador’? I think not just me, each one of us, when given a chance, choice or moment to represent our country, are global ambassadors for India. I have been fortunate to have been provided with platforms and opportunities to speak about my country or talk about my work through which also I will always speak about India. I think it’s the duty of every Indian to do so. It was just the fish & me...till these photo bombers floated in!! A post shared by Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) on May 7, 2017 at 5:12am PDT Do you feel every Indian should be proactive about spreading a positive word about our country? Yes, when you go abroad, you need to show things in the most positive light and talk about all the good things that your country
Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE’s daughter Chelsea Clinton, who said at a campaign event on Tuesday that Sanders wants to scrap ObamaCare. Speaking on CNN moments after the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Sanders said Chelsea Clinton has not read his healthcare plan, and called her claims that he wants to get rid of ObamaCare and “dismantle” Medicare and private insurance “absolutely wrong.” ADVERTISEMENT "Unfortunately, I have to say, as much as I admire Chelsea, she didn't read the plan,” the Vermont senator said. “What she should know is that we’re the only major country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee healthcare to all people as a right, and yet we end up spending far more per capita on healthcare as do the people of any other nation.”Sanders, who voted for ObamaCare and helped write some of it, said that under his Medicare For All plan, everyone would have health insurance and middle-class families would save thousands of dollars.He disputed the notion, put forward by Chelsea Clinton, that his plan would give outsized influence to state governors, a majority of whom are Republicans.“She is absolutely wrong,” Sanders said. “This is a plan that works in 50 states in this country, whether you have conservative Republicans or progressive Democrats. It's a national program.”The Clinton campaign has expanded its attacks against Sanders from gun control to include healthcare as the Vermont Independent has surged in polls of early-voting states and made gains in national surveys.Chelsea Clinton, who recently began taking on a more visible role in her mother’s presidential campaign, took those attacks to a campaign rally in New Hampshire on Tuesday, where she said Sanders was looking to get rid of the president’s signature legislative achievement to make way for a single-payer system.“I worry if we give Republicans Democratic permission to do that, we'll go back to an era — before we had the Affordable Care Act — that would strip millions and millions and millions of people off their health insurance,” Chelsea Clinton said ”I don’t want to live in a country that has an unequal healthcare system again,” she continued. “So I don’t want to empower Republican governors to take away Medicaid, to take away health insurance for low-income and middle-income working Americans. And I think very much that’s what Sen. Sanders plan would do.” Hillary Clinton defended her daughter’s remarks Wednesday on "Good Morning America."“You know, I adore my daughter and I know what she is saying,” the former secretary of State said. "Because if you look at Sen. Sanders’s proposals going back nine times in Congress, that’s exactly what he proposed — to take everything we currently know as healthcare, Medicare, Medicaid, the CHIP program, private insurance and now the Affordable Care Act, and roll it together.”I’ve been increasingly interested in translated science fiction novels, and one of the best ones that I picked up this year was Taiyo Fujii’s debut Gene Mapper. Gene Mapper takes place in a future where augmented reality and genetic engineering is commonplace. When a freelance gene mapper named Hayashida finds that a project that he had worked on is collapsing, he believes that it’s being sabotaged. Determined to fix it, he travels to Vietnam where he finds that there’s more behind the problem than he initially thought. Advertisement You can read a tie-in story over on Lightspeed Magazine, ‘Violation of the TrueNet Security Act’. While reading it, I was a little surprised to find that while it’s somewhat similar to Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl (in region, content and style), it feels like it’s a far more optimistic novel. I recently spoke to Fujii, who spoke about what was behind the novel, and his outlook on the future. Advertisement Your first novel, Gene Mapper, explores a future where food is heavily modified in order to meet global demands and to ward off diseases. What helped inspire this future? I saw a piece on the news about an agriculture lab that released their organic crop development method. First they seek target DNA code with using genetic engineering, then they start crossing seeds on a legacy test farm field with target DNA. Still organic? Some say so, but in fact it’s a danger. How do they deal with gene mutation outside the targeted genetic locus? Are the target DNA codes safe? The risk of unexpected mutation seems high Advertisement GMOs are a better way to grow food if target DNA codes are known, and focusing on suitable genes is the most important part of developing crops with genetic engineering, I think. One of the things I was most impressed with in the book was that in a publishing environment where dark, dystopian worlds are popular, yours seems a bit more optimistic about where we’re headed. Do you think technology can deliver a better future for us? Advertisement Yes! Is it too short an answer? Okay. When I was in junior high school, my teacher showed us an illustration of a baby in test tube, and it terrified us. Thirty years later, my wife and I used in vitro fertilization to have a child. During birth, our son was in breech, but we knew thanks to a sonogram and elected to have a Cesarean section. Our son was born fine, but my wife’s womb began bleeding. The surgeon decided to stop the leak with a magnetic stent, and so. Five days later we were home, technology having saved both my wife and child. Were I an adult in the early 1970s, I’d be childless; in the 1980s I’d be a widower too. I know the downsides to technology: it can kill, eliminate jobs, or just make as sad. But overall, tomorrow will be better than today because of technology. Let’s live in a world where we can all experience the bounty of technology Advertisement Gene Mapper came about in an unconventional way - can you tell us how you first published the book and how you were able to get it translated? I got an idea to write a novel after the 2011 earthquake and subsequent nuclear accident. I downloaded a dozen novel-writing apps on my iPhone and got to work Advertisement This was my first attempt at writing a story. At that time, I didn’t know anything about point of view, showing versus telling, or anything else about the craft of writing. I designed Gene Mapper like it was an FPS game. When I finished three chapters, I showed it to a friend. He told me that Gene Mapper was a hard-boiled techno-thriller, because it was told via purely in the first person. He reminded me that I wasn’t writing in a vacuum; there was a tradition I was a part of. I started to re-read my favorite novels with author’s eye and kept writing on my commute. After six months, the first draft was finished, then I started to make e-book in early EPUB 3.0 format in order to support Japanese legacy typesetting. At that time, EPUB 3.0 reading system had not yet been released, so I built an environment with using WebKit and an on-the-fly packaging system with Ruby, and kept polishing Gene Mapper for release. By the time I finished the second draft, fortunately, the Japanese e-book platform Rakuten Kobo had launched. I submitted Gene Mapper and it became a bestseller alongside work by Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clark, and the work of other Japanese writers. Advertisement I was lucky. All the other books were backlist titles; only Gene Mapper was new. Three months later, Kindle launched in Japan. I submitted Gene Mapper to the Best Kindle Book of the Year and it won in the fiction category. The prominent Japanese genre publisher Hayakawa contacted me, and I contracted to rewrite Gene Mapper. And that’s how I became a professional writer. The revised Gene Mapper was nominated for both the Japan SF Grand Prize and the Seiun Award. Advertisement The next year, Haikasoru contacted to Hayakawa and arranged to translate and publish Gene Mapper in English. How would you describe the state of Japanese genre fiction? What can we expect to see in the years to come from your country? The field is strong. There are two dedicated genre publishers, Hayakawa and Tokyo Sogen-Sha, in Japan. Both find new writers primarily through contests for both short fiction and novel-length work. And an editor/translator, Nozomi Omori, launched an original short fiction anthology series called Nova, published by Kawade-Shobo in 2009. Dozens of authors have debuted in Nova, which has become a vital venue for publishing short fiction Advertisement If you’ve already read Toh EnJoe (Self-Reference ENGINE) and Project Itoh (Harmony and Genocidal Organ) and liked them, you’ll be fascinated by Yusuke Miyauchi in near future. Miyauchi’s serial short story book Banjo-no-yoru (Board Game Stories) uses board games such as Go, checkers, Japanese chess and so-on to explore science fictional themes I love his stuff works. You can read his short story “Sky-Spider” in Haikasoru’s new anthology Hanzai Japan Other proimisingg authors include Kazuki Muto, Katsuie Shibata, Dempow Torishima (who has a story in 2014’s Phantasm Japan), Satoshi Hase and Hiroe Suga. What are you working on now, and what should we keep our eyes out for? I’m writing a near-future thriller, One More Nuke, as a serial. It has to do with an A-bomb terror attack during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. And started to write Man Kind, a military SF novel of a firearm trigger operator in a near future ruled by Just War theory. Advertisement English-language readers should keep an eye out for news about my second novel Orbital Cloud. In Japan it won both the Seiun and SF Japan awards. It’s near-future SF about orbital debris and Kessler Syndrome. I hope it’ll be available to you all soon. Gene Mapper is now available in stores.The United States Attorney’s office in the northern district of Texas issued another subpoena against journalist Barrett Brown. It was sent to Writers House, Barrett Brown’s literary agent who is working with him on his forthcoming book. The subpoena, signed by U.S. Attorney John Parker, indicates the government believes the literary agent has “substantial nonexempt property belonging” to Brown, “including but not limited to any publishing advances, commissions, or royalties, and nonexempt disposable earnings.” However, the U.S. Attorney’s office appears to be trying to inappropriately designate income as assets in the possession of Brown. In a phone conversation with Emily Shutt, a member of the “restitution recovery team” for the U.S. Attorney’s office, Brown repeatedly asked Shutt, “How much have I not paid [in restitution] that I’m supposed to have paid?” Brown claimed his probation officer has no awareness of the claims the government is making about his failure to pay restitution or supposed debt the office allegedly attempted to collect in the past month. Shutt would not provide Brown a direct answer to his question, even though it presumably is the basis for any subpoena. However, when Brown asked if the government can target all of his income for restitution payment, Shutt replied, “Not your income. Your assets.” What the government is pursuing with the subpoena to Writers House is not money that Brown has been fully paid. He told Shadowproof he received a portion and paid restitution on that income, but until he delivers the next set of chapters for his book and fulfills certain parts of his contract, Writers House will not pay him the rest of this money. On June 29, the U.S. Attorney’s office issued a subpoena to the media organization, The Intercept. The office requested all records of communications. That particular subpoena sought information the Justice Department could have easily obtained without going to The Intercept in an act that implicated the press freedom of the organization. “They have all of my prior communications with the Intercept because I was in prison during most of those; not all of them but the vast majority of them,” Brown previously told Shadowproof, adding, “those emails [were] monitored.” Brown said he consulted with the Intercept’s “in-house counsel and what she did is she called the Attorney General’s office and said they’ve requested not just my financial information but all communications. She said we’re not giving you any communications. We’ll give you the payment information. And they accepted that because they knew they were full of shit, that they couldn’t demand communications.” Although, during the phone conversation with Shutt, she insisted it was normal business and not unusual to go after person’s employers with subpoenas for all communications. Brown was released from prison on November 29, 2016, after serving a prison sentence which stemmed from pleading guilty to threatening an FBI agent, obstructing justice, and being an accessory to a cyber attack. He spent two years in pretrial incarceration prior to his sentence in 2014. Brown suggested the U.S. Attorney’s office is doing this to make it harder for him to live. “And, you know, they’re doing a pretty good job.” Writers House is less experienced at handling a subpoena than the Intercept. “That’s the irritating thing about this. They are harassing and making things difficult for people just for employing me and using language that does not apply,” Brown declared. “My strategy in all this is to document as much as possible to make sure there’s no confusion, that whatever confusion they’re trying to bring to it gets clarified, and that I write to them and later on I can show that, no, they were not confused about this. They knew perfectly well this is true. I’ve made every effort to provide the actual status of these things, and they weren’t able to explain on the phone.” Brown does not believe they are trying to send a message that he is not allowed to work in publishing but must get a more typical job that someone just out of prison might pursue, like a position at Subway. He does believe the U.S. Attorney’s office is looking at the court district and a favorable judge and wagering they can get away with this activity because the judge won’t stop them. Sam Lindsay, who was nominated to the court in the northern district of Texas by President Bill Clinton, is a “fool,” Brown said. He lacks an awareness of what is happening in his courtroom, when it comes to defendants. Brown recalled attempts to explain issues or resolve disputes when his case was before Lindsay. His lawyer would submit something in writing or speak to him in a courtroom setting. “Forty minutes later, he’ll just repeat what he’s already said after we already thought there was no longer a dispute. It was very hard to deal with him because you never know how many times you need to explain to him what he should have already known.” It may seem, to an outside observer, that Brown has a clear cut challenge against the U.S. Attorney’s office for violating or abusing the terms of judgment. He is supposed to pay $890,375.00. “If upon commencement of the term of supervised release any part of the restitution remains unpaid, the defendant shall make payments on such unpaid balance in installments of not less than 10 percent of the defendant’s gross income, or at a rate of not less than $50 per month, whichever is greater,” according to the terms. “Payment shall begin no later than 60 days after the defendant’s release from confinement and shall continue each month thereafter until the balance is paid in full. In addition, at least 50 percent of the receipts received from gifts, tax returns, inheritances, bonuses, lawsuit awards, and any other receipt of money shall be paid toward the unpaid balance within 15 days of receipt.” Is the government improperly categorizing money that Brown is likely to be paid? “In theory, I’ve had all kinds of cases against [the government] for the last six years, but the problem is in reality it is better to be a prosecutor in this district than it is to be a defendant regardless of what a prosecutor has done. Even if you’re a prosecutor, who’s been caught kicking someone in the throat, it is better to be a prosecutor than the guy who’s kicked in the throat.” Because, as Brown maintains, judges like Judge Sam Lindsay will simply forgive and forget the conduct of the U.S. Attorney’s office.Manchester City trio Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne and Yaya Toure are among five Premier League players on the 23-man Ballon d'Or shortlist. Chelsea's Eden Hazard and Arsenal's Alexis Sanchez are also in the frame to be named world football's best player. Ballon d'Or holder Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid and Barcelona's Lionel Messi, who have won the past seven awards between them, lead the nominees. Wales and Real Madrid forward Gareth Bale is the only British player named. Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho and Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger are on the 10-man Coach of the Year shortlist. They will contend with Barcelona manager Luis Enrique, who guided his side to the treble of Champions League, Spanish league and Spanish cup titles, and Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola. There are few surprise names on the players' list, with QPR midfielder Massimo Luongo and Bournemouth winger Christian Atsu, who both reportedly made the 59-man longlist, overlooked. Midfielders and forwards vastly outnumber goalkeepers and defenders, with Bayern Munich keeper Manuel Neuer and Barcelona centre-back Javier Mascherano the only players shortlisted from their respective positions. Spain's La Liga leads the way, with 11 players nominated, while Germany's Bundesliga has six nominees. There are two from Italy's Serie A and one - Paris St-Germain's Zlatan Ibrahimovic - from France's Ligue 1. Players who have transferred during the past year are recognised for their contribution to both clubs. Fifa Ballon d'Or shortlist: Sergio Aguero (Argentina/Manchester City), Gareth Bale (Wales/Real Madrid), Karim Benzema (France/Real Madrid), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal/Real Madrid), Kevin De Bruyne (Belgium/VfL Wolfsburg/Manchester City), Eden Hazard (Belgium/Chelsea), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden/Paris Saint-Germain), Andres Iniesta (Spain/FC Barcelona), Toni Kroos (Germany/Real Madrid), Robert Lewandowski (Poland/FC Bayern Munich), Javier Mascherano (Argentina/FC Barcelona), Lionel Messi (Argentina/FC Barcelona), Thomas Muller (Germany/FC Bayern Munich), Manuel Neuer (Germany/FC Bayern Munich), Neymar (Brazil/FC Barcelona), Paul Pogba (France/Juventus), Ivan Rakitic (Croatia/FC Barcelona), Arjen Robben (Netherlands/FC Bayern Munich), James Rodriguez (Colombia/Real Madrid), Alexis Sanchez (Chile/Arsenal), Luis Suarez (Uruguay/FC Barcelona), Yaya Toure (Côte d'Ivoire/Manchester City), Arturo Vidal (Chile/Juventus/FC Bayern Munich). Fifa World Coach of the Year for Men's Football shortlist: Massimiliano Allegri (Italy/Juventus), Carlo Ancelotti (Italy/Real Madrid), Laurent Blanc (France/Paris Saint-Germain), Unai Emery (Spain/Sevilla FC), Pep Guardiola (Spain/FC Bayern Munich), Luis Enrique (Spain/FC Barcelona), Jose Mourinho (Portugal/Chelsea), Jorge Sampaoli (Argentina/Chilean national team), Diego Simeone (Argentina/Atletico Madrid), Arsene Wenger (France/Arsenal).We are thrilled to announce our very special guest is… Vern Gillum, the accomplished television director who directed the Firefly episodes “Shindig” and “Trash.”!!! And here we are 10 years later still celebrating “Shindig” and Firefly at Browncoat Ball 2012 this weekend! Vern will graciously hold a Q&A session as part of Friday’s festivities and also speak Saturday after dinner about his experiences with Firefly and his friendship with Joss. So you may want to grab your favorite piece of Firefly memorabilia and bring it along to get it autographed by Vern! Can’t wait to get this party started! See you all very soon! The Albuquerque Browncoats are very excited to host the Browncoat Ball 2012 weekend in Albuquerque, New Mexico, September 14-16. Events start on Friday with our welcome reception and Unification Day Renunciation Party (dress as your favorite character from the ‘Verse). If you are into leather (and who isn’t?) there will also be a special activity for everyone which will include a nice parting gift. A little something to make the folks back home even more jealous of your trip. Saturday you can select from three different activity tracks (Jayne’s Leather, The Tram Job, and Battle of Acoma Valley), check out our Gallery of ‘Verse Collectables and Creations, and then proceed to the Ball in the evening. Sunday, play Tall Card and other games, and enjoy famous New Mexico breakfast burritos. Get your Browncoat Ball tickets, pre-order your limited-edition T-shirt, and be sure to book your hotel room as well. We’ve secured a room block for the weekend, and a few days beyond. Home of the ancient Pueblo Browncoat rebellion against an overbearing Coquistador-Missionary Alliance, New Mexico is rich with big skies, natural wonders, history, art, culture, food and entertainment. The Albuquerque Browncoats have been active for seven years hosting regular shindigs, CSTS screenings, and more. We have a wonderful weekend in store, which should be una fiesta mas grande, as we say around here. Be sure to join our social networks on Facebook and Twitter (coming soon) to be kept in the loop for news and updates. We look forward to meeting all of you soon. The 2012 BCB is in less than a month! Buy your ticket today!Turner and WME \| IMG announced today that its inaugural season of ELEAGUE will be distributed to over 80 countries around the world including Turner networks in Latin America and Asia, along with broadcast rights sold by IMG and Turner International in other territories. The new professional eSports league will launch Tuesday, May 24, with ELEAGUE featuring 24 elite Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams from around the globe competing over a 10-week period from a state-of-the-art arena at Turner Studios in Atlanta. In the United States, live event coverage will include week-long digital content on Twitch (Tuesday/Wednesday from 12-7 p.m. ET and Thursday from 2-7 p.m.) with a Friday night televised showcase airing on TBS at 10 p.m. ET (along with digital platforms). Additional details on the regular season schedule and league format can be found here. Outside of the U.S., ELEAGUE will be shown on broadcast and digital platforms in countries/territories including Africa, Asia, China, France, Germany, Latin America, the Netherlands, Nordics, Poland, Portugal and Russia. “ELEAGUE is a global competition showcasing some of the best teams around the world and we’re committed to providing best-in-class coverage across all platforms in all countries,” said Craig Barry, EVP and Chief Content Officer, Turner Sports. “This global approach to distributing eSports content is reflective of the worldwide community that so passionately supports it.” Tobias Sherman, Head of eSports, WME \| IMG, said: “There is a tremendous appetite to show this very first ELEAGUE from across the globe with more broadcasters showing an interest every day. The fan base is a very passionate one and digital and TV coverage will not only showcase the excitement and thrills of the games, but also help grow the audience and raise awareness of eSports around the world.” Fans can also receive the latest updates on ELEAGUE through http://www.e-league.com, its Facebook page (facebook.com/eleaguegaming) and Twitter account (@EL). -30-Nissan and its motorsport partner NISMO have finally revealed the engine that will feature in its 2014 ZEOD RC electrified race car, which will compete in the Garage 56 experimental entry in this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. The engine is a turbocharged 1.5-liter three-cylinder putting out an incredible 400 horsepower, but what’s more impressive is that the engine weighs just 88 pounds, which means a human is quite capable of carrying it (turbocharger and all), as NISMO chief Shoichi Miyatani demonstrates above. MUST SEE: How A Lamborghini Veneno Gets Delivered To Its New Owner: Video The engine is code-named the DIG-T R and in addition to its 400-horsepower peak power rating it also develops a maximum 280 pound-feet of torque--numbers that make it almost comparable with some V-8 engines still on the market. At a ratio of 4.5 horsepower per pound, the new engine even has a better power-to-weight ratio than the new turbocharged 1.6-liter V-6 engines to be used in Formula One this season. In the ZEOD RC, the engine will form part of an advanced plug-in hybrid drivetrain. Nissan says the driver will be able to switch between electric power and gasoline power, and the batteries will be charged via regenerative braking. Both the electric and gasoline powerplants run through the same five-speed gearbox that transfers power to the ground via Michelin tires. For every hour that the ZEOD RC races, Nissan says the car will be able to complete one lap of Le Mans’ 8.5-mile Circuit de la Sarthe on electric power alone. This will make it the first race car in history to complete a lap in a sanctioned form of motorsport with zero emissions. DON'T MISS: Hennessey Puts Its Twin-Turbo HPE700 Corvette Stingray On The Dyno: Video The ZEOD RC will undergo an extensive test program over the next four months prior to it making its race debut at this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours on June 14-15. Importantly, lessons learned from the development of the revolutionary race car will be used in the development of Nissan’s planned entry into the top LMP1 category of the World Endurance Championship, which the automaker today has confirmed will take place in 2015. Of course, some of the knowledge gained will also be seen in Nissan road cars of the future. _______________________________________ Follow Motor Authority on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.Kirsty Young's castaway is the baker and winner of The Great British Bake Off in 2015, Nadiya Hussain. One of six children born to Bangladeshi parents in Luton, it was her father - a restaurateur - who encouraged her to cook. Having grown up in a culture where dessert wasn't common, her love of baking was awakened by her Year Ten home economics teacher. She had an arranged marriage to Abdal in her early twenties and stayed at home to bring up their three children until her husband encouraged her to apply for the Bake Off. She was selected and over 15 million viewers watched her beat her fellow finalists Tamal and Ian. Since winning Bake Off, Nadiya has been writing a column for the Times Magazine and has published her first cook book. She also has further books and a TV programme in the pipeline. Producer: Cathy Drysdale.Seriously, this crusty, rustic, no knead bread is THE easiest bread I think you can make. I used to be terrified of making bread, it always goes back to this one time a couple of years ago that I tried to make an Italian loaf and it turned out like a skinny rubber snake. An experience like that can scar you into just buying bread because store bought loafs won’t give you nightmares. I came across this no knead bread recipe on Pinterest here, and she found it on a couple of other sites, but as far as I can figure out it originated from Le Creuset. Makes sense seeing as it bakes in a Dutch oven. No Knead Bread Origin Update: Hayley messaged me with the actual originator of this recipe. It’s Jim Lahey and his recipe was featured in The New York Time’s Minimalist column here. It’s definitely worth a read because there are some tips and tricks for working with the loaf that I hadn’t seen on the Pinterest versions. Great find Hayley, so thank you! And thank you to Jim Lahey, my husband is now your biggest fan! Now Back The The No Knead Bread Recipe Making! I was a little nervous as first. It seemed too simple, you know? But the pictures looked amazing and seeing as it was only going to use up 5 minutes of my time, I figured I’d be an idiot not to try. Yes. You read that correctly. This will only take 5 minutes of hands on time to make. And there’s no kneading. Seriously, it’s like magic or something. Throw your flour, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. I really like glass bowls for rising dough, easier to gauge what’s going on. Whisk it up. Add the water (use room temperature water, you’re aiming for warm, but not hot). Mix it up with a wooden spoon or spatula. Cover it tightly with plastic wrap and let it rise. Now, directions say to let it rise for 12 to 18 hours. That doesn’t work for me who wants to prep it in the morning and eat it with dinner. I put this in the oven, with the oven light on. It works perfectly and rises in about 6 hours. Then just take it out and let it finish on the counter until you’re ready to bake it. Beautifully risen dough. This is the moment I started believing it was actually going to turn out. Throw a bunch of flour down on your counter, put the dough on it, then put more flour on top of the dough. Quickly shape it into a ball. This takes 1 minute. That’s it. At this stage, if you wanted too, you could mix some stuff in. Looking for ideas: rosemary, grated cheese (I’d go with an old cheddar), some roasted garlic, a combination of them, or anything else you can think of. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave for 30 minutes. While this is resting put your Dutch oven, lid and all, into the pre-heated oven for the 30 minutes. Put the ball of dough into the pre-heated Dutch oven, put the lid on it, and put it in the oven. I sprinkled some sea salt on top first. I suggest you do the same. Side note: this is one of the worst pictures I’ve taking in a long time, so sorry for the blur. I had a dog playing between my legs and was cooking dinner at the time too so no chance for a re-take. After 30 minutes take off the lid; this is what the bread will look like at this point. Continue cooking for 15 more minutes. I’m new to the bread game, so I worry about the inside being done. There are two ways to gage this: first, when you knock on the loaf it should sound hollow. While a nice fact, I don’t trust myself to accurately gage “hollow”. I stick an instant read thermometer into the side of the loaf, if it registers 190ºF – 200ºF we’re good to go. And this, my dears, is what I ended up with. I was just as amazed as you are. This is like, the perfect loaf of rustic artisan bread, only it’s a no knead bread. I didn’t know before this moment that could be possible! It was great too, a nice chewy interior and a super crisp exterior. Bo was in absolute heaven and his only comment: I wouldn’t be upset if you made this every night. On that note, I’ve got one rising in the oven for tonight as I type. Want More Delicious Bread Recipes? This Cheesecake Factory Bread copycat recipe is the most popular recipe on my blog, and one of the ones I’m most proud of! It’s definitely a couple notches up from this no knead bread, but you won’t regret giving it a shot (I mean, if you’ve eaten at the Cheesecake Factory before you understand that the bread is the best part of the meal!). Here’s the printable:Picture this: Is there life after Photoshop? In focus: Adobe Photoshop has dominated the photo editing space - but with a new subscription model is there life after Photoshop for small businesses looking for something more cost-effective? For almost all its 23-year existence, Photoshop has dominated the digital retouching and design world. In the 1990s its popularity exploded thanks to an exceptional array of transformational tools. It was helped along because it was often illegally passed around by friends and easily downloaded from the internet if you knew where to look. The software could be found everywhere from big-budget design studios to student bedsits. Several years ago the chief executive then of Adobe, makers of Photoshop, told me that nine out of 10 images that we see anywhere around us, including those found on food packaging, billboards, catalogues and paint cans, for example, have been processed in Photoshop. No wonder it became a verb too. Photoshop it: Adobe's photo editing software is demonstrated at MacWorld back in 2001 But in June this year, Photoshop did the unthinkable (although Adobe had been thinking about it for some time). It became subscription-only software, no longer available as a boxed product in retail stores where one price bought unlimited creativity. Now ideas, images and designs can only flow within strict time limits - unless the meter is fed. Brave new world The new payment structure has led to much debate and discussion among creative professionals. For high-end studios, prices are rarely a problem and they undoubtedly welcome the frequent small updates that Adobe can now incorporate into its software, rather than waiting for an occasional big one. For small business owners and freelances, the choice is not so obvious. Boxed software can be used for years and years at no extra cost. A monthly subscription can end up being a bigger chunk of an already tight budget. For freelances or small and medium-sized businesses, switching photo editing software could save a lot of money Adobe has moved many of its other legendary software titles to a subscription-based service too, but has left Lightroom, another of its popular photographic tools, alone for now. It still comes in a box and does some of the tricks that Photoshop is well known for, but at a fraction of the price. There are also well-established alternatives, such as Corel's Paintshop Pro and the open source GIMP software, which are also filled with features. Yet if you have been browsing the desktop app stores recently you cannot help but notice a proliferation of newer, more nimble and niche photo manipulation software titles that sell for less than a single month of an Adobe subscription fee. Fotor is free and is claimed to be one of the most downloaded photographic apps globally, offering quick and easy scenes and adjustments. Patricia Tietgens, its spokesperson, says that Fotor appeals to people and companies that do not necessarily make money directly from their images but need a solid editor. "For bloggers and small businesses who want to connect with their users, it simply isn't feasible to exert Photoshop-level effort for one image," she says. Pixelmator is one of the companies that has seen an upswing in downloads since Adobe's announcement "The reality is that by the time they finish editing one image it will not be long before there is a need for another. These conditions challenge even the smallest businesses to supply visual candy regularly in order to compete, and often while operating on a tight budget." Like several photo app makers, Pixelmator has seen its download rates and inquiries escalate since June after Photoshop became subscription-only. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote No one wants another Photoshop with thousands of features” End Quote Saulius Dailide Pixelmator Saulius Dailide, co-developer of Pixelmator, believes there is now a rare opening in the photographic design world for greater competition. "Adobe is Photoshop. Everything else at Adobe is less than great in quality or is outdated, with a few exceptions. "I think there is a huge opportunity for developers like us to come up with the next generation of image editing software of all kinds. One thing for sure - it won't be bloatware. "Surpassing Photoshop in features is easy - it would take two years. The thing is that no one wants another Photoshop with thousands of features. An image editing app without that many features is a tricky thing. That's what we are trying to accomplish with Pixelmator." The simple life Simplicity is a theme that has swept across many genres in app stores. Apps that do one thing and one thing well often become big sellers. Fabio Sasso, an experienced designer who has no intention of giving up Photoshop completely, does, however, find himself using apps such as Pixelmator more and more because of its workflow efficiency. We can fix it: Perfectly Clear is launching its first full desktop application to fix your photos "There's a need to have very specific sets of features for specific areas of the industry," he says. "We'll start to see more and more apps with niche functionalities and features to please a particular audience. That will of course allow them to simplify the interface, offering just what is necessary for that audience's needs." Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote I don't think anyone will be dethroning [Adobe] anytime soon” End Quote Gus Mueller Acorn There is nothing faster to speed up workflow than a single click. That is what Perfectly Clear, by Athentech Imaging, does. Its combination of multiple corrections with a single press instantly makes even a great photo look less "grey", revealing a more colourful, vibrant result. It has been offered as a software plug-in for years. But this year, for the first time, founder Brad Malcolm is developing a standalone product for Windows (and eventually Mac), called Perfectly Clear Desktop. "The [built-in] Photoshop automatic correction is not very robust and you can't rely on it," he says. "Often it damages your photo, often it makes it worse, often it does nothing when it should do something, and sometimes it does work. [It] uses a traditional histogram equalisation approach to trying to make your photo better. "Perfectly Clear, on the other hand, utilises over 10 years of patented science and over 10 unique and independent corrections." Alternative lifestyle: Finding a new market for cheaper photo editing software is the reality, says Acorn's Gus Mueller Most developers feel the Adobe decision to offer subscription-only choices was not a tactical mistake, however. Some believe this is the way of the future. Perhaps all basic image editors will be available free one day with advanced tools becoming in-app purchases? But, like several others in his field, Gus Mueller, the developer of Acorn, says he is not trying to outdo Photoshop. "Adobe is very well established, and I
it continues for some time. "I’d like to just have a long run on it where that can kind of be my career-defining work, but beyond that I’d like to won my own stuff and create my own characters," he said.At the end of the 2016 MLB season, Atlanta Braves General Manager John Coppolella said the organization was done trading veteran players for prospects. This came as a surprise to many fans and admirers of the Braves well-stocked farm system. It was evident the Braves were not ready to compete. While the 2016 season ended with a 31-25 record over the final two months, it was unclear whether this streak would carry over into the 2017 season. It has not. The Braves acquired a few veteran arms over the offseason. They currently have a few trade bait players that could catch the eyes of competing teams. The Way Too Early Atlanta Braves Trade Bait List Coming into the 2017 season the Braves were a team that could either become a sneaky Wild Card competitor or lose the most games in the National League. With the acquisitions of R.A. Dickey, Bartolo Colon and Jaime Garcia, the Braves rotation was far superior to that of 2016. All they needed to do was swing the bats. Freddie Freeman is off to a legitimate MVP candidacy season slashing a.336 average with 12 home runs only two months into the season. Freeman also currently boasts a 2.1 WAR. By comparison, reigning NL MVP Kris Bryant has only posted a 1.5 WAR. Yet, the Braves are off to an 11-20 start. While the season is still relatively early, and sure-fire playoff teams like the San Francisco Giants and Toronto Blue Jays have only won 12 and 13 games respectively, it is not looking good for the Braves. Former number one prospect Dansby Swanson is only hitting.162 and players such as Ender Inciarte and Nick Markakis are hitting well below their.300 average capabilities. However, there are a few bright spots not in the long term plans such as Tyler Flowers, Matt Kemp, Brandon Phillips as well as the pitching staff. Here is a list of players that could attract competing teams if the Braves struggles continue. Tyler Flowers- Catcher Tyler Flowers by trade is a great defensive catcher. However, there are many great defensive catches in the MLB. Aside from the likes of Buster Posey, Jonathan Lucroy and possibly Gary Sanchez, catcher is a position that gives teams the least of worries. Flowers has been a surprising bright spot in the Braves batting order, even if he is splitting time with Kurt Suzuki. Flowers, in his limited time, has posted a.361 batting average. While he hasn’t gone yard yet, he has been a clutch performer with nine RBI. Hitting down in the order, with that high of an average means he is seeing the ball well. While many teams will not look for a catcher before the trade deadline, Flowers could attract some interest. He is 31, and could be looking to land on a playoff team as a backup or a pinch hitting option. Given his age he is probably not in the Braves long term plans, even without a decent catching prospect in the minors. Big name catchers have gone down before, such as Posey in 2011, meaning Flowers could be on the move. Jim Johnson- Closer Aside from Zach Britton, Aroldis Chapman and perhaps Cody Allen, the closer role has diminished since Mariano Rivera retired. Britton has successfully over 50 saves, but has hardly been able to get off the disabled list this season. Chapman and Allen just recently uncharacteristically blew save opportunities. Teams such as the Washington Nationals, arguably the best team in the MLB, legitimately have no decent closing option. Enter: Jim Johnson. Johnson came back to the Braves as a washed-up closer. Yet, he finished the 2016 season with a 3.06 ERA and completed 20 saves. He hasn’t gotten off to hot start in 2017, with five saves and two blown. He also doesn’t get much action with Atlanta in the first place. Of course, there are many superior options on the market. For a low price the 33-year-old could be on the move. Brandon Phillips- Second Base Back in February, the Braves made a surprising move to bring veteran second baseman Phillips in. It is well known the second base seat is simply waiting for current top prospect Ozzie Albies. Given his injury at the end of last season, he was clearly not ready to start alongside Swanson. Phillips is well known for his defense, but has actually hit.294 this season with two home runs. Albies will inevitably be called up this season, most likely as a September call up, meaning Phillips could be on his way out. Colon, Dickey and Garcia- Pitchers Let’s get this straight, these three pitchers are most definitely not in the long term plans for Atlanta. Colon is 43, Dickey is 42 and Garcia is 30. If any of these three pitchers post a decent ERA, control and walk rates they will be gone by the trade deadline. It is unlikely the Braves will unload all three players, or if all three will be viable trade bait but their value should be noted. So far, Colon has posted an atrocious 7.22 ERA albeit with a decent WHIP of 1.42, but would have been the favorite before the season began. Garcia currently has an ERA of 4.33 with the exact same WHIP as Colon, with five less strikeouts. Dickey, the knuckleballer, has actually been the most consistent of the three. He has posted an ERA of 4.29, but has actually gotten three wins. None of these pitchers to this point would attract much. Even if one of them could pick up their lackluster start they could join a team as a fifth spot rotation guy. Dickey and Colon both signed one-year contracts this offseason, while Garcia was acquired via trade. With free agency looming, the two older men should be moved before the trade deadline to salvage something out of a poor season. Garcia could stay until next season, given his age and contract. Moving Forward The Braves are a streaky team; when they are hot, they are borderline unstoppable, but when they are bad they are awful. This win-a-few, lose-a-bunch trend has resulted in a poor record so far. It is highly unlikely they will turn it around. Nobody quite knows how many prospects will make their debut this year. The aforementioned veterans alongside players such as Kemp and Markakis could be gone in order to create space for the youngsters. It is still too early to tell, but it would benefit the Braves to trade players who will not be present in the following year. This would in turn, continue to fill their prospect pool, or even gain some extra cash. Not to mention it could result in quite a few September call-ups every fan has been waiting for.No visitors registration is needed. This will be quick and easy for your visitors! <? require_once( "cryptobox.class.php" ); /** CONFIGURATION VARIABLES / $filename = "my_file1.zip"; // filename for download $dir = "protected"; // name of your directory with your files; nobody should have direct web access to directory $userID = ""; // place your registered userID or md5(userID) here (user1, user7, uo43DC, etc). // if userID is empty, it will autogenerate userID and save in cookies $userFormat = "COOKIE"; // save userID in cookies (or you can use IPADDRESS, SESSION) $orderID = md5($dir.$filename); // file name hash as order id $amountUSD = 0.2; // file download price (0.2 USD) $period = "24 HOURS"; // download link will be valid for 24 hours $def_language = "en"; // default Payment Box Language $def_payment = "bitcoin"; // default Coin in Payment Box // List of coins that you accept for payments // For example, for accept payments in bitcoins, dogecoins use - $available_payments = array('bitcoin', 'dogecoin'); $available_payments = array('bitcoin', 'bitcoincash', 'bitcoinsv', 'litecoin', 'dash', 'dogecoin','speedcoin','reddcoin', 'potcoin', 'feathercoin','vertcoin', 'peercoin','monetaryunit'); // Goto https://gourl.io/info/memberarea/My_Account.html // You need to create record for each your coin and get private/public keys // Place Public/Private keys for all your available coins from $available_payments $all_keys = array( "bitcoin" => array("public_key" => "-your public key for Bitcoin box-", "private_key" => "-private key for Bitcoin box-"), "dogecoin" => array("public_key" => "-your public key for Dogecoin box-", "private_key" => "-private key for Dogecoin box-") // etc. ); /****************************/ // Re-test - that all keys for $available_payments added in $all_keys if (!in_array($def_payment, $available_payments)) $available_payments[] = $def_payment; foreach($available_payments as $v) { if (!isset($all_keys[$v]["public_key"]) \|\|!isset($all_keys[$v]["private_key"])) die("Please add your public/private keys for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (!strpos($all_keys[$v]["public_key"], "PUB")) die("Invalid public key for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (!strpos($all_keys[$v]["private_key"], "PRV")) die("Invalid private key for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (strpos(CRYPTOBOX_PRIVATE_KEYS, $all_keys[$v]["private_key"]) === false) die("Please add your private key for '$v' in variable \$cryptobox_private_keys, file cryptobox.config.php."); } // Optional - Language selection list for payment box (html code) $languages_list = display_language_box($def_language); // Optional - Coin selection list (html code) $coins_list = display_currency_box($available_payments, $def_payment, $def_language, 60, "margin: 80px 0 0 0"); $coinName = CRYPTOBOX_SELCOIN; // current selected coin by user // Current Coin public/private keys $public_key = $all_keys[$coinName]["public_key"]; $private_key = $all_keys[$coinName]["private_key"]; / PAYMENT BOX / $options = array( "public_key" => $public_key, // your public key from gourl.io "private_key" => $private_key, // your private key from gourl.io "webdev_key" => "", // optional, gourl affiliate key "orderID" => $orderID, // file name hash as order id "userID" => $userID, // unique identifier for every user "userFormat" => $userFormat, // save userID in COOKIE, IPADDRESS or SESSION "amount" => 0, // file price in coins OR in USD below "amountUSD" => $amountUSD, // we use file price in USD "period" => $period, // download link valid period "language" => $def_language // text on EN - english, FR - french, etc ); // Initialise Payment Class $box = new Cryptobox ($options); // coin name $coinName = $box->coin_name(); // Generate Download Link $download_link = "//$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST]$_SERVER[REQUEST_URI]". (strpos($_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"], "?")?"&":"?")."dd=1"; $download_link = "href='".htmlspecialchars($download_link, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8')."'"; // Warning message if not paid if (!$box->is_paid()) $download_link = "onclick='alert(\"You need to send ".$coinName."s first!\")' href='#a'"; // Check if file exists on your server $file = rtrim($dir, "/ ")."/".$filename; if (!file_exists($file)) echo "<h1><center><font color=red>Warning: $file not exists</font></center></h1>"; // User Paid - Send file to user browser if ($box->is_paid() && isset($_GET["dd"]) && $_GET["dd"] == "1") { // Starting Download $size = filesize($file); header('Content-Description: File Transfer'); header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream'); header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.basename($file)); header('Expires: 0'); header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate'); header('Pragma: public'); header('Content-Length: '. $size); readfile($file); // Set Status - User Downloaded File if ($size) $box->set_status_processed(); die; } //... // Also you can use IPN function cryptobox_new_payment($paymentID = 0, $payment_details = array(), $box_status = "") // for send confirmation email, update database, update user membership, etc. // You need to modify file - cryptobox.newpayment.php, read more - https://gourl.io/api-php.html#ipn //...?> <!DOCTYPE html> <html><head> <title>Pay-Per-Download Cryptocoin (payments in multiple cryptocurrencies) Payment Example</title> <meta http-equiv='cache-control' content='no-cache'> <meta http-equiv='Expires' content='-1'> <script src='cryptobox.min.js' type='text/javascript'></script> </head> <body style='font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;color:#666;margin:0'> <div align='center'> <br><br><br><h1>File: <?= $filename?></h1> Price: ~<?= $amountUSD?> US$<br> <a <?= $download_link?>><img alt='Download File' border='0' src='https://gourl.io/images/zip.png'></a><br> <a <?= $download_link?>>Download File</a> <? if (!$box->is_paid()) echo $coins_list; else echo "<br><br><br><br>"?> <div style='margin:30px 0 5px 300px'>Language: <?= $languages_list?></div> <?= $box->display_cryptobox()?> <br><br><br><br><br><br> </div> </body> </html> No visitors registration is needed. Easy to use! <? require_once( "cryptobox.class.php" ); / CONFIGURATION VARIABLES / $userID = ""; // place your registered userID or md5(userID) here (user1, user7, uo43DC, etc). // if userID is empty, it will autogenerate userID and save in cookies $userFormat = "COOKIE"; // save userID in cookies (or you can use IPADDRESS, SESSION) $orderID = "post1"; // if you manual setup userID, you need to // update orderID for users who already paid before: post1, post2, post3 $amountUSD = 0.5; // price per one post - 0.5 USD $period = "NOEXPIRY"; // one time payment for each new user post, not expiry $def_language = "en"; // default Payment Box Language $def_payment = "dogecoin"; // default Coin in Payment Box // List of coins that you accept for payments // For example, for accept payments in bitcoins, dogecoins use - $available_payments = array('bitcoin', 'dogecoin'); $available_payments = array('bitcoin', 'bitcoincash', 'bitcoinsv', 'litecoin', 'dash', 'dogecoin','speedcoin','reddcoin', 'potcoin', 'feathercoin','vertcoin', 'peercoin','monetaryunit'); // Goto https://gourl.io/info/memberarea/My_Account.html // You need to create record for each your coin and get private/public keys // Place Public/Private keys for all your available coins from $available_payments $all_keys = array( "bitcoin" => array("public_key" => "-your public key for Bitcoin box-", "private_key" => "-private key for Bitcoin box-"), "dogecoin" => array("public_key" => "-your public key for Dogecoin box-", "private_key" => "-private key for Dogecoin box-") // etc. ); /****************************/ // Re-test - that all keys for $available_payments added in $all_keys if (!in_array($def_payment, $available_payments)) $available_payments[] = $def_payment; foreach($available_payments as $v) { if (!isset($all_keys[$v]["public_key"]) \|\|!isset($all_keys[$v]["private_key"])) die("Please add your public/private keys for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (!strpos($all_keys[$v]["public_key"], "PUB")) die("Invalid public key for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (!strpos($all_keys[$v]["private_key"], "PRV")) die("Invalid private key for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (strpos(CRYPTOBOX_PRIVATE_KEYS, $all_keys[$v]["private_key"]) === false) die("Please add your private key for '$v' in variable \$cryptobox_private_keys, file cryptobox.config.php."); } // Optional - Language selection list for payment box (html code) $languages_list = display_language_box($def_language); // Optional - Coin selection list (html code) $coins_list = display_currency_box($available_payments, $def_payment, $def_language, 42, "margin: 5px 0 0 20px"); $coinName = CRYPTOBOX_SELCOIN; // current selected coin by user // Current Coin public/private keys $public_key = $all_keys[$coinName]["public_key"]; $private_key = $all_keys[$coinName]["private_key"]; / PAYMENT BOX */ $options = array( "public_key" => $public_key, // your public key from gourl.io "private_key" => $private_key, // your private key from gourl.io "webdev_key" => "", // optional, gourl affiliate key "orderID" => $orderID, // order id "userID" => $userID, // unique identifier for every user "userFormat" => $userFormat, // save userID in COOKIE, IPADDRESS or SESSION "amount" => 0, // post price in coins OR in USD below "amountUSD" => $amountUSD, // we use post price in USD "period" => $period, // payment valid period "language" => $def_language // text on EN - english, FR - french, etc ); // Initialise Payment Class $box = new Cryptobox ($options); // coin name $coinName = $box->coin_name(); // Form Data // -------------------------- $ftitle = (isset($_POST["ftitle"]))? $_POST["ftitle"] : ""; $ftext = (isset($_POST["ftext"]))? $_POST["ftext"] : ""; $error = ""; $successful = false; if (isset($_POST) && isset($_POST["ftitle"])) { if (!$ftitle) $error.= "<li>Please enter Title</li>"; if (!$ftext) $error.= "<li>Please enter Text</li>"; if (!$box->is_paid()) $error.= "<li>".$coinName."s have not yet been received</li>"; if ($error) $error = "<br><ul style='color:#eb4847'>$error</ul>"; if ($box->is_paid() &&!$error) { // Successful Cryptocoin Payment received // Your code here - // save text in db / publish user post on your website... //... //... // Set Payment Status to Processed $successful = true; $box->set_status_processed(); // Optional, cryptobox_reset() will delete cookies/sessions with userID and // new cryptobox with new payment amount will be show after page reload. // Cryptobox will recognize user as a new one with new generated userID // If you manual setup userID, you need to change orderID also $box->cryptobox_reset(); } } //... // Also you can use IPN function cryptobox_new_payment($paymentID = 0, $payment_details = array(), $box_status = "") // for send confirmation email, update database, update user membership, etc. // You need to modify file - cryptobox.newpayment.php, read more - https://gourl.io/api-php.html#ipn //...?> <!DOCTYPE html> <html><head> <title>Pay-Per-Post Cryptocoin (payments in multiple cryptocurrencies) Payment Example</title> <meta http-equiv='cache-control' content='no-cache'> <meta http-equiv='Expires' content='-1'> <meta name='robots' content='all'> <script src='cryptobox.min.js' type='text/javascript'></script> </head> <body style='font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:14px;color:#666;margin:0'> <div align='center'> <h1>Example - Paid Posts</h1> You can sell right to publish new posts on your website <br><br><br> <img alt='Invoice' border='0' src='https://gourl.io/images/example6.png'> <a name='i'></a> <?php if ($successful):?> <div align='center'> <img alt='New Post' border='0' src='https://gourl.io/images/example7.png'> <div style='margin:40px;font-size:24px;color:#339e2e;font-weight:bold'> Your text has been successfully posted on our website!</div> <a href='pay-per-post-multi.php'>Publish new posts »</a> </div> <? else:?> <form name='form1' style='font-size:14px;color:#444' action="pay-per-post-multi.php#i" method="post"> <table cellspacing='20'> <tr><td colspan='2'><img alt='New Post' border='0' src='https://gourl.io/images/example7.png'><?= $error?></td></tr> <tr><td width='100'>Title: </td><td width='300'><input style='padding:6px;font-size:18px;' size='40' type="text" name="ftitle" value="<?= $ftitle?>"></td></tr> <tr><td>Text: </td><td><textarea style='padding:6px;font-size:18px;' rows="4" cols="40" name="ftext"><?= $ftext?></textarea></td></tr> <?php if (!$box->is_paid()):?> <tr><td colspan='2'> You need to pay <?= $coinName?>s (~<?= $amountUSD?> US$) for posting your text on our website</td></tr> <? endif;?> </table> </form> <div style='width:600px;background-color:#f9f9f9;padding-top:10px'> <div style='font-size:12px;<? if ($box->is_paid()) echo "margin:5px 0 5px 390px;"; else echo "margin:5px 0 5px 390px; position:absolute;"?>'>Language: <?= $languages_list?></div> <? if (!$box->is_paid()) echo "<div align='left'>".$coins_list."</div>";?> <?= $box->display_cryptobox()?> </div> <br><br><br> <button onclick='document.form1.submit()' style='padding:6px 20px;font-size:18px;'>Post Your Article/Comment</button> <? endif;?> </div><br><br><br><br><br><br> </body> </html> Protection Against Spam. Easy to use - <? require_once( "cryptobox.class.php" ); /** CONFIGURATION VARIABLES / $userID = ""; // new user, it will autogenerate userID and save in cookies $userFormat = "COOKIE"; // save userID in cookies (or you can use IPADDRESS, SESSION) $orderID = "signuppage"; // Registration Page $amountUSD = 1; // price per registration - 1 USD $period = "NOEXPIRY"; // one time payment for each new user, not expiry $def_language = "en"; // default Payment Box Language $def_payment = "bitcoin"; // default Coin in Payment Box // List of coins that you accept for payments // For example, for accept payments in bitcoins, dogecoins use - $available_payments = array('bitcoin', 'dogecoin'); $available_payments = array('bitcoin', 'bitcoincash', 'bitcoinsv', 'litecoin', 'dash', 'dogecoin','speedcoin','reddcoin', 'potcoin', 'feathercoin','vertcoin', 'peercoin','monetaryunit'); // Goto https://gourl.io/info/memberarea/My_Account.html // You need to create record for each your coin and get private/public keys // Place Public/Private keys for all your available coins from $available_payments $all_keys = array( "bitcoin" => array("public_key" => "-your public key for Bitcoin box-", "private_key" => "-private key for Bitcoin box-"), "dogecoin" => array("public_key" => "-your public key for Dogecoin box-", "private_key" => "-private key for Dogecoin box-") // etc. ); /****************************/ // Re-test - that all keys for $available_payments added in $all_keys if (!in_array($def_payment, $available_payments)) $available_payments[] = $def_payment; foreach($available_payments as $v) { if (!isset($all_keys[$v]["public_key"]) \|\|!isset($all_keys[$v]["private_key"])) die("Please add your public/private keys for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (!strpos($all_keys[$v]["public_key"], "PUB")) die("Invalid public key for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (!strpos($all_keys[$v]["private_key"], "PRV")) die("Invalid private key for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (strpos(CRYPTOBOX_PRIVATE_KEYS, $all_keys[$v]["private_key"]) === false) die("Please add your private key for '$v' in variable \$cryptobox_private_keys, file cryptobox.config.php."); } // Optional - Language selection list for payment box (html code) $languages_list = display_language_box($def_language); // Optional - Coin selection list (html code) $coins_list = display_currency_box($available_payments, $def_payment, $def_language, 42, "margin: 5px 0 0 20px"); $coinName = CRYPTOBOX_SELCOIN; // current selected coin by user // Current Coin public/private keys $public_key = $all_keys[$coinName]["public_key"]; $private_key = $all_keys[$coinName]["private_key"]; / PAYMENT BOX */ $options = array( "public_key" => $public_key, // your public key from gourl.io "private_key" => $private_key, // your private key from gourl.io "webdev_key" => "", // optional, gourl affiliate key "orderID" => $orderID, // order id "userID" => $userID, // unique identifier for every user "userFormat" => $userFormat, // save userID in COOKIE, IPADDRESS or SESSION "amount" => 0, // price in coins OR in USD below "amountUSD" => $amountUSD, // we use price in USD "period" => $period, // payment valid period "language" => $def_language // text on EN - english, FR - french, etc ); // Initialise Payment Class $box = new Cryptobox ($options); // coin name $coinName = $box->coin_name(); // Form Data // -------------------------- $fname = (isset($_POST["fname"]))? $_POST["fname"] : ""; $femail = (isset($_POST["femail"]))? $_POST["femail"] : ""; $fpassword = (isset($_POST["fpassword"]))? $_POST["fpassword"] : ""; $error = ""; $successful = false; if (isset($_POST) && isset($_POST["fname"])) { if (!$fname) $error.= "<li>Please enter Your Name</li>"; if (!$femail) $error.= "<li>Please enter Your Email</li>"; if (!$fpassword) $error.= "<li>Please enter Your Password</li>"; if (!$box->is_paid()) $error.= "<li>".$coinName."s have not yet been received</li>"; if ($error) $error = "<br><ul style='color:#eb4847'>$error</ul>"; if ($box->is_paid() &&!$error) { // Successful Cryptocoin Payment received // Your code here - // save user data in db / register new user... //... //... // Set Payment Status to Processed $successful = true; $box->set_status_processed(); // Optional, cryptobox_reset() will delete cookies/sessions with userID and // new cryptobox with new payment amount will be show after page reload. // Cryptobox will recognize user as a new one with new generated userID $box->cryptobox_reset(); } } //... // Also you can use IPN function cryptobox_new_payment($paymentID = 0, $payment_details = array(), $box_status = "") // for send confirmation email, update database, update user membership, etc. // You need to modify file - cryptobox.newpayment.php, read more - https://gourl.io/api-php.html#ipn //...?> <!DOCTYPE html> <html><head> <title>Pay-Per-Registration Cryptocoin (payments in multiple cryptocurrencies) Payment Example</title> <meta http-equiv='cache-control' content='no-cache'> <meta http-equiv='Expires' content='-1'> <script src='cryptobox.min.js' type='text/javascript'></script> </head> <body style='font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:14px;color:#666;margin:0'> <div align='center'> <br><h1>Example - Website Registration Form. Protection against spam!</h1> <br><img alt='Cryptocoin Registration Form' border='0' src='https://gourl.io/images/example8.png'> <a name='i'></a> <?php if ($successful):?> <div align='center' style='margin:40px;font-size:24px;color:#339e2e;font-weight:bold'> You have been successfully registered on our website!</div> <? else:?> <form name='form1' style='font-size:14px;color:#444' action="pay-per-registration-multi.php#i" method="post"> <table cellspacing='20'> <tr><td colspan='2'><b>NEW USER</b><?= $error?><input type='text' style='display: none'> <input type='password' style='display: none'></td></tr> <tr><td width='100'>Name: </td><td width='300'><input style='padding:6px;font-size:18px;' size='30' type="text" name="fname" value="<?= $fname?>"></td></tr> <tr><td>Email: </td><td><input style='padding:6px;font-size:18px;' size='40' type="text" name="femail" value="<?= $femail?>"></td></tr> <tr><td>Password: </td><td><input style='padding:6px;font-size:18px;' size='35' type="password" name="fpassword" value="<?= $fpassword?>"><br><br></td></tr> </table> </form> <div style='width:600px;padding-top:10px'> <div style='font-size:12px;<? if ($box->is_paid()) echo "margin:5px 0 5px 390px;"; else echo "margin:5px 0 5px 390px; position:absolute;"?>'>Language: <?= $languages_list?></div> <? if (!$box->is_paid()) echo "<div align='left'>".$coins_list."</div>";?> <?= $box->display_cryptobox(true, 530, 230, "border-radius:15px;border:1px solid #eee;padding:3px 6px;margin:10px")?> </div> <?php if (!$box->is_paid()):?> <br> You need to pay <?= $coinName?>s (~<?= $amountUSD?> US$) for register on our website<br> <? endif;?> <br><br> <button onclick='document.form1.submit()' style='padding:6px 20px;font-size:18px;'>Register</button> <? endif;?> </div><br><br><br><br><br><br> </body> </html> 6. Pay-Per-View/Page Bitcoin Example of php code (Bitcoin Pay-Per-Page Payment Gateway) for your website. Your registered users or unregistered visitors will need to send you a set amount of cryptocoins for access to your website's specific pages & videos during a specific time. You can take separate payments for separate pages of your website. All will be in automatic mode - allowing you to receive payments, to open webpage access to your members, showing after the time a new payment form, payment notifications to your email, etc. For example, you have a website and you offer paid access to few pages of your website for the price of 0.6 USD for 24 HOURS (1 DAY) access for website visitors (non-registered users). You can install simple code below on top of pages with that paid access. Your visitors will see automatic cryptocoin payment box and when they make their payment, they will get access to your pages/videos and after 24 hours they will see a new payment box. Live Example9 (bitcoin only) Live Example10 (multiple cryptocurrencies) No your visitor registration is needed on your website. Anonymous. Use Pay-Per-Page Access on your website! <? require_once( "cryptobox.class.php" ); /** CONFIGURATION VARIABLES / $userID = ""; // leave empty for unregistered visitors on your website // if userID is empty, it will autogenerate userID and save in cookies // or place your registered userID or md5(userID) here (user1, user7, ko43DC, etc). $userFormat = "COOKIE"; // save userID in cookies (or you can use IPADDRESS, SESSION) $orderID = "page1"; // Separate payments for separate your web page(s) - page1, page2, section1, etc. $amountUSD = 0.6; // price per page(s) - 0.6 USD $period = "24 HOUR"; // user will get access to page(s) for 24 hours; after need to pay again $def_language = "en"; // default Payment Box Language $def_payment = "bitcoin"; // default Coin in Payment Box // List of coins that you accept for payments // For example, for accept payments in bitcoins, dogecoins use - $available_payments = array('bitcoin', 'dogecoin'); $available_payments = array('bitcoin', 'bitcoincash', 'bitcoinsv', 'litecoin', 'dash', 'dogecoin','speedcoin','reddcoin', 'potcoin', 'feathercoin','vertcoin', 'peercoin','monetaryunit'); // Goto https://gourl.io/info/memberarea/My_Account.html // You need to create record for each your coin and get private/public keys // Place Public/Private keys for all your available coins from $available_payments $all_keys = array( "bitcoin" => array("public_key" => "-your public key for Bitcoin box-", "private_key" => "-private key for Bitcoin box-"), "dogecoin" => array("public_key" => "-your public key for Dogecoin box-", "private_key" => "-private key for Dogecoin box-") // etc. ); /****************************/ // Re-test - that all keys for $available_payments added in $all_keys if (!in_array($def_payment, $available_payments)) $available_payments[] = $def_payment; foreach($available_payments as $v) { if (!isset($all_keys[$v]["public_key"]) \|\|!isset($all_keys[$v]["private_key"])) die("Please add your public/private keys for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (!strpos($all_keys[$v]["public_key"], "PUB")) die("Invalid public key for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (!strpos($all_keys[$v]["private_key"], "PRV")) die("Invalid private key for '$v' in \$all_keys variable"); elseif (strpos(CRYPTOBOX_PRIVATE_KEYS, $all_keys[$v]["private_key"]) === false) die("Please add your private key for '$v' in variable \$cryptobox_private_keys, file cryptobox.config.php."); } // Optional - Language selection list for payment box (html code) $languages_list = display_language_box($def_language); // Optional - Coin selection list (html code) $coins_list = display_currency_box($available_payments, $def_payment, $def_language, 70, "margin: 5px 0 0 20px"); $coinName = CRYPTOBOX_SELCOIN; // current selected coin by user // Current Coin public/private keys $public_key = $all_keys[$coinName]["public_key"]; $private_key = $all_keys[$coinName]["private_key"]; / PAYMENT BOX **/ $options = array( "public_key" => $public_key, // your public key from gourl.io "private_key" => $private_key, // your private key from gourl.io "webdev_key" => "", // optional, gourl affiliate key "orderID" => $orderID, // order id "userID" => $userID, // unique identifier for every user "userFormat" => $userFormat, // save userID in COOKIE, IPADDRESS or SESSION "amount" => 0, // price in coins OR in USD below "amountUSD" => $amountUSD, // we use price in USD "period" => $period, // payment valid period "language" => $def_language // text on EN - english, FR - french, etc ); // Initialise Payment Class $box = new Cryptobox ($options); // coin name $coinName = $box->coin_name(); //... // Also you can use IPN function cryptobox_new_payment($paymentID = 0, $payment_details = array(), $box_status = "") // for send confirmation email, update database, update
ability, anxiety, tension, mood swings and cravings for different foods, but the symptoms only last about a week. Do not be afraid, and expect the worst. Think of it as a liberating experience. ''In stage three, the cravings become less frequent, but don't let your guard down,'' she cautions. ''Most relapses occur within three months. You go to a party and suddenly realize you are smoking. This should not be taken as a failure. You've been tripped up by some combination of environmental and social stimuli. Ask yourself, 'Why did I do it and how am I going to deal with it the next time?' '' Dr. Gritz stresses that there is always hope. ''Try a new method of treatment,'' she says, ''and take into account everything you've learned from the past.'' In moments of weakness, it may help struggling ex-smokers to remember that over the years many people have quit cold turkey, surviving withdrawal without the benefit of nicotine gums and patches, medication, counseling and other aids. In fact, it may be easier to give up tobacco now than ever before because of changing attitudes that make smoking less socially acceptable. GIVEN THAT TOBACCO is a legal substance that generates enormous wealth for governments throughout the world, the substance is not likely to be banned, says Dr. Henningfield. But if tobacco were declared an illicit drug, there is abundant historical evidence that people would risk their lives to obtain it. For example, in the Middle East during the 17th century, people had their hands and heads chopped off for smoking forbidden tobacco, which did not prevent their fellow countrymen from risking life and limb to secure the substance. Advertisement Continue reading the main story A few decades earlier, when tobacco was introduced to England, it became worth its weight in silver. King James I then banned the cultivation of tobacco in England so that he could exercise complete control over its price. ''Seeing that people would pay almost any price for tobacco,'' says Dr. Henningfield, ''monopolies were started so that governments could benefit from the desires of their people. Taxes were implemented, and governments became dependent on revenue generated from nicotine addiction.'' This economic dependence seems to be yet another factor contributing to the power of nicotine. In what might be called a nationwide experiment in the sociology of smoking behavior, many local governments have waged public health campaigns against smoking and instituted legislation that restricts or bans smoking in public. The results are encouraging: less than 30 percent of all American adults smoke cigarettes, compared to 40 percent 20 years ago. While half the world's population still smokes, the United States is the first country to see a decrease in tobacco use. KICKING THE HABBIT A number of programs, many of them free, are available to the smoker who wants to quit. The following use a combination of behavior modification and group-support techniques. The American Cancer Society's FreshStart Program consists of four free group-counseling sessions, led by former smokers, to help participants analyze why they smoke and how to stop. Included are strategies for dealing with two of the biggest obstacles to quitting permanently - stress and weight gain. Contact your local chapter of the American Cancer Society; in New York, at 19 West 56th Street (586-8700). For those who want to quit on their own, ''FreshStart: 21 Days to Stop Smoking'' is available on audio- and videocassette at many bookstores. The audiocassette can also be purchased through the mail for $9.95 (order number 61783-4) from the audio division of Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020. The video ($29.95) can be ordered by calling 800-445-3800. The New York Lung Association's Kick-the-Habit Program devotes the first three of its six free 90-minute sessions to helping people figure out why they smoke and the rest to support after quitting. The association also publishes a manual, ''Freedom From Smoking,'' available with a $7 contribution, and a video, ''In Control,'' for $59.95. Contact the New York Lung Association, 22 East 40th Street, New York, N.Y. 10016 (889-3370), or your local affiliate of the American Lung Association. The Seventh-day Adventists' Breathe-Free Plan to Stop Smoking consists of five days of instruction and support-group activities, and at least one follow-up session. Participants are encouraged to give up caffeine and alcohol, at least for the duration of the program, because they often trigger the desire for a cigarette. The course and activities are free, although a small donation for materials is requested. Contact the Adventist Information Center, 12 West 40th Street, New York, N.Y. 10018 (382-2939 or 800-832-2210). Smokenders offers a six-session course that teaches participants how to withdraw gradually from cigarettes. During the first four sessions, people are allowed to smoke, but are restricted to certain times and places. The program, offered at several locations, costs $295. Call 800-243-5614. The LifeSign Smoking Cessation Program is offered with eight individual therapy sessions at the American Health Foundation. Each participant is given a pocket-sized computer that beeps when smoking is permitted. The beeps occur at gradually increased intervals, ceasing entirely in two to four weeks. The foundation's program normally costs $400, but when it is taken as part of a research project, there is no fee, except for a $100 deposit for materials (and motivation) that is refunded after completion. Contact the American Health Foundation, 320 East 43d Street, New York, N.Y. 10017 (953-1900). Smokers can purchase the LifeSign computer with an instruction booklet for $73.95 by contacting Health Innovations, 13873 Park Center Road, Suite 336, Herndon, Va. 22071 (800-543-3744).Authorities in Rio de Janeiro have indicted U.S. Olympic swimmers Ryan Lochte and James Feigen on charges of false reporting of a crime, the Federal Police of Brazil confirmed. The indictments follow assertions by Brazil's police today that Lochte, Feigen and two other U.S. swimmers who said they were held up at gunpoint in Rio were not robbed. One or more of the U.S. Olympic swimmers vandalized a bathroom at a gas station after the four left a party early Sunday, according to Rio's Civil Police Chief Fernando Veloso. The athletes broke mirrors and damaged other things in the bathroom, police said. The athletes initially refused to stay at the gas station, but security asked the taxi not to leave. Another person stepped in to translate between the athletes and the guards, and the athletes left money, police said. Police said that witnesses were initially afraid to speak to police. There was no evidence of violence against the athletes, police noted. The investigation is ongoing. Sources who spoke to the four swimmers today disputed Brazilian police's characterization of what happened, telling ABC News that Lochte and the others were held up by gunmen until the athletes handed over hundreds of dollars. The swimmers have cooperated with police, the sources told ABC News. On Sunday, Lochte claimed that he and three teammates — Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and James Feigen — were robbed in a taxi early that morning while heading to the Olympic Village. Yesterday, Lochte told NBC News' Matt Lauer that the swimmers had used a restroom at a gas station and when they returned to the taxi, the driver didn't move. That's when two men approached with guns and badges and told the athletes to get out of the taxi and get down, Lochte said. Lochte has returned to the U.S., but the three other swimmers remain in Brazil. Bentz and Conger were detained Wednesday night "shortly before their flight was scheduled to depart from Rio," said U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Patrick Sandusky. Video posted to social media shows Conger being removed from a flight from Rio to Atlanta on Wednesday night. A video posted by Jogo Extra (@jogo_extra) on Aug 18, 2016 at 11:22am PDT Bentz, Conger and Feigen "are cooperating with authorities and in the process of scheduling a time and place today to provide further statements to the Brazilian authorities," Sandusky said. "All are represented by counsel and being appropriately supported by the USOC and the U.S. Consulate in Rio," he added. Lochte's attorney, Jeff Ostrow, told ESPN that authorities have not reached Lochte since he gave his initial statement Sunday. Lochte was not asked by authorities to stay in Brazil, Ostrow said. Surveillance video obtained by Brazil's Globo TV shows the swimmers at a gas station. Additional surveillance footage obtained by Globo TV shows the swimmers arriving at a party at French House around 1:45 a.m. and leaving four hours later. According to a judge in the case, the athletes claimed to have left the party at 4 a.m.As we draw closer to the release of Halo 5: Guardians on October 27, 2015, fans around the world continue to unravel new details around the Xbox One exclusive. As a continuation of the #HUNTtheTRUTH campaign that has captured the attention of fans through multiple live-action trailers (“All Hail” and “The Cost”) and an episodic audio series available on HuntTheTruth.tumblr.com – Xbox fans around the world came together to reveal the cover art for Halo 5: Guardians. Last week, several cryptic images were released to various online channels across the globe…no instructions, no explanation, no references to the Halo universe. It didn’t take long for Halo Nation to scour the Internet to piece together the mystery to reveal the cover art for Halo 5: Guardians. Today, we’re proud to release the final cover art for Halo 5: Guardians, including a special video version that highlights the Spartan fireteams that play a crucial role in the showdown between the Master Chief and Spartan Locke. Who are these Spartans? This and many more mysteries will be uncovered as we draw closer to the world premiere of Halo 5: Guardians at E3 2015. Join us as we #HUNTtheTRUTH. Be sure to check Halo Waypoint for updated Halo information and keep tuning into Xbox Wire for the latest on Halo 5: Guardians, Xbox One and more.Usain Bolt and Simone Biles dominated their sports at the Rio 2016 Games Usain Bolt and Simone Biles claimed the top accolades at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Monaco. Eight-time Olympic sprint champion Bolt and four-time Olympic gold gymnast Biles were named sportsman and sportswoman of the year for their 2016 achievements. Britain's Rachel Atherton won the action sportsperson of the year award for her downhill mountain biking feats. Leicester City won the spirit of sport award for winning the Premier League. Atherton, 29, became the first rider in history to complete a perfect downhill World Cup season and then won a fourth World Championship title a week later. Leicester boss Claudio Ranieri and captain Wes Morgan were in Monaco to collect the spirit of sport prize, awarded after the Foxes, 5,000-1 outsiders, won the Premier League by 10 points last season. Is this the greatest ever sporting selfie? Usain Bolt takes centre stage with the camera as a host of sporting stars jostle for position around him, among them Simone Biles, Michael Phelps, Nico Rosberg, Beatrice Vio, Claudio Ranieri, Wes Morgan and members of the Olympic Refugee Team. Prince Albert and Princess Charlene of Monaco are pictured on the left Bolt won three gold medals at Rio 2016 in the 100m,200m and 4x100m relay. That took his all-time Olympic medal tally to nine but last month he was asked to hand one back after Jamaican team-mate Nesta Carter tested positive for a banned substance. Carter was part of the Jamaican quartet that won the 4x100m in Beijing in 2008. Biles' four gold medals at Rio were in the team, all-around, vault and floor exercise events. Nico Rosberg, who quit Formula 1 in December five days after being crowned world champion, received the breakthrough of the year prize. Other award winners Team of the year: Chicago Cubs, who ended a 108-year wait to win Major League Baseball's World Series. Comeback of the year: American swimmer Michael Phelps, who won his 23rd Olympic gold in his final Games in Rio. Sportsperson of the Year with a disability: Beatrice Vio, Italian wheelchair fencer who won gold at the 2016 Paralympics. Sport for Good Award: for Sporting Inspiration: The Refugee Olympic Team, who competed at the Rio Olympics. Best Sporting Moment: Barcelona Under-12 team whose players consoled their distraught Japanese opponents at the end of the Junior Soccer World Challenge in a touching show of sportsmanship. The Laureus Sport for Good Award: Waves for Change.The NFL owners voted Wednesday to eliminate the Tuck Rule at their meetings in Arizona. With that rule now eliminated, quarterbacks who lose control of the ball while trying to pump fake and bring it back into their chest will be deemed to have fumbled. This change of course won\’t help the 2001 Oakland Raiders, who lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC Divisional Round of the playoffs in 2002. The Tuck Rule was born as a result of the controversial play in that game that included Patriots quarterback Tom Brady fumbling the football while pulling it ball back to avoid a hit by Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson. The play was eventually reviewed and ruled an incomplete pass and the Patriots would go on to tie the game on that drive, and eventually win it. they also went on to become Super Bowl champions that year in addition. Believe or not, the Steelers were reportedly the only team to vote against eliminating the Tuck Rule. Why? Perhaps it is because quarterback Ben Roethlisberger likes to use a pump fake quite a bit himself. Perhaps it is because he likes to extend plays so much. The interpretation of the Tuck Rule, however, certainly didn\’t help the Steelers last year in their win over the New York Giants. On the play in question from that game, Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora hit Roethlisberger\’s arm as it was coming forward, but did not knock the ball out. The ball came out as Roethlisberger was trying to bring it back in and it looked like an easy open-and-shut case. The play, however, was ruled a fumble on the field and resulted in Giants linebacker Michael Boley returning the loose ball for a touchdown. Another interesting note from the Wednesday? The Patriots were one of two teams that abstained from voting on the rule change. Perhaps Patriots owner Robert Kraft did that out of respect. Whatever the reason was for abstaining, Al Davis is still not comforted.Share Pin 0 Shares By Maria Saporta Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on January 31, 2014 For the Atlanta Braves to break ground on a new stadium in Cobb County by Jan. 1, 2015, a “Herculean effort” will be required to get all the legal and financial agreements in place. The Braves, in fact, will have to accomplish in less than a year what is taking the Atlanta Falcons, the Georgia World Congress Center Authority and the city of Atlanta more than two years to put together. And the new Braves stadium is supposed to open ahead of the new Atlanta Falcons stadium in time for the 2017 baseball season. Dan Kolber, a veteran Atlanta municipal securities attorney who was a founding partner of Jackson Securities and is now president and CEO of Intellivest Securities, reviewed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Atlanta Braves, Cobb County and the Cobb-Marietta Coliseum & Exhibit Hall Authority. In a lengthy interview, Kolber, who also writes a column for Atlanta Business Chronicle, said the elephant in the room was whether it would be possible for the Braves and Cobb to be able to negotiate all the agreements and get them approved through the various governmental bodies and then be able to get all the bond documents ready to go to market without any threat of litigation by the end of the year. Even Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee acknowledged the enormity of what needs to happen within the next 11 months. “We know this is a Herculean effort to get done, but we are confident we are going to get it done,” Lee said in a brief interview on Jan. 28. “We will get it done.” In reviewing the MOU, Kolber outlined the list of “definitive agreements” that would require a resolution by the appropriate governing bodies by the end of the year: a) Stadium Operating Agreement; b) Intergovernmental Agreement; c) the various Bond Documents; d) the Development Agreement; e) the Transportation and Infrastructure Agreement; and f) the Non-Relocation Agreement. “We have a strong team in place, both at the county, the authority and the Atlanta Braves,” Lee said. “We are committed to working as diligently and as hard as possible. We are meeting at least weekly to identify issues and solutions and the resources necessary.” The MOU, which was passed by the Cobb Commission in a 4-1 vote in November, does not make the stadium a done deal, Kolber said. The non-binding agreement does not even include a standard “break-up fee” or a “stand-still covenant” that would have protected Cobb County if the deal were to fall apart. “It would have been in Cobb’s interest to have a ‘break-up fee’ or ‘stand-still covenant,’ ” Kolber said. “If you exercise your option to not continue negotiations, you pay us a predetermined amount of amount of money. It would be a lot of money to discourage them from leaving” the negotiations. Lee, however, dismissed that concern. “They are not going to walk away,” Lee said. “They have just become one of our largest landowners. They are moving forward at lightning speed, and folks need to hold on for the ride.” In the past couple of weeks, officials with the Braves have purchased the property in Cobb County, selected an architect for the stadium and narrowed the list of developers who would create a year-round mixed-use project around the stadium. But Kolber said that does not change the significant legal and financial hurdles that exist to issue $300 million in tax-exempt bonds for the $672 million stadium project.“Traditionally, it’s a long, long process to do a bond deal,” Kolber said. “I’ve done a $2 million bond deal that has taken years.” Kolber said Jackson Securities worked on refinancing a total of $266 million in water-sewer bonds for the city of Atlanta — a noncontroversial project. “It took us four years to actually issue the bonds,” Kolber said. “The underwriters want to be sure they are not exposed to any risk. Everything has to be perfect. There can’t be any threat of litigation. Before the bonds can be issued, everything has to be squeaky clean. That’s why it’s easier to, either judicially or politically, stop a bond issue than to make it happen.” Several organizations already are looking into taking legal action against Cobb County over the Braves stadium deal. “Yes, there are legal challenges in the works,” confirmed Rich Pellegrino of the Cobb Immigrant Alliance, which has been one of the opponents of the stadium. Lee said the Cobb Commission is aware of the potential litigation. “As soon as possible, we are going to go to market with the anticipation that someone may intervene, and we will allocate the appropriate resources to manage through that,” Lee said. “All we can do is plan for the best and prepare for the worst.” If the Braves and Cobb are unable to nail down all aspects of the deal by the end of the year, there are questions as to what options exist for the baseball team. In looking over the operating agreement between the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation Authority, the Braves have four options to renew their lease at Turner Field in five-year increments. In other words, the Braves have until Jan. 1, 2016, to exercise an option to extend their Turner Field lease for another five years. Currently the Braves’ lease expires on Dec. 31, 2016. If it chooses to exercise that five-year option, the Braves could end up playing at Turner Field through 2021. “It is in their sole discretion,” confirmed Violet Travis Ricks, executive director of the Recreation Authority. But the operating agreement between the Braves and the Authority does not identify what would happen if the Braves needed to extend their lease for only one or two years, which could give the authority some leverage. The city of Atlanta represents two-thirds of the authority and Fulton County represents one-third. Officials from the Atlanta Braves were contacted for this story and they said they would respond. But because of early deadlines due to the winter storm, Atlanta Business Chronicle was not able to get their response in time to include in this story.Update June 1 2014: RubyDocs is now mentioned as reference documentation on the official Ruby website (look for "Ruby & Rails Searchable API Docs")! Update May 25 2014: The source code for RubyDocs is now open source under the MIT license and available on Github. If you have any ideas for new features or run into any bugs while using RubyDocs, please open an issue! RubyDocs was already launched at the end of 2013 but a few days ago I added the most-asked-for missing feature (being able to generate docs for just Ruby or Rails) and noticed that I have never officially introduced the project in a blog post, so here we go. TL;DR RubyDocs allows to you to generate sdoc docs for any version of Ruby or Rails (or both combined). sdoc is awesome! (it also powers the official Rails API docs) railsapi.com, which used to let you create sdoc docs, has been defunkt for a long time now, which is why I set out to build a replacement. Does anyone know Vladimir Kolesnikov? He owns railsapi.com and I tried to get in touch with him to ask him to forward railsapi.com to rubydocs.org but didn't get an answer. The need for easily accessible documentation Every programmer knows the expression (and hopefully the feeling of) "getting into the zone". It's a magical condition in which you are completely focused on the problem or project at hand and are not disturbed by any outside influence. Your mind is fully occupied with keeping the project you are working on "alive" in your head, you work on one thing and already plan the next one, quickly jot down ideas about how to improve your code later on etc. Hours can pass by like minutes and when it's over you can feel mentally exhausted but incredibly happy about what you accomplished while in the zone. Kind of like Michelangelo felt, looking up at the ceiling after a long day in the Sistine Chapel. (let's hope some of our works will be as impressive as his) One essential condition to getting into the zone and staying there is to not be interruped by anything "from the outside", be it a coworker, phone call, or chat message. This image pretty much sums it up perfectly. The interesting thing is, you can interrupt your work voluntarily for a short time, e.g. go to the kitchen to get a coffee or visit the loo, and not leave "the zone", even sometimes coming back to the computer with fresh ideas, but if it's an outside interruption, the mental scaffold you have been building inside your head for the last 3 hours can collapse in a single second. So when you're in the zone, you tend to only work with a few tools: your text editor (or IDE), the browser and maybe the command line. The fewer the better. But there comes a time when you have to leave these familiar and intimate grounds: when you need to find out how a method works or what that darn syntax for strftime was again. You need to have a look at the docs. For the ones of you who have docs built into their IDE (and those actually answer your questions most of the time) good for you! Everyone else runs the risk of falling out of the zone, because they have to go to Google, think about how to formulate their question, wade through several StackOverflow posts and much less useful pages to finally find the answer. You see where I'm getting at? Quick and easy access to documentation is essential for staying in the zone! RubyDocs is a no-frills way to get to exactly the Ruby or Rails docs you need with as little distraction as possible. I hope you find it as useful as I do!Image copyright LittleHill Animal Rescue and Sanctuary Image caption Before and after - Felicity the former battery farm hen was featherless when she arrived at Littlehill (left) but was pictured again about three months after her rescue (right) A campaign to knit jumpers for rescued hens is being led by Father Ted star Pauline McLynn, better known as Mrs Doyle from the Channel 4 sit-com. Instead of making the tea, she is making woollen body warmers for the featherless birds, as thousands are due to be rescued from battery farms. Having spent their lives in cages, the hens do not have feathers to keep warm. Ms McLynn is patron of an Irish animal rescue sanctuary, which is trying to re-home more than 7,000 battery hens. Image copyright Susan Anderson Image caption Melissa modelling a 'A Go On' hen jumper called 'Orange is the New Black', which is handmade by Pauline McLynn 'Cold and bald' She told Irish state broadcaster RTÉ "Their beaks are clipped, they've never stretched their wings and their feathers haven't grown because they've just been involved in laying eggs for their entire little lives. "When they come out they are bald and it's really cold so I'm knitting jumpers for them." Image copyright Susan anderson Image caption Knit jumpers are used to keep hens warm when they do not have feathers Last year, LittleHill Animal Rescue and Sanctuary in County Kildare said it rescued 7,000 hens from slaughter, and "re-homed them all around Ireland". This month, the sanctuary will attempt to repeat that rescue, as another batch of hens are facing slaughter. 'Hen hotline' LittleHill's founder Susan Anderson has launched Operation Hen Rescue 2014 and has enlisted the help of Ireland's most famous housekeeper. Ms McLynn told RTÉ: "There's a band of ladies and gentlemen all round Ireland knitting little jumpers at the moment for these hens." LittleHill Animal Rescue is also running a "hen hotline" so members of the public can reserve a rescued bird for adoption. Ms Anderson has been involved in animal welfare for more than 20 years and her sanctuary also looks after abandoned and neglected dogs, cats and horses.Madlin Sims’ Facebook post talking about her decision (Picture: Caters) A woman has received death threats after she fired one of her employees for what she called ‘homophobic hate speech’. Madlin Sims posted a Facebook status in which she claimed to have recently fired an employee who made it ‘public knowledge’ that they intended to vote No on the upcoming Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, which will gauge how much support there is for legalising same-sex marriage in the country. The results of the vote will be non-binding and will not require the Australian government to take action. Donald Trump's former lawyer goes all guns blazing against 'racist cheat' Sims said the employee’s Facebook post was ‘advertising’ her ‘homophobia’, and therefore she decided to fire her. However ABC tracked down the employee – an 18-year-old Christian girl called Madeline – and she claims she only added a temporary filter to her Facebook profile picture saying ‘it’s OK to vote no’ on the postal survey. Advertisement Advertisement Madeline claims that apart from this action she has never spoken of her beliefs on same sex marriage. Madlin also shared the text she sent to Madeline firing her (Picture: Caters) MORE: Younger siblings ‘are funnier and most chilled out’ Madlin Sims has received death threats and even threats against her children since her post has gone viral. In another Facebook post Madlin said she is glad her former employee is being interviewed by the press as ‘free speech is important as long as ur not being hateful or hurtful (sic)’. She added: ‘I risked my business and my integrity doing this but I don’t really give a shit because I can wake up tomorrow and marry any bloke I want.’ Many people replied to Madlin’s Facebook posts, both in support of and criticising her actions. Ben Yosef wrote: ‘This is… absurd. How can you honestly believe you are entitled to fire someone based on how they vote? I’m a Yes voter, but believe people like you are setting a very dangerous precedence – we cannot silence opinions. Whereas Jazmeen Avesta wrote: ‘ The postal survey is to gauge Australian’s support for same sex marriage (Picture: Getty)Democrat Ralph Northam defeated Republican candidate Ed Gillespie in the Virginia governor race Tuesday, securing 93 percent of the votes in which Northam scored 53 percent and Gillespie trailed behind with 46 percent. Gillespie called Northam to concede, sources told NBC News. Most parts of Northam's electoral strategy had revolved around tying Gillespie to the president which he did in almost all of his major campaign ads. "Ed Gillespie supports Donald Trump's plan to take money out of Virginia's public schools, his plan to roll back our clean water and clean air protections. And Ed Gillespie supports Donald Trump's plan to take health care away from thousands of Virginians," the narrator of one of Northam's last campaign ads said. However, following Northam's strategy, Gillespie's strategy focused more on tying himself to President Donald Trump, even more tightly. Gillespie's campaign endorsed many of the same divisive cultural issues that Trump has focused on in recent months. Gillespie ran ads that criticized players in the National Football League, who protested during the national anthem and he also warned voters that Northam would allow violent Central American criminal gangs like the MS-13 to flourish in the so-called "sanctuary cities," according to CNBC. However, Trump on Tuesday blamed Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie's loss in the Virginia electoral race on the latter's failure to fully "embrace" him. "Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for," Trump wrote on his Twitter account. Both the national parties have spent millions of dollars in the first major election this year in Virginia since Trump's surprise victory last year in the presidential elections and were closely watching the outcome and results of the race which could act as an early barometer for the political climate before the 2018 midterm contests. Amid Northam's victory in Virginia, Democrat Phil Murphy also won the governor's race in New Jersey and his win is expected to return the state to Democratic control after eight years under the leadership Republican Gov. Chris Christie. Murphy defeated Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno in the race and his victory gives the Democrats complete control of the New Jersey government where Christie often appeared to fight with the opposition-controlled state Legislature. Virginia and New Jersey had seen the same trends during the presidential elections in 2016 when the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won in the two states. After Northam's victory, the state has become one of seven states nationwide where Democrats now control the governor's mansion and both chambers of the legislature as compared to 26 for the Republicans, according to NBC News. On Tuesday, the first openly transgender person to be elected and seated in a state legislature, Democrat Danica Roem defeated her conservative Republican opponent Bob Marshall, one of Virginia's most socially conservative lawmakers in a closely watched election in the northern Virginia district. In September this year in Florida, Democrat Annette Tadeo won a Republican-held state Senate district by a vote of 51 percent as compared to 47 percent. In New Hampshire, Democrat Kari Lerner beat a former Republican state representative in the same month to fill a state House district that Trump had won by 23 points in November 2016. These two wins this year make it to eight Republican-controlled state legislative seats that the Democrats have flipped in 2017 alone. According to CNN, Democrats have now flipped nearly 30 percent of the 27 Republican-held state legislative seats that have come open in 2017 to date, which is considered to be a remarkable number in any circumstance. Recently Republicans have also cited their concerns that Trump's comments and remarks have hampered with the GOP's image and might affect the votes in the upcoming 2018 elections. In August, Republicans said their candidates could pay in the 2018 midterms for the continued controversy over Trump’s comments on the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Republican campaign chiefs argued that Trump's decision not to single out white supremacists for condemnation for the violence caused could cause severe damage to the party's prospects in the 2018 midterm elections. "It overshadows everything. If you are a Republican candidate and you have an event today, this will be the first thing you are asked about," former Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye, told the Hill in August. 'How do I tell an African-American friend or a Hispanic friend why the Republican Party is better for them than the Democratic Party?" Heye added. "I can talk about any policy that I think might help them, but they will just come back and say that the party does not care about me."The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in the case of Birchfield v. North Dakota. The issue that the Court confronts in Birchfield is whether a state law may, absent a search warrant, validly attach criminal penalties to a DUI suspect’s refusal to undergo a chemical test of the suspect’s blood, urine, or breath to determine alcohol concentration. In this column, I will consider some of the issues that arose at oral argument and how they might be resolved. Missouri v. McNeely The first thing to note about the issue of warrantless blood-alcohol-content examinations is that the Supreme Court relatively recently (in 2013) had occasion to rule on a related issue in Missouri v. McNeely. In McNeely, as I discussed in a column on Verdict at the time, the case concerned police authority to administer a blood test (for alcohol) without a warrant rather than the government’s authority to criminally punish a refusal to consent to one of the chemical tests implicated in Birchfield. Specifically, the question in McNeely was whether police may subject a suspect to a blood test, without a warrant, on the basis of probable cause to believe that he has been driving under the influence of alcohol. The Court answered the McNeely question in the negative, rejecting the proposed across-the-board exigency argument for performing the blood test as soon as possible due to the possibility that the body might metabolize the alcohol away while the police are in the process of seeking a warrant. Because the intrusion of taking a suspect’s blood is great and because it has become relatively easy to obtain a search warrant quickly, the Court concluded that there is no basis for a per se exception to the warrant requirement for taking blood from a DUI suspect. Indeed, obtaining a warrant will often take no longer than the time involved in bringing the suspect to a hospital (where police, as a practical matter, need to go to have a blood alcohol test administered). At the time, I argued in my column that the Court might have made an error, for one of two reasons. First, at least as a general matter, a person who is eligible for arrest for drunken driving does present a prima facie exigent circumstance, given that he will be metabolizing the evidence of his crime away with each passing minute. Second, the information with which an officer would seek a search warrant to take blood would—unlike in other sorts of search cases—be rather uniform in a suspected drunk driving situation. The officer would cite the weaving on the highway, the smell of alcohol, the bloodshot eyes and slurred speech, and perhaps the inability to walk a straight line. Given this uniformity, it is predictable that warrants for a blood test would routinely be forthcoming in those cases in which a police officer has sufficient evidence to arrest and to seek a warrant. Therefore, I proposed, one gains little in the way of privacy from the intercession of the neutral and detached magistrate issuing a warrant. There are not, as there might be in other cases, subtle distinctions to be drawn between scenarios where there is versus where there is not probable cause, such that a magistrate might actually make the difference between an authorized and an unauthorized blood alcohol content test. How the Breathalyzer is Different and Why/Whether the Difference Matters Though Birchfield in theory implicates blood tests, urine tests, and breathalyzers, the Court in argument focused much energy on the breathalyzer test. If it turned out that a warrantless breathalyzer would be lawful under the Fourth Amendment, then it would follow logically that a state could criminally punish a refusal to submit to such a (lawful) test. But the Court wanted to assess the answer to the predicate question: Would a warrantless breathalyzer test, unlike a warrantless blood test, be consistent with the demands of the Fourth Amendment? One difference between the breathalyzer and the blood test, a difference that the respondents emphasized during oral argument, is that requiring someone to breathe into a straw is far less intrusive than sticking a needle into the person and drawing blood. The latter can be frightening and physically painful in a way that the former is not. The latter also could, in theory, provide an opportunity for investigating highly personal information about the person tested, because a person’s blood contains more than just alcohol. In short, the breathalyzer test is less intrusive than the blood test, and that lesser intrusion might be understood to authorize a lesser level of protection for the privacy involved, such as a probable cause requirement but no warrant requirement. And if that were the conclusion the Court were to reach, then at least as applied to refusals to take a breathalyzer test, criminal penalties would appear to be legitimate. To reiterate, however, the question at issue in Birchfield is not directly about whether a warrant is required to perform a breathalyzer test. In fact, respondents made a point of saying at the argument that without the subject’s cooperation, it may be impossible to perform a breathalyzer test at all, whether in the presence or in the absence of a warrant. The question is instead whether a state may, absent a warrant, attach criminal penalties to a suspect’s failure to consent to a breathalyzer test. A Search Versus a Punishment for Refusing a Search According to respondents, the distinction above—between authorizing a search and authorizing a penalty for refusing a search—is an important one. This is because it may be unlawful for the police to take someone’s blood without a warrant, as the Court held
: the first installment of what was then titled 1805 was indeed published in the January 1865 issue of Russkiy Vestnik. It ran in serial form for the next two years. However, Tolstoy wasn’t happy with this version and reworked much of the book—which he called “not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle”—before publishing it as War and Peace in 1869. Arguably, a sesquicentennial is a tenuous peg in any case (it doesn’t even have an honorific, like gold or diamond). But in dark times, you don’t need an excuse; they are reason enough. I’m not suggesting that whenever there is tragedy in the world you drop everything and pick up a fourteen-hundred-page novel; there is life to lead and news to read and, yes, social media to follow, too. Besides, you’d be reading all the time. But it’s like Mr. Rogers said: when the world is frightening and violent, look for the helpers. Yes, love, … but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one’s neighbors; to love one’s enemies. To love everything—to Love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? … Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her … If it were only possible for me to see her once more … once, looking into those eyes to say … Sadie Stein is contributing editor of The Paris Review, and the Daily’s correspondent.In the first half of the Cowboys game, the 1st team ran 25 scoreless plays, with a 50/50 run/pass split on first down, and very little running on other downs. They moved the ball a total of 121 yards for a healthy (if unspectacular) 4.9 yards per snap, and then coughed the ball up twice. Does this remind anyone else of the 2011 offensive theme? We also saw Ronnie Brown get 80% of the starter's playing time over Curtis Brinkley. In 2011, Norv showed us exactly how he intended to split up playing time between Ryan Mathews and Mike Tolbert during the pre-season, so this is probably how he's going to survive the Mathews-less beginning to this season. Here's the link to the log for the game. I'm going to keep using the same file all season so the link should never change. Down Run Pass Total 1 6 6 12 2 1 8 9 3 1 3 4 Total 8 17 25 There were a few small sample quirks that will be fun to pay attention to for the remainder of the pre-season while we wait for the next big name broken bone. The majority of the running plays (4 of 8 runs) came from balanced WR formations, even though balanced WR formations were not in heavy use (18 of 25 plays had unbalanced formations). If we change the perspective to the tight end balance, most of the runs (5 of 8 runs) came with a tight end on the right next to Clary. Keep an eye out next week for balanced formations with a tight end on the right, and amaze your friends by guaranteeing a run. If you're wrong, just tell them Norv is going vanilla for the pre-season. I wanted to look at runs towards the heavy side vs runs to the weak side, but the sample size was just too small for even toungue in cheek conclusions. There was discussion on BFTB yesterday about how much help Mike Harris had, the answer is that Clary and Harris had about the same amount of help: Tight End Heavy Side Left 9 Balanced 5 Right 11 As JKvandal pointed out, the fullback was not in heavy use, but 3 WR was. We can see this in the formation grouping numbers. 11 Personnel almost always gets used in Shotgun in this offense. With larger samples and regular season game planning, expect to see Ace (single back, QB under center) take a bite out of Shotgun going forward. Formation Jumbo 2 Ace 3 I 4 Shotgun 16 On the other hand, the top three plays (longest gains) of the half came from Shotgun 11, and BFTB has long chronicled the overall superior efficiency of 3WRs. Maybe Norv is planning to pivot to a shotgun, pass whacky offense this year.Libertarian icon Ron Paul believes that the EU is on its last legs, not because of Britain’s exit, but because of years of poor global economic policy driven by corrupt central bankers. Appearing on CNBC, the former Congressman said that the ‘Brexit’ is merely a symptom of a larger problem which will spell the end for ‘forced globalism’. “I think [the EU] will become nonfunctional,” Paul said. “It really is coming to an end. It doesn’t mean tomorrow or the next day, but people are going to be really unhappy. The end is coming, but it isn’t coming because of the breakup,” Paul added. “I think what everyone is looking at is there was a vote, an important vote and it went differently than expected and it sent shock waves through the markets, but I think the concentration is on the wrong issue,” Paul continued. “What has been preceding this situation that we have throughout the world and this country as well is artificially low interest rates. It causes people to make mistakes in buying bonds,” Paul explained. “Catastrophe doesn’t come unless there’s something that precedes it, and what sets the stage is monetary policy, artificially low interest rates, zero interest rates,” Paul urged. “There’s a lot of instability still out there, and this hasn’t been corrected yet. I don’t think it’s going to correct easily,” he said, adding “We are running out of steam.” In a nuanced description, Paul explained how globalism per se is not the overriding problem here, but it is a ‘forced globalism’, driven by politicians hell bent on centralizing power, which is now being rejected by the people. “A libertarian, free market person doesn’t hate globalism, we hate political globalism, and force that comes in and entangling alliances, and when politicians gain control like they have in the European Union.” Paul stated. “Globalism in a free market means that you have a sound currency that you accept is commodity based, and you have as much free trade as possible, and it’s a globalism that is based on freedom and free markets.” the former congressman added. “It’s not globalism that is bad, it’s this forced globalism. We’ve been involved in it for years and we’ve done what the founders said not to do, they said don’t get involved in these entangling alliances.” Paul explained. Paul also added that “freedom cannot be gained from propping up the stock market,” and noted that the failures of some European economies have come about from devaluation of their currencies. “When you destroy a currency, you also destroy the middle class.” Paul stated. On the opposite side of the political spectrum, uber globalist Henry Kissinger has declared that the answer to the problem of the crumbling European Union, is for MORE entangling alliances to be formed. Saying that Britain shouldn’t be punished “as an escapee from prison,” Kissinger argued that other countries, particularly the US should see Britain and others as “a potential compatriot”. “Punishing the UK will not solve the question of how to operate common currency in the absence of a common fiscal policy among countries with disparate economic capacities, or of how to define a union whose ability to achieve common political strategies lags fundamentally behind its economic and administrative capacities.” Kissinger wrote. “The Brexit vote has unleashed the anxieties of two continents and of all those who rely upon the stability that their union of purpose provides.” Kissinger added, saying that “The needed restoration of faith will not come through recriminations. Essentially, Kissinger is saying that punishing people for rejecting forced globalism will only result in them turning further away from the concept. “To inspire the confidence of the world, Europe and America must demonstrate confidence in themselves.” the Bilderberg kingpin declared. —————————————————————— Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.comBrought to you by: Big Shucks By Wiley Singleton The Dallas Stars fell again Tuesday night to the Minnesota Wild. The Wild have gotten at least a point out of Dallas every time they have met this year. The Wild have been surging. They currently lead the Central Division and have multiple players in the top ten of plus-minus. The Wild rely on an array of goalscorers to do their bidding. They do not rely heavily on one offensive threat or line, they work well as a cohesive unit. The lynchpin of that unit is Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk. Dubnyk currently leads in the NHL in save percentage and goals against. The Wild have used a consistent, defensive minded approach to win a plethora of games this year. The Stars’ style is vastly different from that of the Wild. Dallas favors an aggressive, offense focused style. This style lets elite forwards like Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin rack up huge point totals. The Stars defense and goaltending is the weakness of the team. Despite flashes of brilliance, Antti Niemi and Kari Lehtonen both share the same flaw of wild inconsistency. The consistency problem is so severe for both goaltenders that often games are almost unwinnable because of severely early deficits. A perfect example of this flaw came in this game against the Wild. Antti Niemi was awful. He let in the first three shots and was immediately pulled. The Stars battled back against the Wild, and managed to at least get the game to overtime before losing. The Stars find themselves in 28th place in the league after winning the Central Division last year. They have gone from having the best offense in the NHL to the 18th best offense. Last season the Stars were top ten in both penalty kill and powerplay. This season they are bottom ten in both. The offense has struggled with injuries this season. At one point in the season Antoine Roussel was the only healthy forward in the top three lines. The Stars playoff chances look incredibly bleak. They lack valuable pieces from last year. Vern Fiddler and Kris Russell both leaving severely hurt the Dallas penalty kill. The Stars also take the 3rd most penalties in the league, a bad habit to get into when you are constantly near the bottom in killing penalties. Last year the Stars ended the Wild’s season in the playoffs. They boasted the best offense in the league after going out in the first round of the previous year. This season the Wild look to defense to win them the Central after being knocked out in the first round of the playoffs last year.These detailed views of the red planet were transmitted to Earth by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). After a 72-million-mile trek through space, the craft reached Mars in March 2006, delivering some of the most advanced technology ever sent to another world. Equipped with six instruments, including cameras and radar, the orbiter is providing scientists with the most detailed look at Martian landscape yet. One of the cameras, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), snaps extremely high-resolution images of the Martian surface, giving scientists a clear view of the terrain. By studying the geology and climate of Mars, scientists hope to determine whether life was ever present, and whether it might someday be possible for humans to inhabit the Red Planet. Launch the gallery here to see the remarkable images and what they're teaching scientists about the prospect of life on Mars.SEATTLE -- A King County Superior Court judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a former sheriff's deputy who was videotaped beating a 15-year-old girl in a jail cell, after jurors said they were unable to reach a verdict. The 12-member jury had been deliberating since Wednesday afternoon. Former deputy Paul Schene displayed no visible reaction as the judge declared the mistrial today. Prosecutors quickly announced that they will retry the case. Schene was charged with fourth-degree assault for kicking, tackling and punching 15-year-old Malika Calhoun after she kicked her shoe toward him as he was exiting a holding cell in SeaTac in November 2008. Schene said he followed training in restraining the car theft suspect. He was fired last September from his job as a deputy. Prosecutors say the video speaks for itself. -- The Associated PressHey everybody! Welcome to Clix O’Clock, only on We the Nerdy! For anybody who has been watching the competitive Heroclix circuit these last few weeks, a certain trend has appeared. In both U.S. Nationals and Canadian Nationals, the team of Doop, Gluttony, dual entities, Splitlip, and the Book of Skulls has gone all the way, taking the title. While many people are very aware of entities and how to counter them, Doop and Gluttony are wildcards, pieces that few have seen and fewer have faced. In today’s Clix O’Clock, I’ll offer my insight on how to take down these impressive pieces, and how to best combat the hottest team in current Modern Age! Before I begin, I’d like to discuss why exactly Doop and Gluttony are so special. Ultimately, it comes down to their ability to take damage. For Gluttony: MOUNTAINS OF FLAB: Gluttony can’t be carried. When Gluttony is dealt damage, Gluttony ignores all but 1 damage. This power can’t be countered or ignored. And for Doop: DOOP LAND: Doop’s combat values can’t be modified by other characters. When Doop is dealt damage from an attack, he ignores all of it and takes 1 unavoidable damage instead. This ability can’t be ignored. These abilities are individually fantastic. They essentially force every attack that they are hit with to be reduced to one click of damage, and there is no way to avoid them through conventional game effects. Even normal abilities such as pulse wave, which would seemingly help, are of no use since these powers can’t be ignored or countered. But, here are a dozen ways to take them down! Jenny Sparks (The Flash #061 SR) ELECTRICAL CORTEX SHORT CIRCUIT: When Jenny Sparks hits an opposing character, that character can’t use special powers from now until your next turn. This trait effectively neutralizes Gluttony in every single way. Since it stops the hit character from “using” the special power and does not counter or ignore it, his defense ability does not come into play. As such, he takes damage normally, not just from Jenny ‘s attack, but anybody else that attacks him this turn. This allows for a team to swoop in an take him down in one turn. Gluttony only has five clicks of life, don’t forget. If you can take him down, Doop is going to have a serious uphill battle to fight. Jenny Sparks also has great values and abilities in her own right, and can be a solid piece on any team. Malekith (Thor: The Dark World #004 C) THE AETHER AND I ARE ONE: Characters hit by an attack from Malekith can’t use defense powers until their next turn. If you like to use the tent pole strategy, Malekith already had a lot to offer you. High values, strong abilities, and probability control make him a monster. But his ability to turn off defense powers is fantastic. With his strong values, he can successfully one-shot Gluttony, should his rolls hit (With his probability control, they should). It’s not a strategy that needs a lot of finesse, but it doesn’t need to. You just better hope that you get the first attack off, because as a tent pole he can easily be outnumbered. Agent 13 (Captain America: The Winter Soldier #013 MMR) LET YOUR GUARD DOWN: Adjacent opposing characters can’t use defense powers. Here is your bargain basement way to ruin Gluttony’s day. For only 55 points, Agent 13 can effectively be a tie-up piece and make him susceptible to getting completely wrecked. Even if you can’t KO him in one turn, she’ll stop him from using his regeneration from his last click. Agent 13 is definitely squishy, don’t get me wrong. But if you use Atomica/Despotellis and Adara, she’ll be sitting on a nice defense that will be hard to take down (With her own shape change). The best part? She doesn’t need to worry about attacking Gluttony to set off her ability, like many other pieces on this list. Flurry (Speed Power) FLURRY: Give this character a close combat action. After the close combat attack resolves, it may make a second close combat attack as a free action. The first attack doesn’t activate the Damage Depletion Modifier. Simple. Common. Easy to find throughout the game. Against either Doop or Gluttony, or any character who can reduce damage in such a way, flurry is your best friend. It’s a simple way to slowly chip away at long dials, and it’s very effective. Now, of course there are downsides to this. But when you see that your opponent is only taking one damage at a time, hit them twice. Iron Paladin (Invincible Iron Man #053 CH) SWORD OF FAITH: Opposing characters can’t use defense powers when they are the target of Iron Paladin’s close combat attack. Every focuses on Iron Pharaoh. While the chases from Iron Man aren’t fantastic, they offer something unique nonetheless. Iron Pharaoh simply has to target Gluttony to eliminate his defense ability. For 110 points, he has solid values and can benefit from many entities and batteries (Green Battery, Parallax). The downside is that his ability only applies to his attacks, but it also has fun implications. For more fun building ideas, try him with Shriek (To give him battle fury and avoid shape change) or the Red Lantern Battery (Giant reach). Forge (Wolverine and the X-Men #033 R) NEUTRALIZER GUN: When Forge hits an opposing character with a ranged combat attack, before damage is dealt, choose a power that character can use. That character can’t use that power or any combat or team abilities until your next turn. Man, do I love Forge. He is a very versatile secondary attacker/support piece, who can potentially have perplex for the entire game. Not only that, but the neutralizer is stupid good. Not only will it nullify Gluttony’s defense ability and allow for the team to swoop in and take him down in one turn, but he can take out any ability that any hit character has. Your opponent has running shot? Nope. They have pulse wave? Not anymore. Probability control? Not a problem. His biggest issue is that he only has this power on his first two clicks, so you’ll have to keep him safe in order for him to be effective. Omega Drive (Deadpool Special Object #101) RELIC: When this character uses Outwit, it may target any character within its range regardless of line of fire, and may use its Outwit to counter powers that can’t normally be countered. Sure, relics aren’t that popular in a world where resources exist, but this one should definitely give you reason to pause. On a result of 3-6, you can outwit powers on Quintessence figures, Power Cosmic figures, and powers that can’t be countered. So for a figure like Gluttony, who has multiple layers of outwit protection, the Omega Drive chews through him. There are also some fantastic figures such as Greed and Black Witch who can bring the relic into the game even if you have a resource on the field. Don’t underestimate this one. Red Lantern Battery/Ring (War of Light Special Object #302) RAGE: If this character already has the Red Lantern Corps keyword, modify all of its combat values except damage by +1. Otherwise, this character has the Red Lantern Corps keyword, can use Poison, and deals penetrating damage when using it. Technically you only need the ring for this power to be effective, but there is no reason that you should play a Red Lantern Ring without the Battery (Unless it’s being brought in through a game effect like Greed or Black Witch). The ability to give penetrating poison to your entire team is absolutely fantastic. Honestly, you could just run in and base them and wait it out, taking them down every turn. Use Gates, bring in your whole team, and just lock them down. Play it with the Net Construct to make sure they aren’t going anywhere. Painfully simple, and painfully effective. You can even pair it up with many of the options listed above. Despotellis (War of Light #099 SR) PANDEMIC OF FEAR: Despotellis can use Poison. When he does, he may use it normally, or instead deal each adjacent opposing character penetrating damage equal to the number of action tokens on that character. This power cannot be countered. Despotellis already is one of the top competitive pieces in 300 point Heroclix. For 30 points, he is a very simple piece to just throw out into the field and ruin your opponents day with. His penetrating poison is not a technical attack, just like the Red Lanterns, so it isn’t reduced by either Doop or Gluttony’s game effects. Even if they have toughness from hammers or damage reducers from entities, it’ll surpass it and deal something (Unless they have obtained invincible, though if they have two tokens they’ll still take one damage). What’s also fun about Despotellis that once he’s next to either of them, he can follow them around the board the entire game thanks to his attack power. He’s fantastic for 30 points. Proxima Midnight (Guardians of the Galaxy #050 SR) THREE TRACERS OF BLACK LIGHT: Proxima Midnight begins the game with 3 Tracer tokens on this card. Proxima Midnight has a range value equal to the number of Tracer tokens on this card times 3, and has a number of bolts equal to the number of Tracer tokens on this card. THE SPEAR OF PROXIMA MIDNIGHT: When Proxima Midnight hits with a ranged combat attack, remove a Tracer token from this card and place it on a hit character’s card if it doesn’t already have one. At the beginning of your turn, roll a d6 for each of her Tracer tokens on other character’s cards, and on a result of 3-6 deal 1 penetrating damage to the character with that Tracer token on its card. When a character with her Tracer token on its card is KO’d, place the Tracer token on Proxima Midnight’s card. Proxima Midnight is one of my most hated pieces in Heroclix. I have played far too many games where she has completely ruined my day. All she has to do is hit Doop or Gluttony once a piece to potentially deal them damage every turn for the rest of the game. With no way to shed the tokens, they’re going to be a huge hindrance to pieces with a short dial. For only 100 points, she doesn’t have to the primary attacker. Pair her with a Red Lantern team to take down Doop and Gluttony in five minutes. Oh, and if they do knock her out, they’ll take the damage that they dealt, and it’ll ignore their abilities. Added value. Firestar (Wizkids Exclusive #M-012) MICROWAVE EMISSION HEAT: Firestar can use Poison. All damage dealt by Firestar is penetrating damage. SET ABLAZE: When Firestar hits with a ranged combat attack, place 2 Fire tokens on the hit character’s character card. At the beginning of your turn, give Firestar a free action and deal 1 damage to and then remove 1 Fire token from each character with a Fire token on its character card. An opposing character may be given a power action to remove a Fire token from its character card. For 115 points, Firestar can cause a lot of trouble. Since all damage from Firestar is penetrating, her personally traited poison is like the Red Lantern’s. And her attack ability allows her to slowly chip away at a figure even if she can’t attack them this turn. If you can have her just keep going back and forth, hitting Doop, and then hitting Gluttony, she’s going to seriously annoy them, forcing your opponent to prioritize her while the rest of your team finishes the job. Mind Control (Speed Power) MIND CONTROL: Give this character a close or ranged combat action (minimum range value 4) that deals no damage. A successfully hit target becomes friendly to your force. Each target hit may be assigned one action as a free action, immediately after which the target becomes an opposing character again. Deal this character 1 unavoidable damage if the successfully hit targets’ combined point value is 150 points or more. Mind control is one of the most humiliating powers in Heroclix. Not only did your character get hit, now they’re most likely going to hit your other character. With a team like Doop and Gluttony, sending them to fight each other is the best way to work around the mystics damage that Gluttony does. Mind control Doop, hit Gluttony, and Doop takes a click of damage too. If you pair this with one of the above powers that neutralizes Gluttony’s defense ability, it’s even more effective. Try using Emerald Empress or Brother Voodoo so that you can mind control for free more often. Of course, these aren’t the only ways to take down Doop and Gluttony. Every set releases new options on how to take down a team of it’s caliber, from old favorites like the Extremis Brutes in Iron Man 3 (Poison for days) to Abyss in the upcoming Avengers Assemble (Poisoning for the opponents damage value). Be sure to keep an eye out for Doop Gluttony, and many copycat teams as we get closer to the World’s Tournament in just a few weeks! Hey wait, Copycat, that could work too, couldn’t it… RelatedThe EPI issue brief A perfect match: Coupling tax fairness with job creation for a stronger economy calculated the national and state-by-state jobs impact of implementing a set of tax fairness proposals outlined in the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s Budget for All and dedicating the revenue to increased national infrastructure investment. It found that the four tax fairness policies would together create roughly 1.3 million jobs in fiscal 2013 and over 1.8 million jobs each year between fiscal 2014 and 2017 (Pollack 2012). Similarly, this issue brief analyzes the employment impact of coupling job creating infrastructure investments with the Buffett Rule. Implementing the most widely supported legislation to apply the Buffett Rule, the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012, would raise about $60 billion over the next five years and nearly $163 billion over a decade (Barthold 2012). This issue brief finds that adopting this tax provision and using the revenue to invest in the nation’s crumbling infrastructure would create about 43,000 jobs in 2013 and roughly 95,000 jobs per year from 2014 through 2017. Background on the Buffett Rule The current tax code favors many high-income taxpayers because, among other things, it taxes capital gains and dividends—income derived from existing wealth—at a lower rate than wages and salaries, which are derived from work. For this reason, average federal income tax rates actually peak at around $1 million in income, and then start falling as households collect a greater share of income from investments (Fieldhouse 2012). The preferential tax rate on capital gains and dividends is just 15 percent, well below the top 35 percent income tax on wages and salaries—which explains the low average tax rates paid by Warren Buffett and other multi-millionaire financiers. Indeed, nearly a quarter of all millionaires actually pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than millions of middle-class households (National Economic Council 2012). The Buffett Rule would help correct this regressive aspect of the tax code. The most widely supported legislation that would implement the Buffett Rule, the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012 (S. 2059), would require taxpayers with incomes above $1 million to pay at least 30 percent of their adjusted gross income (less charitable contributions) in federal taxes. Job creation effects Relative to current policy (which assumes that most tax policies scheduled to expire, such as the Bush-era tax cuts, are extended), this version of the Buffett Rule would raise about $60 billion over the next five years and around $163 billion over a decade (Barthold 2012). Implementing this tax provision and using the revenue to invest in the nation’s infrastructure would create nearly 43,000 jobs in 2013 and an average of 95,000 jobs per year from 2014 through 2017 (Table 1). This analysis predicts that job creation would occur in every state, even those with a disproportionately large share of high-income taxpayers (Table 2). For example, in 2013 this policy would create about 2,600 jobs in New York state and over 900 jobs in New Jersey, and more in the ensuing years. Table 1 Revenue raised by implementing the Buffett Rule (S. 2059) and overall job impact* (2013−2017) 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2013–2017 2013–2022 Revenue (billions of dollars) 5.4 11.5 12.8 14.4 16.0 60.1 162.6 Job impact 42,756 87,420 91,543 97,008 102,291 * Assuming the revenue raised from the Buffett Rule is dedicated to infrastructure investments ** Assuming economy remains below full employment Source: Author's analysis of Citizens for Tax Justice 2008, Fieldhouse and Thiess 2012, and Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012 Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image Table 2 Job impact by state of implementing the Buffett Rule (S. 2059) and dedicating the revenue to infrastructure investments, 2013−2017 2013 2014 2015 2016* 2017* Total 42,756 87,420 91,543 97,008 102,291 Alabama 700 1,430 1,498 1,587 1,674 Alaska 113 231 242 256 270 Arizona 752 1,537 1,609 1,705 1,798 Arkansas 434 888 929 985 1,039 California 3,569 7,296 7,640 8,097 8,538 Colorado 725 1,482 1,552 1,645 1,734 Connecticut 377 771 808 856 903 Delaware 143 293 307 325 343 District of Columbia 274 560 586 621 655 Florida 2,218 4,536 4,749 5,033 5,307 Georgia 1,313 2,685 2,812 2,980 3,142 Hawaii 204 416 436 462 487 Idaho 219 449 470 498 525 Illinois 1,797 3,674 3,847 4,077 4,299 Indiana 1,067 2,182 2,284 2,421 2,553 Iowa 577 1,180 1,236 1,309 1,381 Kansas 483 987 1,034 1,096 1,155 Kentucky 682 1,395 1,461 1,548 1,632 Louisiana 714 1,460 1,529 1,620 1,708 Maine 221 451 473 501 528 Maryland 707 1,445 1,514 1,604 1,691 Massachusetts 926 1,894 1,984 2,102 2,217 Michigan 1,369 2,799 2,931 3,106 3,275 Minnesota 887 1,813 1,898 2,012 2,121 Mississippi 410 838 877 930 981 Missouri 972 1,987 2,081 2,205 2,325 Montana 162 331 347 368 388 Nebraska 359 733 768 814 858 Nevada 359 733 768 814 858 New Hampshire 201 411 430 456 481 New Jersey 932 1,906 1,996 2,115 2,230 New Mexico 298 609 638 676 713 New York 2,615 5,346 5,598 5,932 6,255 North Carolina 1,388 2,838 2,972 3,149 3,321 North Dakota 162 330 346 367 387 Ohio 1,876 3,836 4,017 4,257 4,488 Oklahoma 587 1,201 1,258 1,333 1,405 Oregon 575 1,176 1,232 1,305 1,376 Pennsylvania 1,990 4,069 4,261 4,515 4,761 Rhode Island 155 317 331 351 370 South Carolina 681 1,393 1,459 1,546 1,630 South Dakota 160 326 342 362 382 Tennessee 973 1,990 2,084 2,209 2,329 Texas 3,474 7,103 7,438 7,882 8,311 Utah 443 905 948 1,004 1,059 Vermont 106 217 228 241 254 Virginia 1,099 2,246 2,352 2,493 2,629 Washington 899 1,838 1,925 2,040 2,151 West Virginia 298 609 638 676 713 Wisconsin 1,009 2,064 2,161 2,290 2,415 Wyoming 103 211 221 234 247 * Assuming economy remains below full employment Source: Author's analysis of Citizens for Tax Justice 2008, Fieldhouse and Thiess 2012, and Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012 Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image Deficit-reduction effects In addition to creating jobs, this investment policy would also reduce the deficit. The increase in economic growth and employment from the revenue-financed job creation measures would diminish the budget deficit as more workers pay taxes and less is spent on automatic stabilizers (e.g., unemployment compensation and food assistance). A dollar of infrastructure investment is currently estimated to generate $1.44 in economic activity, and every dollar in increased economic activity is associated with roughly a $0.37 improvement in the budget deficit while the economy remains depressed (Bivens and Edwards 2010). This means more than 50 percent of the cost of deficit-financed infrastructure investment is effectively self-financing in the near term. In other words, fully funded investment will thus produce excess revenues that can then be used to reduce the deficit, or reinvested to boost potential economic output over the long run and lay the foundation for a competitive economy. Appendix: Methodology Like A perfect match: Coupling tax fairness with job creation for a stronger economy, this analysis was calculated by applying a multiplier to the fiscal impact in each year. For the Buffett Rule we used a 0.39 multiplier. This multiplier was an estimate of the economic output response to changing the tax rates on capital gains and dividends, but it is appropriate to use here because the Buffett Rule is mainly an increase in the effective capital gains tax rate (the capital gains preferential rate accounts for why many high-income taxpayers pay such a low overall rate in the first place). For infrastructure investments, we used a 1.44 multiplier. Both of these multipliers are published by Mark Zandi at Moody’s Economy.com (Zandi 2011). These estimates assume that the economy has not returned to potential output by 2017, which is consistent with CBO projections (CBO 2012). The state shares of the tax policy changes were calculated using state data on the distribution of taxpayers who make over $200,000, published by Citizens for Tax Justice (2008). The state shares of the infrastructure investments were calculated using each state’s share of national employment (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012). We did not want to presume a certain state allocation of funds for three reasons: Different types of infrastructure would entail different allocations; certain allocations, such as the transportation allocations, are currently being debated and will likely change soon; and for some infrastructure areas, such as school construction, it is not clear which formula would be used. Endnotes Although this provision would apply to all taxpayers with income over $1 million, it would be phased in between $1 million and $2 million, so some taxpayers with income below $2 million would still pay slightly less than 30 percent. While data on the distribution of taxpayers making more than $1 million are not available, we assume the distribution of taxpayers who make more than $200,000 is a reasonable substitution. In other words, if a state has a certain percentage of the nation’s taxpayers making more than $200,000, it is likely to have a very similar percentage of the nation’s taxpayers making more than $1 million. References Barthold, Thomas. 2012. “Revenue Estimate for S. 2059, Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012.” Letter from the Joint Committee on Taxation. March 26. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/mitt-romneys-correct-stat-on
fetch ( `http://localhost:8080/games/ ${ id } `, { headers : new Headers ( { 'Content-Type' : 'application/json', } ), method : 'DELETE', } ). then ( response => response. json ( ) ). then ( response => { this. setState ( { games : this. state. games. filter ( game => game. _id!== id ) } ) ; console. log ( response. message ) ; } ) ; } setSearchBar ( event ) { this. setState ( { searchBar : event. target. value. toLowerCase ( ) } ) ; } render ( ) { const { games, selectedGame, searchBar } = this. state ; return ( < div > < Modal game = { selectedGame } / > < GamesListManager games = { games } searchBar = { searchBar } setSearchBar = { this. setSearchBar } toggleModal = { this. toggleModal } deleteGame = { this. deleteGame } / > < / div > ) ; } } In the constructor we defined an inital state with an empty array of games that will be soon populated. selectedGame is the specific game to show in the bootstrap modal and searchBar is the search keyword to filter the games. In componentDidMount() we call game() which make an HTTP call for the games and set them into the state. Notice the new fetch() function. we call game() which make an HTTP call for the games and set them into the state. Notice the new function. toggleModal() is passed as props to the GamesListManager component to set the current game in the state and toggle the modal. is passed as props to the component to set the current game in the state and toggle the modal. setSearchBar() updates the state with the current keyword. toLowerCase() guarantees our search is not case-sensitive. updates the state with the current keyword. guarantees our search is not case-sensitive. Finally, we render Modal and GamesListManager components. NB: At the present time thinking about refactoring isn't necessary as our code will substantially change with Redux. In fact we should be just focusing on making things work now! This is another stateless component, just create it in /client/src/components and paste the following code: import React, { PureComponent } from'react' ; export default class Modal extends PureComponent { render ( ) { const { _id, img, name, description, year, picture } = this. props. game ; return ( < div className = "modal fade" id = "game-modal" tabIndex = "-1" role = "dialog" aria - labelledby = "myModalLabel" > < div className = "modal-dialog" role = "document" > < div className = "modal-content" > < div className = "modal-header" > < button type = "button" className = "close" data - dismiss = "modal" aria - label = "Close" > < span aria - hidden = "true" > × < / span > < / button > < h4 className = "modal-title" id = "myModalLabel" > { ` ${ name } ( ${ year } )` } < / h4 > < / div > < div className = "modal-body" > < div > < img src = { picture } className = "img-responsive img-big" / > < / div > < hr / > < p > { description } < / p > < / div > < div className = "modal-footer" > < button type = "button" className = "btn btn-warning" data - dismiss = "modal" > Close < / button > < / div > < / div > < / div > < / div > ) ; } } There is nothing special here, we simply shows the game information in a fancy modal. Though stateless it is a more meaningful component. Create it in /client/src/components and paste the following code: import React, { PureComponent } from'react' ; import { Link } from'react-router' ; import Game from './Game' ; export default class GamesListManager extends PureComponent { render ( ) { const { games, searchBar, setSearchBar, toggleModal, deleteGame } = this. props ; return ( < div className = "container scrollable" > < div className = "row text-left" > < Link to = "/games/add" className = "btn btn-danger" > Add a new Game! < / Link > < / div > < div className = "row" > < input type = "search" placeholder = "Search by Name" className = "form-control search-bar" onKeyUp = { setSearchBar } / > < / div > < div className = "row" > { games. filter ( game => game. name. toLowerCase ( ). includes ( searchBar ) ). map ( ( game, i ) => { return ( < Game {... game } key = { game. _id } i = { i } toggleModal = { toggleModal } deleteGame = { deleteGame } / > ) ; } ) } < / div > < hr / > < / div > ) ; } } We could actually move out the search bar and create another component for it, however we won't use it anywhere else so there is no reusability involved. In the render function we map the games to a Game component and we do some basic filtering: We make sure the game name contains the keyword from the search bar The game container is pretty immediate as well, create it into /client/src/components and paste the following code: import React, { PureComponent } from'react' ; import { Link } from'react-router' ; export default class Game extends PureComponent { render ( ) { const { _id, i, name, description, picture, toggleModal, deleteGame } = this. props ; return ( < div className = "col-md-4" > < div className = "thumbnail" > < div className = "thumbnail-frame" > < img src = { picture } alt = "..." className = "img-responsive thumbnail-pic" / > < / div > < div className = "caption" > < h5 > { name } < / h5 > < p className = "description-thumbnail" > { ` ${ description. substring ( 0, 150 ) }...` } < / p > < div className = "btn-group" role = "group" aria - label = "..." > < button className = "btn btn-success" role = "button" onClick = { ( ) => toggleModal ( i ) } > View < / button > < button className = "btn btn-danger" role = "button" onClick = { ( ) => deleteGame ( _id ) } > Delete < / button > < / div > < / div > < / div > < / div > ) ; } } The buttons triggers the functions we wrote in GamesContainer : These were passed as props from GamesContainer to GamesListManager and finally to Game. The container is gonna render a form where our users can create games for the archive. Create the AddGameContainer.jsx in /client/src/containers and paste the following code: import React, { Component } from'react' ; import { hashHistory } from'react-router' ; import { Form } from '../components' ; export default class AddGameContainer extends Component { constructor ( props ) { super ( props ) ; this. state = { newGame : { } } ; this. submit = this. submit. bind ( this ) ; this. uploadPicture = this. uploadPicture. bind ( this ) ; this. setGame = this. setGame. bind ( this ) ; } submit ( ) { const newGame = Object. assign ( { }, { picture : $ ( '#picture' ). attr ('src' ) }, this. state. newGame ) ; fetch ( 'http://localhost:8080/games', { headers : new Headers ( { 'Content-Type' : 'application/json' } ), method : 'POST', body : JSON. stringify ( newGame ) } ). then ( response => response. json ( ) ). then ( data => { console. log ( data. message ) ; hashHistory. push ( '/games' ) ; } ) ; } uploadPicture ( ) { filepicker. pick ( { mimetype : 'image/', container :'modal', services : [ 'COMPUTER', 'FACEBOOK', 'INSTAGRAM', 'URL', 'IMGUR', 'PICASA' ], openTo : 'COMPUTER' / / First choice to upload files from }, function ( Blob ) { console. log ( JSON. stringify ( Blob ) ) ; $ ( '#picture' ). attr ('src', Blob. url ) ; }, function ( FPError ) { console. log ( FPError. toString ( ) ) ; } ) ; } / / We make sure to keep the state up - to - date to the latest input values setGame ( ) { const newGame = { name : document. getElementById ( 'name' ). value, description : document. getElementById ( 'description' ). value, year : document. getElementById ( 'year' ). value, picture : $ ( '#picture' ). attr ('src' ) } ; this. setState ( { newGame } ) ; } render ( ) { return < Form submit = { this. submit } uploadPicture = { this. uploadPicture } setGame = { this. setGame } / > } } In the constructor we define an empty new game in the state. Thanks to setGame() we create its values whenever the user edit one of the inputs from the form (you will see it later). we create its values whenever the user edit one of the inputs from the form (you will see it later). submit() sends the new game to the server through POST request. What about the upload() function? Inside we run the pick() function from Filestack which prompts a modal a picture. If you take a look a the documentation for the function, we may have noticed that the first parameter is an option object for customizing our uploader: For example, if you don't want users to upload non-image files, well Filestack allows you to restrict the mimetype! I love the fact I can create in few minutes my uploader with custom options to fit my needs. For the current tutorial, I defined the option objects as following: The mimetype equal to image/ limits the upload to image files. equal to image/* limits the upload to image files. We can choose to show either a modal or dialog uploading interfaces, I personally prefer the modal but you guys could try to customize it the way you like! What are the sources to upload from? Not just the user's device but there are plenty of other choices. In our case we define an array of all the allowed sources. Finally, among these choices above, we choose the computer as the default one. Finally, there are two functions, one for onSuccess and one for onError. Notice the Blob object parameter on onSuccess : This is returned by Filestack, it contains a bunch of information among which the image url! Let me show you an example: { "url" : "https://cdn.filestackcontent.com/CLGctDtSZiFbm4AKYTSX", "filename" : "background.jpg", "mimetype" : "image/jpeg", "size" : 609038, "id" : 1, "key" : "w53urmDSga10ndZsOiE5_background.jpg", "container" : "filestack-website-uploads", "client" : "computer", "isWriteable" : true } For more information don't hesitate to take a look at the documentation, the guys made a big effort to write very clear instructions. Our last component is Form, let's create it in /client/src/components (used to it yet?!) and paste the following code: import React, { PureComponent } from'react' ; import { Link } from'react-router' ; export default class Form extends PureComponent { render ( ) { return ( < div className = "row scrollable" > < div className = "col-md-offset-2 col-md-8" > < div className = "text-left" > < Link to = "/games" className = "btn btn-info" > Back < / Link > < / div > < div className = "panel panel-default" > < div className = "panel-heading" > < h2 className = "panel-title text-center" > Add a Game! < / h2 > < / div > < div className = "panel-body" > < form name = "product-form" action = "" onSubmit = { ( ) => this. props. submit ( ) } noValidate > < div className = "form-group text-left" > < label htmlFor = "caption" > Name < / label > < input id = "name" type = "text" className = "form-control" placeholder = "Enter the title" onChange = { ( ) => this. props. setGame ( ) } / > < / div > < div className = "form-group text-left" > < label htmlFor = "description" > Description < / label > < textarea id = "description" type = "text" className = "form-control" placeholder = "Enter the description" rows = "5" onChange = { ( ) => this. props. setGame ( ) } > < / textarea > < / div > < div className = "form-group text-left" > < label htmlFor = "price" > Year < / label > < input id = "year" type = "number" className = "form-control" placeholder = "Enter the year" onChange = { ( ) => this. props. setGame ( ) } / > < / div > < div className = "form-group text-left" > < label htmlFor = "picture" > Picture < / label > < div className = "text-center dropup" > < button id = "button-upload" type = "button" className = "btn btn-danger" onClick = { ( ) => this. props. uploadPicture ( ) } > Upload < span className = "caret" / > < / button > < / div > < / div > < div className = "form-group text-center" > < img id = "picture" className = "img-responsive img-upload" / > < / div > < button type = "submit" className = "btn btn-submit btn-block" > Submit < / button > < / form > < / div > < / div > < / div > < / div > ) ; } } Pretty straightforward! Whenever a users edit any form input, the onChange function update the state. The components were all created but we have to update /client/src/components/index.js to export them all. Replace its code with the following: import About from './About' ; import Contact from './Contact' ; import Form from './Form' ; import Game from './Game' ; import GamesListManager from './GamesListManager' ; import Home from './Home' ; import Archive from './Archive' ; import Modal from './Modal' ; import Welcome from './Welcome' ; export { About, Contact, Form, Game, GamesListManager, Home, Archive, Modal, Welcome } ; And now we can run the app! We first start the api server: yarn api And if you haven't, webpack-dev-server: yarn start This should work smoothly however we are still not serving the bundle from Node.js. We need to run another command: yarn build This will create the bundle.js in the /dist folder... Now connect to http://localhost:8080 and the client is served from our real server instead. Congratulations for finishing the first part of the tutorial! In this first part of the tutorial we went through the initial project configuration. We first built the backend of the app, an API server with Node.js and Express. We also made a preliminary test with postman to doublecheck that everything works as expected. For a real-world app this is not exhaustive, if you a curious about testing, take a look at my previous post on testing Node.js with Mocha and Chai here on Scotch! Then we spent some time configuring Webpack to include javascript and css inside the same bundle file. Eventually we wrote React components to see the app in action. In the next tutorial we are going to include Redux and related packages, we will see how easily we can manage the state if we separate it into a container. We will include lots of new packages, not just redux but redux-saga, redux-form... We will work with immutable data structure as well. Stay tuned!Pop culture website Vulture hosts its first-ever L.A. festival, the Doo Dah Parade rolls through Pasadena, Manuela hosts a ceiling-optional Thanksgiving dinner and more to do and see in L.A. this week. fri 11/17 Ready or not, the holidays are here, and with them the usual opportunities to "get lit" have arrived: tree lighting ceremonies, ugly Xmas sweater soirees, etc. The Nutcracker ballet remains a popular, traditional outing for the whole family too, but a new show opening in Hollywood promises to add some contemporary appeal to the seasonal staple. The Hip-Hop Nutcracker brings the classic tale of Clara and her favorite toy-come-to-life to modern times, remixing Tchaikovsky's fantastical music with a funky flair that incorporates kickin' choreography (by award-winning director-choreographer Jennifer Weber) and costumes, rhythmic vibes and wondrous word flow. With none other than hip-hop founding father Kurtis Blow ("The Breaks") opening the show with a short set of rap classics, it'll be a jolly joint indeed. Dolby Theatre, 6801 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Fri., Nov. 17, 8 p.m.; $45-$85. (323) 308-6300. dolbytheatre.com/events/details/the_hip_hop_nutcracker. —Lina Lecaro Continue Reading From William Wellman's Track of the Cat and André De Toth's Day of the Outlaw to The Revenant and The Hateful Eight, the "snow Western" has carved an indelible niche in this most American of genres. To this elite group add Sydney Pollack's Jeremiah Johnson, a rough and rugged epic that follows Robert Redford's frontiersman through the Rockies as he forms an uneasy alliance with the Crow tribe and pits himself against nature and the elements. The New Beverly is pairing it with The Indian Fighter, in which Kirk Douglas defends a group of Sioux against a hostile wagon train. New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd., Fairfax; Fri.-Sat., Nov. 17-18, 7 p.m.; $8. (323) 938-4038, thenewbev.com. —Nathaniel Bell sat 11/18 Becoming an art collector totally seems like a thing only rich people do. That's not the case at Wishlist Affordable Art Show, Gabba Gallery's fifth annual exhibit of art that's on sale for $1,000 or less (many pieces are less than $200). Voted Best Art Gallery by L.A. Weekly readers in 2017, Gabba Gallery has wrangled dozens of artists, from Alex Achaval to Essi Zimm and every Mr. Melty, Spacegoth, Wrdsmth and Mimi Yoon in between. Every time a piece is sold and carried out by the purchaser, another piece will go up in its place, so people who aren't buying can watch the show evolve before their eyes. At Saturday's opening reception, DJ Jonathan Williams spins and Fort Point Beer Company and Original New York Seltzer sponsor the bar. It's a good opportunity to chuck the mass-produced Ikea wall art and start fresh. Gabba Gallery, 3126 Beverly Blvd., Westlake; Sat., Nov. 18, 7-11 p.m. (through Dec. 16); free. (323) 604-4186, gabbagallery.com/wishlist-5. —Gwynedd Stuart An annual festival hosted by pop-culture website Vulture.com, Vulture Festival L.A. makes its Los Angeles debut at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The weekend-long hat-tip to the dizzying world of entertainment includes panels with the likes of Sofia Coppola, Lena Dunham, Natalie Portman, Owen Wilson and others. Listen to a discussion about Stranger Things' sophomore season with the show's creators and new cast members, or witness a reunion with the cast of Bored to Death. As if all that weren't enough, there's also a tour of the Broad with art critic Jerry Saltz, and a sneak peek at the upcoming Tonya Harding biopic I, Tonya. No word whether the eponymous antiheroine will triple axel down for an appearance, but we can dream, can't we? Hollywood Roosevelt, 7000 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood (and select off-site locations); Sat.-Sun., Nov. 18-19, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; free-$150, $495 for weekend passes. vulturefestival.com/la. —Tanja M. Laden Rarely seen in the United States, Mexican docudrama Los Pequeños Gigantes retells the true story of the 1957 Little League World Series, which made headlines for including the first team from outside North America. The squad from Monterrey, Mexico (the titular "little giants"), won the title with a perfect game — the only such occurrence in Little League championship history. AMPAS is showing a rare archival 35mm print as part of a special family screening. A panel of guests will include several of the original players, schedule permitting. Samuel Goldwyn Theater, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills; Sat., Nov. 18, 2 p.m.; $5. (310) 247-3000, oscars.org. —Nathaniel Bell The modern dance company Momix always brings a high dose of theater and a wicked sense of humor to the stage, especially in works by founder-choreographer Moses Pendleton, such as Opus Cactus, the calling card this visit. Originally created for Ballet Arizona, the two-act creation pays tribute to the astonishing light and extraordinary landscape of the American Southwest and some of its iconic residents, including slithering lizards and the title's namesake cacti. Delicious previews at momix.com. Carpenter Performing Arts Center, Cal State University Long Beach, 4200 Atherton St., Long Beach; Sat., Nov. 18, 8 p.m.; $45. (562) 985-7000, web.ovationtix.com/trs/pesptpm/10156912/1081486. —Ann Haskins Feastown is a regular pop-up market in the shadow of a new mixed-use building in Hollywood. It's free to get in, which is good, because once inside you will absolutely be tempted by the various food vendors. Norigami Tacos has a stall serving its delicious, unlikely fried sushi tacos; Helados Pops serves ice cream in tiny coconuts. There's a do-gooder element to Feastown, too: The live music is provided by Los Angeles College of Music students (it gives them a chance to perform for an audience!) and it raises money for the nonprofit Center at Blessed Sacrament Church. Eastown, 6201 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Sat., Nov. 18, 1-6 p.m.; free. feastown.co. —Katherine Spiers As Sally Rogers, the perennially unlucky-in-love gag writer, Rose Marie gained TV immortality as part of the legendary ensemble cast of The Dick Van Dyke Show. But that role only scratches the surface of one of the longest careers in show business. A new documentary, Wait for Your Laugh, throws a well-deserved spotlight on the gifted performer who, at 94, has only recently slowed her output. A discussion will follow Saturday evening's screening with the doc's director, Jason Wise, and interviewees Dick Van Dyke (still spry at 92) and TV writer Dan Harmon. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Sat., Nov. 18, 5 p.m.; $15. (323) 466-3456, americancinemathequecalendar.com. —Nathaniel Bell From 5,000-year-old rituals to modern flash, you'll find it at the Natural History Museum's "Tattoo: An Exhibition" (see: Sunday). Brynne Palmer sun 11/19 Thirty-five years ago, Steven Spielberg directed E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, one of the all-time family classics, about a lost alien who's befriended by a little boy and his siblings. You probably still tear up whenever you watch Elliott's bicycle lift up into the sky and ride across the moon or when E.T. leaves Earth in his spaceship. What nearly all of Spielberg's work — including Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the Indiana Jones series, has in common is the music of John Williams. With a whopping 50 Academy Award nominations and five wins, Williams is the second-most Oscar-nominated artist in history, behind only Walt Disney, and his soundtrack to the 1982 E.T. won an Oscar and a Grammy. Led by Carlos Izcaray, the 100-member American Youth Symphony (AYS) conducts a live score to this screening, preceded by a discussion, moderated by Variety writer Jon Burlingame, with musicians and fellow composers Ralph Grierson, Katie Kirkpatrick, and David Newman, who has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic and played violin on the E.T. soundtrack. UCLA Royce Hall, Westwood; Sun., Nov. 19, 4 p.m.; $15. (310) 470-2332, aysymphony.org. —Siran Babayan At the 40th Occasional Pasadena Doo Dah Parade, there isn't find a rose, chrysanthemum or galloping horse in sight. An anti—Tournament of Roses holiday tradition in the neighborhood since 1978, the Doo Dah is just wacky and tacky enough for adults but still fun for kids. So park your beach chair along Colorado Boulevard and wave at the thousands of floats, art cars and marchers, including perennial favorites the Lawn Chair Drill Team, Flying Baby Homerun Border Crossing, Radioactive Chickenheads, Howdy Krishna, Count Smokula and, of course, Secret Santa in a conga line. This year's parade will be led by Queen Imani Phoenix — tryouts were appropriately held at the American Legion Bar — while 86-year-old community activist Marty Coleman is the grand marshal. East Pasadena along Colorado Boulevard; Sun., Nov. 19, 11 a.m.; free. (626) 590-7596, pasadenadoodahparade.info. —Siran Babayan The Natural History Museum's "Tattoo: An Exhibition," a touring display first seen at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris in 2014, explores the history, art and culture of body ink dating back 5,000 years, whether it's part of a tribal, religious, military or gang affiliation or just a form of self-expression. Among the 125 objects organized into thematic sections are photographs, clay figurines, textiles, videos of tattoo ceremonies, interviews with tattoo artists and lifelike tattooed silicone body parts, as well as tools and technology, including a 250-year-old ink pad from Jerusalem. The collection singles out Los Angeles' tattoo history, especially tattoo destinations such as the Pike in Long Beach and East L.A., even featuring a re-creation of Long Beach's Bert Grimm's World Famous Tattoo (now Outer Limits Tattoo), the oldest continuously run tattoo parlor in America. Natural History Museum, 900 Exposition Blvd., Exposition Park; Sun., Nov. 19, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. (runs through April 15); $24, $21 seniors & students, $11 children. (213) 763-3466, nhm.org. —Siran Babayan On the surface, the story of a bashful talking pig and his adventures on an Australian farm sounds like yet another saccharine family film lining the bargain bins at Walmart. Except that it isn't. At least not in the hands of director Chris Noonan and producer George "Mad Max" Miller. Emotionally sophisticated and genuinely hilarious, Babe became a runaway hit in 1995, garnering seven Oscar nominations, including a nod for James Cromwell (winsomely underplaying it as Farmer Hoggett). UCLA is offering free admission to see a 35mm print of this barnyard charmer, recommended for ages 6 and up. UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood; Sun., Nov. 19, 11 a.m.; free. (310) 206-8013, cinema.ucla.edu. —Nathaniel Bell mon 11/20 Remember Singled Out, Rugrats and Supermarket Sweep? Jon Gabrus and Lauren Lapkus do, which is why they're combining their collective memories and nostalgia for late '80s and '90s TV and pop culture to co-host Raised by TV. Both in their 30s, the two met five years ago while performing at UCB's resident improv night, Asssscat, and have appeared on various podcasts, including Comedy Bang! Bang!; Gabrus and Lapkus also host their own podcasts, High and Mighty and With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus. On their joint podcast, which premiered on Earwolf this month, Gabrus and Lapkus reminisce with encyclopedic knowledge — no Googling for them — about vintage sitcoms, cartoons, talk shows, game shows, dating shows, anything on MTV, theme songs and even snacks. (Do you think we'll remember with fondness The Jersey Shore and Teen Mom the way we remember the early seasons of The Real World? Probably not.) So far they've been joined by such names as Paul Scheer, Scott Aukerman and Betsy Sodaro. For their first taping of Earwolf Presents: Raised by TV Live! in Los Angeles, Gabrus, Lapkus and guests will discuss special Thanksgiving-themed episodes. UCB Sunset, 5419 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.; Mon., Nov. 20, 7 p.m.; $5. (323) 908-8702, sunset.ucbtheatre.com. —Siran Babayan The creeping, power chords of Link Wray's 1958 "Rumble," banned from several radio stations in America for inciting juvenile delinquency, constitute one of the greatest guitar instrumentals of all time. Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana's new documentary, RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World, examines not only the work of guitarist Wray, born to Shawnee parents, but other Native American musicians and their influence on rock, blues, jazz, country and hip-hop. The film, which premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival, looks at contributions by artists with indigenous ancestry including Charley Patton, Howlin' Wolf, Jimi Hendrix, Redbone, The Neville Brothers, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ozzy Osbourne drummer Randy Castillo and others; it features interviews with Martin Scorsese, Quincy Jones, Tony Bennett, Iggy Pop, Steven Tyler, Slash, Steven Van Zandt, Taj Mahal, Buddy Guy, Jackson Browne, Robbie Robertson, George Clinton and Metallica's Robert Trujillo. Following the screening, Grammy museum executive director Scott Goldman moderates a discussion with director Bainbridge and executive producers Stevie Salas and Christina Fon, in addition to Black Eyed Peas' Taboo, The Cars' Elliot Easton and Wayne Kramer, who also appear in the movie. Grammy Museum, 800 W. Olympic Blvd., downtown.; Mon., Nov. 20, 7:30 p.m.; $15. (213) 765-6800, grammymuseum.org. —Siran Babayan tue 11/21 Just like that Star Trek episode in which Abe Lincoln was resurrected to fight alongside Captain Kirk, Historical Roast: 3 Years of History is an opportunity to celebrate three thematically pristine years of yelling at historical figures with absolutely no fear of payback. Thrill as you see some of your favorite comedians — Scout Durwood, Brad Gage, Dave Ross and more — in a different light with tonight's hard-won victory over time. From Hitler to Disney to the theoretically un-roastable Helen Keller, they're all gathered together by the eldritch power of stand-up comedy, turning the historical into the hysterical one more time. Nerdist Showroom at Meltdown Comics, 7522 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood; Tue., Nov. 21, 9 p.m.; $8. (323) 851-7223, nerdmeltla.com. —David Cotner LACMA continues its three-week hat tip to Latin movie star Lupe Velez with Mexican Spitfire, the second and most profitable of the B-comedies in which she stars as a mercurial Mexican bride. Designed by RKO as second features, the films — eight in all — provided hearty laughs to American audiences immediately before and during World War II. For Velez, who died tragically by her own hand in 1944, they granted her eternal life on the silver screen. LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire; Tue., Nov. 21, 1 p.m.; $4. (323) 857-6000, lacma.org. —Nathaniel Bell Courtesy Turkey Trot L.A. wed 11/22 As holidays go, Thanksgiving can be a tough sell. You don't get any presents but you have to spend time with family members who somehow still talk about Benghazi and think being gay is a "lifestyle choice" (and that's not to mention the holiday's gross glorification of native genocide). That said, it usually means a solid four-day weekend, and that calls for some righteous Thanksgiving Eve celebrating. For the ninth year in a row, Akbar hosts PIE: A Thanksgiving Eve Tradition, a canned food drive and pie sale with music and dancing and drinking. Ambrosia Salad and Sarah Problem will be selling pies whole or by the slice — pumpkin, pumpkin cheesecake, pecan or pecan cheesecake — and people who bring a nonperishable food item get $1 off their pie purchase. Joshua James, Mike Albrecht and Chris Bowen DJ. Akbar, 4356 W. Sunset, Silver Lake; Wed., Nov. 22, 8 p.m.-2 a.m.; $3. facebook.com/events/1944229722531502. —Gwynedd Stuart thu 11/23 For five years running (pun intended), Angelenos have been encouraged to get their buns out of bed early on Thanksgiving morning for Turkey Trot Los Angeles, an annual 5K and 10K through downtown L.A. The 5K course starts at City Hall and ventures around Grand Park past all the sights on Grand Avenue before darting down Spring Street. The 10K course is similar but has added mileage on Grand, Hope, Olive and lower Grand. Best part: The race benefits the Midnight Mission, a charity that aims to help people out of homelessness. Course begins at L.A. City Hall, 200 N. Spring St., downtown; Thu., Nov. 23, 7:45 a.m.; $40-$60. turkeytrot.la. —Gwynedd Stuart There are plenty of L.A. restaurants offering Thanksgiving dinners, but few will be served outdoors. Thanksgiving at Manuela has the advantage of a gorgeous, urban indoor-outdoor space downtown that combines murals with chicken coops for a very SoCal experience. The meal will be served buffet-style ($60 for adults) and will include turkey, pork belly, squash, green bean casserole and cornbread stuffing, as well as three desserts made under the aegis of pastry chef Rose Lawrence, who does fantastic work. And if you don't want to sit outside, the restaurant has indoor tables, too. Manuela, 907 E. Third St., downtown; Thu., Nov. 23, noon-6 p.m.; $60. (323) 849-0480, manuela-la.com/events. —Katherine SpiersWhy do countless people go along with the War on Syria, North Korea, Iran and the war on you? Why do so many people call for a police state control grid? What kind of people hate Muslims? A major component to a full understanding of what this kind of governmental and corporate corruption is, is to discover the modern science of mind control and social engineering. It’s baffling to merely glance at the stacks of documentation which show that this world government isn’t being constructed for the greater good of humanity by any means. Although there are a growing number of people waking up to the reality of our growing transparent soft cage, there still seems to be just enough citizens who are choosing to remain asleep. Worse yet, there are even those who were at least partially awake at one time but found it necessary to return to the slumber of dreamland. This is no accident; this is a carefully crafted design. The drive to dumb down the populations of planet earth is a classic art that existed before the United States did. One component to understanding and deciphering the systems of control is to become a student of the magicians of influence and propaganda. In order to defeat our enemies (or dictators), its imperative that we understand how they think and what they believe in. When people think about mind control, they usually think in terms of the classic “conspiracy theory” that refers to Project Mk/Ultra. This program is a proven example of ‘overt mind control.’ The project had grown out of an earlier secret program, known as Bluebird (Official Document) that was officially formed to counter Soviet advances in brainwashing. In reality the CIA had other objectives. An earlier aim was to study methods ‘through which control of an individual may be attained’. The emphasis of experimentation was ‘narco-hypnosis’, the blending of mind altering drugs with carefully hypnotic programming. Propaganda-Behind Big Media WE are BEING LIED to in a BIG WAY by the TV, TURN IT OFF NOW!! Your browser does not support the video tag. A crack CIA team was formed that could travel, at a moments notice, to anywhere in the world. Their task was to test the new interrogation techniques, and ensure that victims would not remember being interrogated and programmed. All manner of narcotics, from marijuana to LSD, heroin and sodium pentathol (the so called ‘truth drug’) were regularly used. Despite poor initial results, the CIA-sponsored mind control program flourished. On 13 April 1953, the super-secret project MK-ULTRA was born. Its scope was broader than ever before, and only those in the top echelon of
Info.plist (successful) [pbs] /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist (successful) [pbs] /System/Library/CoreServices/pbs (successful) [pbs] /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommunicationsFilter.framework/CMFSyncAgent.app/Contents/Info.plist (successful) [spindump] /usr/sbin/spindump (successful) Show all Written files [monetizer] /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/.dat.nosync0fd1.Rg7dwj (successful) [monetizer] /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/.dat.nosync0fd1.03xMoY (successful) [monetizer] /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/.dat.nosync0fd1.U9fpQi (successful) [monetizer] /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/.dat.nosync0fd1.pcC6SP (successful) [monetizer] /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/tmp.7N3x1K (successful) [pbs] /Users/user1/Library/Caches/.dat.nosync0fe5.EHMEfD (successful) [pbs] /Users/user1/Library/Caches/.dat.nosync0fe5.RI7PKA (successful) [unknown] /Users/user1/Library/Preferences (successful) [unknown] /Users/user1/Library/Saved Application State/it.komp.doc.savedState/window_1.data (successful) [unknown] /Users/user1/Library/Saved Application State/it.komp.doc.savedState/window_2.data (successful) [unknown] /private/tmp/.mminstallerscripts_20161001221247/install.log (successful) [cp] /private/tmp/.mminstallerscripts_20161001221247/sudoerstmp (successful) [monetizer] /Users/user1/Library/Saved Application State/it.komp.doc.savedState/data.data (successful) [monetizer] /Users/user1/Library/Saved Application State/it.komp.doc.savedState/windows.plist (successful) [spindump] /var/db/systemstats/A66DD831-8DB9-49C7-85C6-87F3F660A041.spindump.events.XXXXXX.stats (successful) [curl] /private/tmp/.mminstallerscripts_20161001221247/install-nwt.bin (successful) Show all Moved files SRC: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/.dat.nosync0fd1.pcC6SP DST: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/eula_general_software.txt (successful) PS: monetizer SRC: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/.dat.nosync0fd1.U9fpQi DST: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/header01.jpg (successful) PS: monetizer SRC: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/.dat.nosync0fd1.03xMoY DST: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/MediaDownloader-Logo.png (successful) PS: monetizer SRC: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/.dat.nosync0fd1.Rg7dwj DST: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/installOffers.sh (successful) PS: monetizer SRC: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/.dat.nosync0fd1.hgiu12 DST: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/installCarrier.sh (successful) PS: monetizer SRC: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/.dat.nosync0fe5.RI7PKA DST: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/com.apple.nsservicescache.plist (successful) PS: pbs SRC: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/.dat.nosync0fe5.EHMEfD DST: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/com.apple.nsservicescache.plist (successful) PS: pbs SRC: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/.dat.nosync0fd1.pcC6SP DST: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/eula_general_software.txt (successful) PS: monetizer SRC: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/.dat.nosync0fd1.U9fpQi DST: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/header01.jpg (successful) PS: monetizer SRC: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/.dat.nosync0fd1.03xMoY DST: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/Resources/MediaDownloader-Logo.png (successful) PS: monetizer SRC: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/.dat.nosync0fd1.Rg7dwj DST: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/installOffers.sh (successful) PS: monetizer SRC: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/.dat.nosync0fd1.hgiu12 DST: /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/installCarrier.sh (successful) PS: monetizer SRC: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/.dat.nosync0fe5.RI7PKA DST: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/com.apple.nsservicescache.plist (successful) PS: pbs SRC: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/.dat.nosync0fe5.EHMEfD DST: /Users/user1/Library/Caches/com.apple.nsservicescache.plist (successful) PS: pbs Show all Created processes sh (successful) /usr/bin/du -k /private/tmp/.mminstallerscripts_20161001221247/install-nwt.bin (successful) /usr/bin/awk {print $1} (successful) /bin/chmod +x /private/tmp/.mminstallerscripts_20161001221247/install-nwt.bin (successful) /bin/cp -f /etc/sudoers /private/tmp/.mminstallerscripts_20161001221247/sudoerstmp (successful) sh (successful) /usr/bin/who (successful) /usr/bin/grep -v mbsetup (successful) /usr/bin/head -n1 (successful) /usr/bin/awk {print $1} (successful) sh (successful) /usr/bin/grep user1 ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL /etc/sudoers (successful) wc -l (successful) sleep 1 (successful) sh (successful) /usr/bin/grep user1 ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL /etc/sudoers (successful) wc -l (successful) /Volumes/Install/Install.app/Contents/MacOS/monetizer (successful) hdiutil (successful) defaults find hspart=iry (successful) defaults find v=insMac (successful) defaults find bndl (successful) defaults find chumsearch (successful) defaults find SearchQuick (successful) sh (successful) ls /Users/user1/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles (successful) sort -n (successful) head -n 1 (successful) defaults find search-quick (successful) sh (successful) ls /Users/user1/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles (successful) sort -n (successful) head -n 1 (successful) /System/Library/CoreServices/pbs (successful) /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/appstoreupdateagent (successful) /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/MachServices/SecurityAgent.bundle/Contents/MacOS/SecurityAgent (successful) /usr/sbin/spindump (successful) /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/MachServices/authorizationhost.bundle/Contents/MacOS/authorizationhost (successful) /bin/sh /var/folders/h7/q_jbkm8d2wv_ltw_6w72cx740000gn/T/.tmpma/installOffers.sh (successful) sh (successful) date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S (successful) mkdir -p /private/tmp/.mminstallerscripts_20161001221247 (successful) curl -s -L -o /dev/null http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/tracking/cm_mac.php?clickid=43215867792571258&funnel=installOffersStart (successful) sleep 1 (successful) curl -s -L -o /dev/null http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/tracking/cm_mac.php?clickid=43215867792571258&funnel=installing_webtools (successful) /usr/bin/curl -s -o /private/tmp/.mminstallerscripts_20161001221247/install-nwt.bin http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/Mac/getInstallScript/scripts/bin/iwt-sierra-ext.bin (successful) Show all HTTP requests URL: http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/Mac/getInstallerSpecs/?&channel=b2110&info=19204920&enc-info=1 TYPE: GET USER AGENT: monetizer/2110 CFNetwork/760.0.5 Darwin/15.0.0 (x86_64) URL: http://cdn.macresourcescdn.com/download/Mac/InstallerResources/eula_general_software.txt TYPE: GET USER AGENT: monetizer/2110 CFNetwork/760.0.5 Darwin/15.0.0 (x86_64) URL: http://cdn.macresourcescdn.com/download/Mac/InstallerResources/header01.jpg TYPE: GET USER AGENT: monetizer/2110 CFNetwork/760.0.5 Darwin/15.0.0 (x86_64) URL: http://cdn.macresourcescdn.com/download/Mac/InstallerResources/MediaDownloader-Logo.png TYPE: GET USER AGENT: monetizer/2110 CFNetwork/760.0.5 Darwin/15.0.0 (x86_64) URL: http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/tracking/cm_mac.php?clickid=43215867792571258&funnel=generateScreen-0 TYPE: GET USER AGENT: monetizer/2110 CFNetwork/760.0.5 Darwin/15.0.0 (x86_64) URL: http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/tracking/cm_mac.php?clickid=43215867792571258&flow=screen-0-next TYPE: GET USER AGENT: monetizer/2110 CFNetwork/760.0.5 Darwin/15.0.0 (x86_64) URL: http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/tracking/cm_mac.php?clickid=43215867792571258&flow=startInstallation TYPE: GET USER AGENT: monetizer/2110 CFNetwork/760.0.5 Darwin/15.0.0 (x86_64) URL: http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/Mac/getInstallScript/?clickid=43215867792571258&offers=webtools,macupdater TYPE: GET USER AGENT: monetizer/2110 CFNetwork/760.0.5 Darwin/15.0.0 (x86_64) URL: http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/Mac/getInstallScript/?clickid=43215867792571258&software=media+downloader&du=http://software.macsoftwareserver05.com/mac/mediaDownloader.tar.gz&ih=7657d65457b90d66f03497a6db5a1645&dyn=1 TYPE: GET USER AGENT: monetizer/2110 CFNetwork/760.0.5 Darwin/15.0.0 (x86_64) URL: http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/tracking/cm_mac.php?clickid=43215867792571258&funnel=installOffersStart TYPE: GET USER AGENT: curl/7.43.0 URL: http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/tracking/cm_mac.php?clickid=43215867792571258&funnel=installing_webtools TYPE: GET USER AGENT: curl/7.43.0 URL: http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/Mac/getInstallScript/scripts/bin/iwt-sierra-ext.bin TYPE: GET USER AGENT: curl/7.43.0 URL: http://service.macinstallerinfo.com/tracking/cm_mac.php?clickid=43215867792571258&funnel=Webtools:ExecuteBinary:Root TYPE: GET USER AGENT: curl/7.43.0 Show all DNS requests lb._dns-sd._udp.localdomain TCP connectionsGoogle Google Fiber is making its way to another part of Kansas. The search giant on Thursday announced that Shawnee, located just outside of Kansas City, has voted to bring Google Fiber to its residents. Google Fiber is already available in Kansas City, the first location to get the Google high-speed Internet service. Google Fiber has started to slowly expand its footprint across the U.S., with the company recently announcing that it'll be made available to Austin, Texas, residents. Provo, Utah will also receive Fiber service. Google on Thursday did not say when its service will be available to Shawnee residents, since it still has "a lot of planning and engineering work" to complete before bringing Fiber to the city. Now playing: Watch this: Inside Google's smokin' fast InternetFeature The latest rumors of a new 12-inch MacBook Air model describe an ultra-thin laptop that drops nearly all of its physical ports for a single audio jack and USB 3.1 Type-C connector, features that were first revealed last April and further detailed in specifications documents released by Intel, with significant contributions by Apple, in September. Year-old rumors of a stripped down MacBook Air Will MacBook Air lose MagSafe & Thunderbolt? Cheaper prices for higher volumes USB 3.1 Type-C could make MacBook Air better at the same price Any new MacBook Air design is likely going to be aimed at similar price targets to its predecessors USB 3.1 Type-C spec indicates mobility, not price, is Apple's primary motivation "Newer platforms and devices are reaching a point where existing USB receptacles and plugs are inhibiting innovation" - USB 3.1 Spec USB 3.1 Type-C supports 5K DisplayPort screens, high watt power charging Apple has been rumored to release a 12-inch MacBook Air for a long time now; last April, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that the company would release an "all new," "ultra slim" 12 inch MacBook Air with a new fan-less design sporting a "click-less" trackpad as well as fewer physical inputs and outputs.That prediction was made alongside a series of other largely correct predictions of Apple's roadmap, including the release of new 4.7- and 5.5-inch iPhones; two sizes of a new Apple Watch; an iPad Air and iPad mini update; and a lower cost iMac refresh.However, the 12 inch MacBook Air didn't materialize as predicted last fall. By June, the rumor had been pushed back to "early 2015," ostensibly due to chip delays from Intel.Apple's 2014 still had some other surprises that weren't predicted by KGI; an Apple TV upgrade didn't appear, while the firm's roadmap also missed Apple's 5K Retina Display iMac, which was announced last fall and immediately became available for sale.In December, rumors from DigiTimes described for a new MacBook Air with Retina Display to arrive in the first calendar quarter of 2015.So little real news floated at CES this week that the entire trade show was overwhelmed by the release of a freshened up version of the KGI report, by 9to5Mac. Citing details from "sources within Apple, who have used internal prototype versions of the upcoming computer," the bundle of rumors were depicted in an artist's conceptual renderings.The report embellished KGI's expectations for the new MacBook Air with predictions of much slimmer margins around the keyboard (more like Apple's former mini-laptop, the 12-inch PowerBook), with keys spaced closer together and the removal of the current MacBook Air'sSD Card slot, dual USB ports, MagSafe power connector and Thunderbolt (which serves as both DisplayPort and a rapid, external PCIe data bus for connecting a chain of hard drives or other peripherals), all replaced by a single USB 3.1 Type-C connector, which was first detailed back in September.The rumors prompted lots of controversy about whether Apple would actually ship a new notebook without MagSafe, which serves as both a useful feature that prevents cord-tripping accidents, as well as a lucrative patent-protected licensing business for Apple, one that has effectively erased any market for third party MacBook power adapters.The idea of Apple removing Thunderbolt also raised eyebrows, as Apple and Intel have worked hard to bring the standard to market and develop adoption for it over the past four years. Thunderbolt first appeared on MacBook Pros in February 2011, and spread to the MacBook Air that summer.Thunderbolt essentially embellished DisplayPort--which Apple began adding to its notebooks staring in 2008--with the rapid data throughput features and host-to-host connectivity of Firewire, all features missing from USB 2.0.The removal of both MagSafe charging and Thunderbolt initially might seem unlikely moves for an Apple notebook, particularly given the premium nature of Apple's offerings. Conversely, the rumors of a stripped down MacBook Air prompted Tom Warren of The Verge to speculate that the new MacBook Air was likely designed to be cheaper, presumably in order to compete with Chromebooks and other cheap netbooks.Apple has indeed been shaving down the price of Macs across 2014, trimming the price of MacBook Air and Pro models, as well as introducing cheaper iMacs and Mac minis.Those lower prices have helped stoke a significant jump in demand. In Q3, Apple sold a record 5.5 million Macs, eclipsing the previous record of 4.9 million units set in Q3 2011.However, Macs are still nowhere near the cutthroat prices of cheap netbooks. In that price range, Apple markets a range of iPads. Actually, the fact that Mac sales didn't set any records between 2011 and 2014 is likely attributable to iPad sales. Apple sold over 197.3 million iPads over the past three years, compared to 53.4 million Macs (that's nearly 3.7 times as many tablets as its conventional computers).Apple's focus on what consumers want has devoted a lot of attention on the company's iOS-based tablet models--at prices ranging from $250 to $829, it's easier to sell iPads than Macs, which (apart from the $499 Mac mini) range from $899 to north of $3,000.Apple's mainstream iPad (also branded "Air") is focused on mobility with a super thin profile and light weight. Any new MacBook Air design is likely going to be aimed at similar price targets to its predecessors, rather than suddenly shifting into a budget netbook category that would push the MacBook Air into direct competition with iPads.Instead, Apple appears most likely to enhance the MacBook Air the same way it recently enhanced its iPad Air 2 : with a lighter, thinner and even more battery efficient design.To make today's MacBook Air lighter and thinner, Apple needs to address the fact that the current model's ports are all relatively large. Apple also has a lot of real-world data on how buyers use their Macs, and what features and qualities actually attract consumers, trigger purchases, and leave them satisfied with their purchase.There are some real tradeoffs in getting rid of today's MagSafe, dual USB ports, SD Card slot and Thunderbolt. However, as brisk sales of iPads have demonstrated, most buyers care more about price and utility (including mobility) than they do about hooking a light, thin mobile device up to a RAID array, an external HD display or even multiple USB peripherals.With AirPrint, AirPlay, AirDrop, Bluetooth, iCloud and other wireless networking features, wired ports are becoming less and less necessary, particularly as 802.11ac WiFi wireless speeds begin to compete with USB cables.WiFi is currently no match for Thunderbolt in either displays or for connectivity with external high speed devices. However, Apple and Intel have worked together to develop both Thunderbolt and the latest USB 3.1 specification. Details in the latest USB spec indicate that Apple does indeed plan to use the new, smaller Type-C port to replace other ports, reaping exterior space and internal volume savings and reducing confusion for users.Part of what makes that possible is that USB 3.1 is designed to support much faster data speeds than existing USB (while remaining backwardly compatible with existing devices): starting at 5Gbps (Gen1) and eventually reaching 10Gbps (Gen2). That's achieved over 8 conductors via faster clock timing and more efficient data signaling.In addition to being faster, USB 3.1 also introduces a new 12-pin Type-C port design, with significant input from Apple engineers (there are 18 Apple employees listed as contributions in the specification, more than any other computer maker and three times as many as Samsung).The spec itself describes the point of creating a new adaptor. It notes the "trend toward smaller, thinner and lighter form-factors," and states that "newer platforms and devices are reaching a point where existing USB receptacles and plugs are inhibiting innovation, especially given the relatively large size and internal volume constraints of the Standard-A and Standard-B versions of USB connectors."Unlike previous USB cables, "the mechanical characteristics of the USB Type-C receptacle and plug do not inherently establish the relationship of USB host and device ports." That means the new port can be used to connect two supported hosts for networking, rather than being port specific to only connect a dedicated peripheral (such as a printer) to a host system (such as a PC).USB 3.1 Type-C also supports "USB alternative modes," which essentially enable a different, non-USB signal to be sent over the same physical port. This will explicitly support up to four lanes of DisplayPort (including 1.3 HBR signaling for up to 32.4Gbps of bandwidth), as well as providing compatibility with standard HDMI, VGA and DVI signals.As a report by Ryan Smith of AnandTech noted back in September, DisplayPort 1.3 HBR3 has the bandwidth to support a 5K display at 60Hz with 24bit uncompressed color. That's something today's Thunderbolt can't yet do.Apple introduced mini DisplayPort back in 2008; USB 3.1 Type-C effectively merges the port with USB signals the same way that Thunderbolt combined fast PCIe data with DisplayPort signals, essentially making Type-C a "Thunderbolt light" well suited for lower end, highly mobile devices like MacBook Air.Additionally, USB 3.1 Type-C also supports the new "USB Power Delivery 2.0 specification," which allows a host to deliver far more power than today's USB; even more power than Thunderbolt.The new spec not only allows the new jack to provide power to, for example, a hard drive without requiring a separate transformer and power cable to the device, but also enables the port to be used to power the device itself. This was also first detailed last fall.Being able to deliver a maximum of 100w (compared to the 10-12w chargers that power today's iPad) could make USB 3.1 Type-C a suitable alternative to standalone MacBook style power adapters. However, unless Apple provides a MagSafe link somewhere between the new jack and its power adapter, users would lose the easy-to-disconnect feature.This would make charging the new MacBook Air more similar to charging an iPad or other iOS device) via Apple's Lightning connector (which like USB 3.1 Type-C has a reversible, blade style connector without a MagSafe-style connection). While iPads are designed to be used without a power cord, Apple's MacBooks perform significantly better when they are plugged in; operating off the battery triggers low power modes where the system scales back performance for efficiency.A new MacBook Air could feature advanced power management that enables it to perform acceptably when used like an iPad, reducing the disadvantage of shedding MagSafe.While it might seem that loading DisplayPort, USB, fast data and power all on one port would negatively complicate usability and introduce a lot of new limitations, the benefit of the smaller port and its expanded features could indeed make it an effective way to differentiate a mobile-oriented new MacBook Air from higher end MacBook Pros featuring more ports and the faster throughput and convenience of having standalone Ethernet, Thunderbolt and USB interfaces.A Hong Kong woman is suing her her ex-boyfriend, demanding he be removed from the title of a single-family home she claims to have bought under his name to avoid paying a 15 per cent tax on residential properties for non-residents. According to a notice of civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday, Jennie Ka Yu Wu is asking to have Richmond resident Johnny Pak Shing Chu removed from title of the property, a new single-family home at 7488 Langton Road. The two have known each other through mutual friends since October 2014 and began dating last November. Then, “the Plaintiff (Wu) began to discuss how the Defendant (Chu) would be able to assist her in the purchase of this home, knowing that the eventual home will be the sole property of the Plaintiff.” The business woman claims she paid for the home partly in cash in February of this year, and Chu, a flight attendant, contributed nothing. BC Assessment shows the last sale date for the property was Jan. 11 for $2,349,000. It is a new home built on the site of an old duplex. The property was valued at $2,248,000 as of July 1. So, roughly $350,000 in taxes, targeted for social housing for poor people, was avoided by transferring title to the Richmond resident. Wu’s claim has raised eyebrows regarding compliance of the foreign homebuyers’ tax. Surrey-based real estate lawyer Jon Singh told the Richmond News that “by the letter of the law this is most likely tax evasion, it’s not tax avoidance.” Singh said there’s an important distinction between giving someone money to buy a home, that is the beneficiary’s to keep and giving someone money with the intent to keep the home and skirt around taxes. He noted a case such as this is an example of various reports of students and homemakers (or in this case a flight attendant) owning multi-million dollar homes in Vancouver and Richmond. As the claim notes: “The Defendant agreed to act for the Plaintiff as an agent in purchasing the property which included obtaining the mortgage, and thereby is on title and holds the property on a constructive trust for the Plaintiff in accordance with... the Land Title Act.” In August Wu ended the relationship via text message and asked for Chu to leave the home and sign over the house to her. He refused, she claims. Wu claims while dating they would have overnight stays at each other’s residences in Hong Kong — where Chu would be on layover — and Vancouver — where Wu conducted “frequent” business — but they “did not live or reside in a marriage-like relationship.” Importantly, Wu is asking for a declaration that the two were not spouses as defined in the Family Law Act. As such, Wu claims, “the defendant has no right or interest in any legal or beneficial interest in [the] property.” She’s also seeking compensation for unlawful occupation of the house, back rent, as well as punitive damages, which are not detailed in the claim. Wu says she has paid the property taxes and all the monthly mortgage payments. Meanwhile, the two have continued to cohabitate in the house, but in separate bedrooms, while she visits Richmond. Wu has two children from a previous marriage that ended in 2005 while Chu has one from a previous marriage that ended in 2009. Singh said even if Chu transfers the title, Wu will still have to pay the property transfer tax and foreign homebuyers’ tax based on the fair market value of the property (as typically determined by a notary or lawyer), assuming she is still a non-resident. Asked if he has seen or heard of more of such cases, Singh said he couldn’t say anything for certain but his guess would be there are or will be more. “As Warren Buffet says, when the tide goes out you see who’s swimming naked.” Read more from the Richmond NewsA pair of city leaders hope the Boise Hawks will change its feathers. BoiseDev was provided with a large trove of documents from Concerned Boise Taxpayers, obtained by the group under public records requests. Correspondence this summer between Boise City Council member and CCDC board member Scot Ludwig and Greenstone Properties CEO Chris Schoen indicates the idea to “rebrand” the team is in the works. Ludwig pitched names like the Boise Chukars, Boise Rapids, Boise Rocks — and even Boise Sheepherders. Ludwig and Boise Mayor Dave Bieter spent time brainstorming ideas, according to an email from Ludwig to Schoen. “Oh there were about 30 that the Mayor and I came up with. As you can imagine he liked the Sheepherders…..lol” Ludwig quickly realized a conflict with nearby Idaho Falls on one name. “There is already an Idaho Falls Chuckars (sic). Rapids!!!!!” Schoen appeared to acknowledge the rebranding process and liked one of Ludwig’s ideas. “Rapids will be in the running!,” he wrote. “The Boise Rocks is pretty good too (we’re the Rockies affiliate). Keep thinking!” Jeff Eiseman, president and partner at Agon Sports & Entertainment, a co-owner of the Hawks told BoiseDev a name change is a big if. “We have had minimal discussion on that but it’s been a few years,” he said. “If and that’s IF the club rebrands it would involve our fans involvement and not through an email. Those names don’t seem like strong candidates.” Eiseman said a new soccer team could make it more challenging to also rename and revamp the Hawks. “Ultimately the soccer team needs to be named and colors chosen. That’s a lot of new branding if you throw in the Hawks.” “Any and all branding will include the most important voices: the fans/supporters.” A request for comment from the City of Boise went unreturned.Girl, 7, was shot in 2010 during a Detroit police raid on her home. Joseph Weekley sits in a Detroit courtroom on June 3, 2013 during the first day of his trial. (Photo: Regina H. Boone, Detroit Free Press) Story Highlights Officer Joseph Weekley charged with felony involuntary manslaughter Aiyana Stanley-Jones' mother said she was forced to sit on bloody couch where daughter was shot Jury will decide whether 2010 shooting was tragic accident or criminal negligence DETROIT -- The mother of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was killed in a police raid three years ago, testified Monday during the first day of testimony in a trial that will determine whether Aiyana's death was a tragic accident or criminal negligence on the part of the Detroit police officer who is accused of firing the fatal shot. Talking about the night her daughter died became too much for Dominika Stanley. When she regained her composure and returned to the stand, she said she was forced to sit for hours on the bloody couch where her daughter was shot. STORY: Trial begins in girl's death during Detroit police raid She said hours passed before officials told her that her daughter had been taken to the hospital. Detroit Police Officer Joseph Weekley, 37, is accused of firing the fatal shot in May 2010 during a raid in which police were looking for a murder suspect. He has been charged with felony involuntary manslaughter and careless discharge of a firearm causing death. Testimony in his trial began Monday in Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit. Stanley, 28, sobbed about what happened that night in the home on Lillibridge, on the city's east side. She was sleeping, heard a loud noise then remembered Mertilla Jones, Aiyana's grandmother, screaming, she said. "She said they killed Aiyana," Stanley testified. Officers later took her to the hospital, where doctors told her Aiyana didn't make it. Stanley's testimony followed opening statements where the prosecution told jurors that Weekley — who had been trained on the use of stun grenades and firearms and trigger discipline as a member of the Special Response Team — was grossly negligent, resulting in the girl's death. Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a 7-year-old Detroit girl was shot and killed in May 2010 during a police raid while police were executing a search warrant for a homicide suspect. Handout photo. (Photo: Handout/Detroit Free Press) But Weekley's attorney, Steve Fishman, said the girl died from a "tragic accident" that happened as police attempted to apprehend a man suspected in the "ruthless murder" of a 17-year-old days earlier. "It was an accident," Fishman said. "He was not careless. He was not reckless." Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Robert Moran said Weekley entered the home in the early hours with a ballistic shield and sub-machine gun. He told jurors that contrary to earlier statements by Weekley, nobody grabbed the officer's gun and there was no struggle. "There's no question that Officer Weekley fired that shot that killed Aiyana," he said. "The evidence is not going to show that he intended to murder her; the evidence is going to show that he was grossly negligent." Witness credibility and the circumstances surrounding how Weekley's gun fired will be key points for both sides during the trial. A police expert will testify that the only way the gun could fire is if Weekley pulled the trigger, Moran said. Weekley's attorney questioned the credibility of Jones, Aiyana's grandmother, who is expected to testify. She was with Aiyana in the front room during the raid, and Fishman said her story about what happened that night has changed. “The evidence is not going to show that he intended to murder her; the evidence is going to show that he was grossly negligent.” Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Robert Moran He said Jones, who was probably reacting to a flash-bang grenade — a diversionary device thrown by another officer — reached down and hit Weekley's gun. The officer, who had been trained not to lose control of his gun, pulled back, his hand hit the trigger and the gun discharged, Fishman said. "That's not gross negligence," he said. " That's not guilty." The prosecution said jurors will hear Jones testify that she was in a dark room dozing in and out of sleep on the night of the raid. She got back on the couch, covered up her granddaughter, heard the flash-bang grenade go off and fell to the floor, he said. "She looks up and sees Aiyana's blood everywhere, looks in her eyes and knows that she's been shot," Moran said. Initially, police thought they were being shot at; it wasn't until later that they found out the girl, who was under a blanket, had been shot, Fishman said. Detroit Police Sgt. Brian Bowser testified Monday about getting a search warrant as officers searched for Chauncey Owens, a suspect in the homicide of 17-year-old Je'Rean Blake, who was shot days earlier. Owens, who is accused of killing Je'Rean because of what he perceived as a dirty look, was the target of the raid and was captured in the upper flat of the duplex where Aiyana was shot. Aiyana's father, Charles Jones, is accused of providing the gun used to kill Je'Rean and faces first-degree murder charges in the teen's death along with Owens. Several of Aiyana's relatives were in court Monday but declined to comment. Ron Scott, spokesman for the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, said family members felt like there wasn't enough focus on why Aiyana was killed. "They're really upset," he said. Testimony continues Tuesday. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/17k6xelThe Briton is 13th in the FE points, two places and six points ahead of champion NEXTEV TCR team-mate Nelson Piquet Jr at the halfway stage of an impressive rookie season in the electric single-seater championship. Turvey, 28, made his
try, I cannot know them. All I can know is the tension of trying. Of holding matter and anti-matter close, knowing they might annihilate each other. And me. During the only other childhood conversation my father and I have about falling, I ask him about interracial marriage—a huge, huge taboo in our family. In my memory—which is probably inaccurate here—I am very young. Seven, maybe. Or eight. Young enough to ask without getting in trouble. “What if an Indian person falls in love with a white person, Daddy? Why shouldn’t they be allowed to marry?” He can’t know it, but the answer he gives me is a gunshot. It crackles. It rips and ricochets over my life, explaining me—my divided, uncomprehending heart—to myself: “A bird might fall in love with a fish, Debie. But where would they live?” * * * Originally published by Riverteeth, Summer 2013. * * * Illustration By: Laura McCabeStory highlights AFP says staff reporter Sardar Ahmad is among those killed in an attack on a Kabul hotel His wife and two of his children were also among the nine who died, news agency says Police say four teenagers with pistols carried out the attack in the Serena Hotel A staff reporter for the Agence France-Presse news agency, his wife and two of his three children were among nine civilians killed in an attack on a hotel in the Afghan capital, the news agency said Friday. The incident began when four teenagers entered the Serena Hotel in central Kabul on Thursday and started shooting randomly, according to police. AFP said journalist Sardar Ahmad started working for the news agency in 2003 and went on to become its senior reporter in Kabul, "covering all aspects of life, war and politics in his native country" and specializing in security issues. He also founded the Kabul Pressistan private news agency, AFP said. The hotel was hosting special celebrations at the time of the attack to mark the eve of the Persian New Year, or Nowruz, AFP said. Nowruz is a major holiday in Afghanistan. Gen. Mohammad Ayoub Salangi, the deputy interior minister, said Thursday that those killed included Afghans and foreigners, children and adults. Six people were also injured. JUST WATCHED Packing up, shippping out of Afghanistan Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Packing up, shippping out of Afghanistan 02:49 JUST WATCHED Was reporter killed in targeted attack? Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Was reporter killed in targeted attack? 01:21 Afghan security forces killed the four gunmen, who police said were under 18 and were "government opponents." Police said they believe the gunmen entered the hotel by smuggling small pistols in their shoes and then hid in the bathroom for several hours before launching their attack. The hotel also was the site of a shooting, in January 2008, that killed seven people. The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack. Thursday's attack was the latest to claim the lives of foreigners in the Afghan capital. This month, gunmen shot and killed a Swedish journalist. In January, a bomb and gun attack by the Taliban on a restaurant in Kabul killed 21 people, most of them foreigners. Earlier Thursday, in eastern Afghanistan, Taliban militants stormed a police station in Jalalabad, the country's Interior Ministry said. At least 11 people were killed and 22 were injured in the ensuing gunbattle, and at least six attackers were killed, according to a doctor at the hospital. The militant group has threatened to carry out attacks before next month's presidential election. Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said fighters will "continue to attack the pro-U.S. Afghan establishment."Donald Trump says he is looking for ways to work with Democrats these days. His team has floated the notion of working with the Congressional Black Caucus on infrastructure matters, and told the Financial Times that if the Freedom Caucus remains aloof “we will make a deal with the Democrats” on health care. There is also a large caucus of protectionist Democrats in Congress who’d be eager on the merits to see Trump fulfill some of his campaign pledges on trade. Yet there’s precious little sign of this strategy happening. And, indeed, there’s precious little sign that it will happen — in part because an atmosphere of partisan hostility serves Trump’s interests. Trump won a primary election by criticizing the Republican Party establishment, adopted a set of heterodox policy stances that sometimes poached centrist and left-wing ideas along with hard-right ones, and won a general election without much in the way of formal support for the institutional Republican Party. Under the circumstances, attempting to govern as a less-partisan figure than Barack Obama or George W. Bush who is more interested in making cross-aisle deals seems like a natural possibility. It’s an approach Trump clearly rejected in the first couple of months of his administration, trying to pass a health care law on a party-line basis and putting forward a hard-right budget proposal copied more or less directly from the Heritage Foundation website. Despite the White House’s various suggestions of bipartisan cooperation to the press, there’s been no substantive engagement with the other party. And there’s little sign that will change. Trump will continue to pick up the votes of red-state Senate Democrats, especially on energy issues, but no bipartisan flowering is going to come. To the extent that bipartisan legislation gets done — as may well happen on a continuing resolution to keep the government funded after April — it will be through the congressional process rather than the White House. Trump doesn’t have the juice, the credibility, nor the incentives to get big deals done across the aisle. Trump is too dishonest and disorganized to be credible All politicians have been known to fib here and there, but Trump lies to a degree that’s essentially unprecedented in American politics. Not only does he say things that aren’t true, he routinely mischaracterizes his own policy proposals. At times, his administration seems to suggest that foreign governments and members of Congress should completely ignore the president’s actual statements in favor of relying on the pronouncements of James Mattis or Nikki Haley as a guide to America’s real foreign policy, or of Mick Mulvaney and Tom Price to understand its real health care policy. Whatever the merits of this haze of uncertainty as a pure political marketing strategy, it completely poisons the environment for negotiations. If you happen to be a Senate Democrat who faces a strong political incentive to be seen as cooperating with the White House, this opens the door for something like Joe Manchin’s February meeting, after which he said Trump told him he was open to a comprehensive immigration reform deal. But Democrats who might, in fact, be interested in working with Trump on various issues on the merits don’t see a way into the door that wouldn’t just result in them being used for a quick photo op or a press release. Trump loudly pledged that the Keystone XL pipeline would be built with American steel, then his administration quietly clarified that it actually wouldn’t be, but he keeps saying it anyway at public events. There’s little point in engaging with Trump on the substance of an issue if he’s comfortable just pretending to agree with you and then pursuing a contrary policy. Trump doesn’t know about policy As Vox’s Andrew Prokop writes, Trump’s lack of knowledge of or interest in American public policy was evident during his botched efforts to negotiate support for the American Health Care Act. His “lack of comfort in discussing the bill’s details — to the point where it wasn’t even clear he understood what it did — was widely apparent, and it hurt his efforts to sell the bill to reluctant Republicans in Congress.” The exact same issue exists when discussing matters with Democrats, except the greater gap in underlying perspectives and lower level of ambient trust makes it an even bigger problem. To negotiate a deal on modifying the Affordable Care Act, Trump would need to demonstrate some understanding of what it is that Democrats didn’t like about AHCA and also some understanding of what motivated Paul Ryan to craft the bill the way he did. Trump hasn’t done either of those things and doesn’t seem to want to. Nor has he demonstrated any real grasp of what House Republicans’ proposed Destination-Based Cash Flow Tax amounts to or why one might or might not support it. To have a discussion with Democrats centered around, for example, former Obama administration economist Jason Furman’s framework for bipartisan business tax reform, Trump would need to understand what Furman is saying and how — and, crucially, why — it differs from what Paul Ryan is saying. Trump isn’t popular Trump’s approval rating is more than 10 points underwater, which means that most Democrats have little incentive to work with him. A handful of Democratic Party senators up for reelection in 2018 represent states that are so deeply red that they need to play nice even as the president is unpopular overall. But Democrats from Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin aren’t running scared at the moment, and Democrats from states that Trump narrowly lost, such as Nevada, Colorado, and New Hampshire, certainly aren’t. Instead, most Democrats are running scared of their own base, which both hates Trump and has been primed by a steady stream of articles about populist authoritarianism abroad to believe that Trump is currently in the process of destroying the institutional foundations of American democracy. On top of that, of course, there’s the Russia factor, which has badly eroded Trump’s basic legitimacy in the eyes of many rank-and-file Democrats. Collaborating with Trump is, under the circumstances, a risky move that most Democratic members would rather avoid. Partisan conflict helps Trump Speaking of Russia, Trump suffers from a number of political weaknesses that are essentially off the main axis of ideological conflict in the United States. One important such weakness concerns his curious affection for Vladimir Putin, which was seemingly reciprocated during the 2016 campaign by Russian hacking and disinformation efforts. Trump has sought, with no small measure of success, to turn the investigation into these matters into a partisan food fight, in which the real issue is a “crooked scheme” cooked up by the lame duck Obama administration. Such amazing reporting on unmasking and the crooked scheme against us by @foxandfriends. "Spied on before nomination." The real story. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2017 Trump and his family are also enmeshed in a number of financial conflicts of interest that congressional Republicans have turned a blind eye to in a way they clearly would not if we were talking about a Democratic administration. This dynamic — and the constant dismissals of “fake news” that sustains it — is only viable in an atmosphere of fierce partisan conflict. As political scientist Julia Azari has written, Trump’s political fortunes are tied to the odd pairing of “weak parties and strong partisanship,” where the GOP is institutionally weak enough for a celebrity to impose himself on an unwilling party elite, and then the sentiment of partisanship is strong enough to ensure he receives their backing. One could imagine a very different kind of outsider businessman-turned-president governing as a cross-party dealmaker. But you’d need someone whose ethics were, if not entirely beyond reproach, at least solid enough to withstand exacting scrutiny so he wasn’t dependent on any particular congressional faction for support. And precisely because he’d be operating outside of a normal partisan context, he would need to be well-informed and credible to seek out areas of common ground and rise above petty differences. Trump can, to an extent, play that character on television. But he’s a long way from being the real deal."There were stretches in games where [he] was utterly dominant." "He holds his ground and doesn't get pushed around." "[He] is at his best when he is trying to get into the backfield to make plays." "When I saw him he...sort of knocked you out. He's like a get-off (the snap) freak." "He comes with a terrific amount of upside." "He's...going to be a terror as an inside pass-rusher at the next level." Just over two years later, the conversation regarding improving Green Bay's D rarely, if ever, involves him. A knee injury at the end of his disappointing rookie campaign and ensuing reconstruction surgery kept him from playing in all but two games last season. Suddenly, the player who was selected by Ted Thompson to be a playmaker in Dom Capers' scheme seems to be invisible. And that, perhaps, is symbolic of the great enigma that is Jerel Worthy. Worthy's Pre-Draft Hype The quotes above represent some of the viewpoints of scouts and draftniks during the 2012 draft process. Green Bay was coming off an awful defensive year and a season that saw the team lose only one game in the regular season but also its only game in the postseason. It was clear that the defensive line missed Cullen Jenkins; the rock-solid Jenkins had collapsed the pocket and clogged running lanes, helping the linebackers and secondary alike. Without his presence, offenses found it easy to gash the Packers' D with power running, thus leaving the corners and safeties (crippled by Nick Collins' absence) vulnerable. hat just made Worthy all the more appealing to Packers fans, many of whom saw qualities in Worthy that made him an ideal replacement for Jenkins. CBS Sports, in particular, wrote a glowing report on Worthy. "Vocal on and off the field; points out potential hot receivers and run plays to teammates before the snap, something you don't see many interior linemen do." "Impressive explosiveness off the snap, shocks his man with a strong initial punch and can also out-quick him to get into the backfield." "Closes well on quarterbacks and running backs in the backfield and rarely gets (sic) go of ballcarriers once making contact." In other words, Worthy sounded like the cure to what ailed Green Bay. A vocal, instinctive lineman with sure tackling and explosiveness? It was difficult not to see what Worthy could become with his flaws remedied, and it led some to moniker Worthy as an elite prospect. Overlooked Negatives Looking at the same scouting reports that all but guaranteed Worthy paper-tiger status amongst many of those in the media, the telltale signs of a disappointment flash through. "He can get neutralized at times by double teams...because of effort and breakdown of technique," as per NFL.com. "Does not split doubles regularly or have a great bull rush, often giving up after initial contact," said CBS Sports, adding that "his stamina and conditioning will be a concern for scouts unless improvements are made," and that he "does not regularly chase plays downfield or towards the sideline." Suddenly, the player who looks like a potential savior for the defense seems like a low-effort, out-of-shape, inconsistent prospect with potential that he will likely never live up to. Unfortunately, the Packers have seen this side of Worthy more than his flashes of potential, exemplified by his 2012 season, which saw him make a grand total of 11 tackles and 2.5 sacks. Even ignoring the injury, Worthy has not exactly cemented his status in the league in the manner of his fellow second-rounder, Casey Hayward. While both missed the vast majority of this past season, Hayward's phenomenal rookie season makes him a shoo-in for a major role in 2014. Worthy, on the other hand, will likely be competing with the likes of Khyri Thornton for situational reps. And simply put, that is not what a second-rounder is supposed to be in the long run. Reasons for Optimism If you really think about it, Worthy's subpar 2012 season (and yes, it was very much subpar) shouldn't have been shocking. Virtually every draft report I've gone back and read warned that the team that took (my best unintentional alliteration in some time, by the way) the Michigan State star would have to be patient. Jerel Worthy won matchups in college because, quite simply, he was bigger, stronger and faster than his opponents. Like many defensive linemen going pro, he struggled with consistency, wreaking havoc for a couple of drives and then disappearing for quarters on end. A situational role was thus the right one to place him in, and while his first year was not at all impressive, he probably would have progressed in his second year if not for the injury (the leap I expect Datone Jones to make.) Furthermore, the Packers' abundance of players on the line means that Worthy won't be forced into starter duty immediately. I expect the starting three D-linemen to be Mike Daniels, BJ Raji and Datone Jones (whose shaky first season was foreseen by many, but should be better after two offseasons and a year of experience) with guys like Josh Boyd, Khyri Thornton and, yes, Jerel Worthy, subbing in on passing downs. That's his specialty, anyway, so Green Bay would be playing to his strengths. In other words, a situational role in the Packers' defense is the perfect fit for Jerel Worthy. Resetting Expectations You've seen what left scouts enamored with Worthy, what didn't, and what he's done in the league. You also know that he's coming off a knee injury, which is a major blow for any player, regardless of his position. It's anybody's guess how he rebounds from that. If he makes a full recovery, it would be reasonable to anticipate him becoming a consistent contributor on third downs. Four or five sacks wouldn't be out of the question, but his most valuable role could be in keeping Clay Matthews from being double-teamed. If Worthy isn't the physical specimen he was before injury, he could very well be on the roster bubble. He's an undeveloped player, and thus, he's reliant on his great physical tools to allow him to make plays. Without his quickness on his side, he has nothing to fall back on and would likely be nothing more than a competent backup. Is that harsh? Maybe. But the tape doesn't lie, and every evaluator looked at Jerel Worthy as a project worth an early pick because of his untapped physical abilities, not unlike Ra'Shede Hageman. Should Worthy suddenly become a great deal less intriguing, he'll also become a great deal more expendable. As for where I fall, being an optimist, I see him making a good recovery. His limited motor will likely prevent him from being a double-digit sack guy in the league (it doesn't help that he plays 3-4 DE, a position at which only J.J. Watt has consistently racked up takedowns), but there's no reason to believe he can't at least accumulate four or five a year. But there's perhaps no other player on this roster (with the possible exception of Colt Lyerla) who holds such a disparity between his best- and worst-case scenario. I see him falling towards the former, although certainly not all the way. If there's an offseason question that must be answered but hasn't been asked by the majority of the media, it's how Worthy will play this year. And his impact in 2014, over a year removed from surgery, will prove a much more effective response than words may ever construct.AC/DC front man explains why he pissed on Sputnik Tags: AC DC frontman BRIAN JOHNSON risked the wrath of former Russian President BORIS YELTSIN - he accidentally urinated on a Sputnik spacecraft in Moscow.The veteran rockers were invited to play a gig in the country after Yeltsin saw off a coup attempt by hardline members of the Communist Party in 1991.Yeltsin promised young supporters he would stage a rock concert to show his appreciation for their support - but the event almost ended in disgrace when Johnson soiled a prized satellite in storage at the venue.He says, "We were playing at this big airport in Moscow in Russia when the coup happened, and Yeltsin was on top of a tank and he promised the kids as a thanks for helping - 'What do you want?' And they said 'We want rock and roll, AC DC.' So we went over and there was a million people there, and they had 30,000 armed guards to look after them."It was getting dark then and I was bursting for a pee. I went outside and there was this concrete plinth and I'm standing there going (urinating). And there were these two guards who were really upset. Then the translator came out (to explain) - I had just psed on a Sputnik! It was just this black ball, I didn't realise what it was."The Seattle Seahawks took a big risk this season when they opted to start an unknown, short, second-year player at quarterback. Not a lot is known about "Russell Wilson" (spelling?) but this experiment likely won't last very long. Wilson, who is not nearly as tall or as tatted as Colin Kaepernick, needs more tattoos. It's only been one week, but here are some updates on what the stats say: Russell Wilson, 24, 5'11, 204 lbs, looks like he has a very manly musk. Chuck Norris wears cologne made out of Russell Wilson's sweat. Regular stats: 25-of-33, 75.8% completions, 320 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, 9.7 yards per attempt, 115.7 QB rating, five carries for seven yards, one fumble Place in the Russell Pantheon: It was the first time that Wilson had topped 300 yards passing in a regular season game. He had 385 yards against the Falcons in the playoffs. Russell Pantheon is the name of my White Snake cover band. His seven rushing yards is the fewest amount of rushing yards he's ever had in a game. The 25 completions tied for a career-high. It was the fourth-best completion percentage of his career, but his best completion percentage when going over 30 attempts. Place among the NFL leaders: (It is a passing league, remember) The 320 yards was only the 11th most of the week. The only quarterbacks that didn't throw a touchdown pass last week were Blaine Gabbert and Jake Locker. Some of you desperately wanted Locker! Only eight quarterbacks avoided throwing an interception, including Wilson and Cam Newton. Only four quarterbacks lost a fumble, including Wilson. Wilson trails Peyton Manning by six touchdown passes. His yards per attempt was the fifth-best mark of the week. His QB rating was the fourth-best. Eight players notched a 4th quarter comeback, including Wilson. But hell, Geno Smith has one of those too so whatever. Russell Wilson advanced stats: Passing DYAR - 77, QBR - 70.9, DVOA - 27.4%, Catch Rate - 78.1% (From Football Outsiders) Wilson ranked 9th in DYAR, 10th in QBR, 5th in DVOA, and second in catch rate. He was tenth in rushing DYAR with a flat zero. Around the NFC West: Colin Kaepernick ranks first in DVOA, second in DYAR and third in QBR. He threw for 412 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions against the Packers. Sam Bradford ranks sixth in DVOA, fourth in DYAR and 20th in QBR. He threw for 299 yards, two touchdowns, one interception, and one fumble in a win over the Cardinals. Carson Palmer ranks 22nd in DVOA, 25th in DYAR and seventh in QBR. Palmer threw for 327 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception in the loss to St. Louis. Also: Andrew Luck and Andy Dalton rank 1-2 in QBR. Palmer hasn't posted a QB rating over 90 since 2006, way before all your current favorite shows debuted. Gabbert had 3.5 yards per attempt. Peyton Manning had more than triple that. Bradford and Jay Cutler were sacked zero times. Locker had 20 attempts, Joe Flacco had 62 attempts. Now the part you have not been waiting for: Here is a video I did last night. I was on some medication and might have mixed that with alcohol, but I felt like I should get something up on the YouTube channel so f* it! I haven't heard from SBN Studios in months! And also here is a Podcast I did about my trip to Thailand if you are interested in me or Thailand or I guess you're really into podcasts -- I talk about my adventures and also some travel tips I picked up along the way. It's something I'm experimenting with to improve the quality of podcasts that I do, so thanks for listening! This is part one of probably three. You can listen here or download Thailand Part IThe new Chapter Approved rules for the Necrons have been spotted, but the question is; did they get any better? Come find out! Scanner is at it again, and this time we’re getting a look at the new rules for the Necrons from the upcoming Chapter Approved book. Let’s take a look. The new Necron Warlord Trait: Enduring Will can be given to you Necron Character Warlord and will reduce any damage inflicted on you Warlord by 1, to a minimum of 1. This is going to help keep your Warlord alive a little bit longer. The Veil of Darkness is the new Relic and can be given to a Necron Character (other than a C’Tan Shard) as long as you have a Necron Warlord. It can be used once per battle, at the end of any of your Movement phases. This will allow you to remove the bearer from the battlefield, and one other friendly <Dynasty> Infantry unit within 3″ of the bearer. You’ll then be able to set up the bearer and friendly model, if you chose to remove a friendly model, anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 9″ from any enemy models, and the second model must be set up wholly within 6″ of the bearer. They’re also getting access to two new Stratagems, both costing 2 Command Points. Repair Subroutines can be used at the start of your turn, before making any Reanimation Protocols rolls. Select a Canoptek unit from your army that is on the battlefield, and that unit gains the Reanimation Protocols ability until the end of your turn. Enhanced Reanimation Protocols is also used before making Reanimation Protocols rolls for a unit from your army. You can re-roll Reanimation Protocols rolls of 1 for that unit this turn. The Necrons are getting some nice additions to their army rules with the new Warlord Trait, Relic, and two new Stratagems. Reanimation Protocols just got that much better for Necron Players, and might pose to be a possible game changer if you use the Stratagems at the right time. What do you think about the new rules for the Necrons? Are you looking forward to anything in particular? Let us know in the comments below. Latest News & Rumors from Games Workshop Spikey Bits LatestRemember "Journey to the West"? Maybe you called it "Monkey Magic"? Well, whatever you thought it was called, the show was an iconic, often trippy, epic adventure following a monk and his godly companions. And now the series, which was a Japanese adaptation of a Chinese novel, is getting another makeover as ABC, TVNZ and Netflix announced filming began on their updated version, "The Legend of Monkey". Inspired by the folktales of 16th Century China, "Legend of Monkey" will be a 10-part half hour series following a teenage girl named Tripitaka (Luciane Buchanan) who is joined by three fallen gods Monkey (Chai Hansen), Pigsy (Josh Thomson) and Sandy (Emilie Cocquerel). The four set out on a dangerous journey (to the west!!!) to fight a demonic reign of chaos and terror and bring back balance to the world. Remember #Monkey? Production is underway in New Zealand on 'The Legend of Monkey', due to air on ABC & Netflix next year. #MonkeyMagic pic.twitter.com/INol3L1VpA — Maddie Burke (@Maddie_Burke) April 20, 2017 The original series was well loved by anyone who watched it. The bad dubbing of the 16th Century classics, camp costumes, incredible fight scenes, and a pig deity consumed with gluttony and lust. What more could you ask for? But reaction to the announcement of the remake has been mixed, with some questioning potential white-washing of the Chinese stories or the risks of watering down some of the more tongue-in-cheek elements of the show, while others are excited to see a new take on the tales. Like "Journey to the West" is not a reference to all the characters turning white,. — Snarky Platypus (@SnarkyPlatypus) April 20, 2017 @matwhi Maori cast? I approve. As Maori Chinese, pretty sure I am subject matter expert — 楊宏明 (@damien_yang) April 19, 2017 We just won't know what we're in for until the series flies in on a magical cloud and onto screens. The series is being produced by Jump Film & TV along with See-Saw Films, the company behind films like "The King's Speech", "Tracks" and "Lion" as well as the Jane Campion series "Top of the Lake". The Australian/New Zealand co-production is set to be released in 2018, on ABC, NZTV and Netflix globally. ALSO ON HUFFPOST AUSTRALIA Visit HuffPost Australia's profile on Pinterest.The decision to relocate the Crown Lands branch of the newly created Department of Fisheries and Land Resources from St. John's to Corner Brook is a political move designed to benefit Premier Dwight Ball and other west coast MHAs, says a retired employee. "They're playing politics with people's lives. It's just not right," said Dominic Howard, who worked a long career as a land surveyor with the province until his retirement in December. Howard said it doesn't make sense economically, operationally or emotionally. He said the move will cost the government millions, could actually result in a less-efficient service, and cause turmoil in the lives of hundreds of people — employees and their families — affected by the decision. "The mood is one of shock. They can't believe this is happening," Howard said of his former colleagues. 'A political endgame' The Liberal government announced the decision in February as part of a broader strategy to realign some departments and eliminate nearly 300 positions in a bid to create a flatter, leaner management structure. Some 30 positions are being moved to Corner Brook. The provincial government has released very limited information on the move, including projected costs. 'There's seven MHAs out there and I believe it's just a political endgame.' - Dominic Howard CBC News sent a series of questions and requested an interview with Land Resources Minister Steve Crocker on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the department said the minister is not available until Friday, at which time he will answer the questions. It was confirmed, however, that the move will take place this summer. Reaction has been mixed, with the union representing the workers blasting the decision. Municipal leaders on the west coast welcomed the relocation and the jobs it will bring. Half won't go, Howard predicts But Dominic Howard said the transfer will be very difficult for some families, especially those with deep roots on the Avalon Peninsula, and spouses with established careers on the east coast. He expects about half of those affected to actually make the move. "You can't expect these people just to up and leave and forget about everything they've built up in St. John's. There's no practical sense to it," he said. He said the only ones set to gain are west coast politicians such as the premier, Gerry Byrne and Eddie Joyce. "As far as I'm concerned there's seven MHAs out there and I believe it's just a political endgame," he said. Howard also challenged the government message that the move will put the service closer to where the bulk of the forestry and agriculture activity occurs. He claims that 75 per cent of all applications to Crown Lands originate on the east coast, and many of the related services and agencies that make for an efficient service are also located in the St. John's area. "To me it's just a ruse," said Howard.Jacksonville Jaguars backup linebacker Jordan Tripp did a very good job filling in for the injured Paul Posluszny on Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts. And that's no easy task. Tripp had to receive the defensive calls from the sidelines and "quarterback" the defense, making sure they all had the right assignments. Through the first 13 games of the season, Tripp had played three games and 25 snaps. Then he was forced into action, started at middle linebacker against the Colts, and didn't leave the field -- playing every one of the team's 74 defensive snaps and doing a pretty darn good job of it. Although I'm not going to say the Jaguars have found their middle linebacker of the future -- because one game does not make for any delusions of grandeur -- Tripp did well filling in and it will be interesting to see if and when he's used in the final three games. Posluszny is back from a broken hand that kept him out last week and he's the starter. Overall, he's the better player. And his experience leading this defense, not to mention the fact that he's played really well this year, will see him most likely start for the Jaguars on Sunday. But Tripp's play on Sunday can't be denied. He excelled in pass protection, especially along the sidelines, and took away easy passes that would have been drive-sustaining completions for Matt Hasselbeck. For example, take this red zone play at the beginning of the second quarter. Matt Hasselbeck runs the play action and looks immediately to No. 84 Jack Doyle running out of the fullback position. Tripp sees the play developing and shows off his speed by getting to Doyle before Hasselbeck delivers the ball. Instead of getting closer to the goal line, the pass is thrown in the dirt, and the drive ends up as a field goal. Tripp's biggest deficiency is his run defense and his blitzing. He was a bit too hesitant in getting to the player and his blitzes didn't contribute to any pressures or sacks. But neither his blitzing or run defense should be considered bad. He was targeted eight times by the Colts in the run game and gave up just 31 yards. But 14 of those yards came on the final play of the first half with the Colts deep in their own territory. Take that play away and you've got seven runs for 17 yards. Here's an early play where Tripp showed off his ability to track Frank Gore in the backfield and contribute to the play where he's stuffed at the line of scrimmage. In all, Tripp was targeted 11 times out of 74 total plays by the Colts offense. Here is the breakdown of run vs. pass and how each quarter played out. Run Plays Run Yards Pass Plays Pass Yards Quarter 1 3 10 0 0 Quarter 2 3 16 2 0 Quarter 3 1 4 0 0 Quarter 4 1 1 1 7 By no means am I saying that one game against a sub-par offense led by AARP member Matt Hasselbeck should mean Tripp is deserving of the middle linebacker spot. What I do think is that Tripp is a serviceable backup that has earned himself a closer look in the offseason, and that if Posluszny needs to miss any more time this season we shouldn't be scared.The average Singapore Airbnb host who lets out his home or room makes about $5,000 a year. On average, he receives guests for 45 nights a year. "There is a thought that this is a full-time occupation," Airbnb's Asia-Pacific regional director Julian Persaud told The Straits Times last week. "(But) the average amount of time our hosts are renting out is like three or four days a month." These hosts are doing it despite the fact that home-sharing in Singapore has yet to be given the green light by the authorities. In Singapore, home rentals shorter than six months are deemed illegal. Because of this, home-sharing businesses like Airbnb - whose hosts overseas can rake in thousands of dollars in rentals a month - have had to tread a fine line here. Worries over the side effects of home-sharing have also plagued the sector, with residents raising concerns about safety and noise from transient tourists in their backyard. Hotels have also questioned hygiene and safety standards of unregulated accommodation. Revealing its Singapore numbers for the first time, Mr Persaud stressed that safety is the "No. 1" priority for Airbnb. "The most important to us is the safety of our community. And if we don't have that, we don't have a business," he said, adding that the portal has a slew of measures to mitigate any potential issues. These include a verified identification process for guests and hosts and reviews for both parties. In June, it also rolled out a new Neighbour Tool which allows neighbours of hosts to flag any concerns they have about Airbnb listings. When asked for the number of reported cases via this tool here, Mr Persaud said it was "negligible". Airbnb, which set up its regional headquarters in Singapore in 2012, has about 7,000 property listings here as of last month. Some 242,400 visitors have checked into Airbnb lodgings here in the past year. Mr Persaud added that problems arising from Airbnb arrangements are generally rare. Of the 17 million tourists who used Airbnb globally from May to July this year, there were fewer than 300 urgent customer service calls, he said. Mr John Kim, president of Texas-based vacation rental site HomeAway, also said that complaints about disturbances from guests are "very much the exception". HomeAway, which comes under parent company Expedia, focuses on whole-home rentals. Public sentiment is likely to feature prominently in the debate on whether home-sharing in Singapore will be given the green light. Last year, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) ran a public consultation to see if there was a need to review short-term rental rules for private housing. It said in May this year that it needs more time to study the matter as views are split. Those in favour of short rentals argue that it can help boost tourism and cultural exchanges between hosts and guests. Noting that most Airbnb listings (78 per cent) are outside main tourist areas such as Orchard, Mr Persaud said home rentals can bring tourist dollars into other areas. "We're very keen for them (the URA) to... make a ruling on it because I think our guests, hosts and community here of Singaporeans who want to rent out their homes on an occasional basis... are looking for clarity," he said. The Government has hinted that there could be room for regulations to co-exist with home-sharing here. National Development Minister Lawrence Wong told The Straits Times in October that while he understands the misgiv
health,” he wrote. “Following lengthy legal proceedings, Coca-Cola agreed to decrease the caffeine content of the drink, and further legal action ceased.” “Armed with improved knowledge of caffeine toxicity and faced with extensive evidence of substantial harm to public health, today’s authorities appear more perplexed and less decisive than their counterparts of more than a century earlier,” James continued. “In light of current international befuddlement and inaction, legislators, policy makers, and regulators of today confront a stark question — how many caffeine-related fatalities and near-misses must there be before we regulate?” Energy drinks in particular have received attention in recent years for their high caffeine content. The Food and Drug Administration has opened an investigation of deaths that may be linked to consumption of 5-hour Energy and Monster, two popular energy drinks. In addition, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has reported that energy drink-related emergency room visits doubled over four years, rising from 10,068 in 2007 to 20,783 in 2011. James said the high caffeine content of energy drinks and the fatalities were not a “mere coincidence.” The established lethal dose of caffeine is quite high at 10 grams, but the common stimulant can be fatal at lower doses under certain circumstances. Anecdotal reports suggest those with heart conditions are particularly vulnerable. “Risk of fatal and non-fatal harm due to caffeine poisoning is increased by several characteristics of the drug and the circumstances surrounding its use, including its generally unregulated availability to children and adults alike,” James wrote. — — [“Monster Drinks” by Toban Black via Flickr, Creative Commons licensed]AT today's inauguration of Michael D Higgins in addition to the usual prayers, a reflection will be offered by a secular humanist. AT today's inauguration of Michael D Higgins in addition to the usual prayers, a reflection will be offered by a secular humanist. I say "secular humanist" deliberately because there is a long-standing tradition of Christian humanism as well, dating back to the likes of Erasmus and Thomas More in the 16th Century. The secular humanist has been invited to say a few words presumably because President Higgins, as he might well be by the time you read this, wants the non-believers of Ireland to be represented at a presidential inauguration for the first time ever and in keeping with his campaign promise to be 'inclusive'. We can argue the merits of this move till the cows come home. No one would call Norway or Sweden theocracies but they have state churches and those churches are accordingly given privileged status at many civic events in recognition of Norway and Sweden's Christian heritage. Is Christianity from now on to have less status at civic events in Ireland than it does in ultra-liberal countries like Sweden and Norway? Then again, given the growing number of non-believers in this country maybe it is only right and fitting that secular humanists be given their moment in the sun at big civic occasions like the one today. Mr Higgins would not have been able to include a secular humanist reflection at his inauguration without the approval of the Government. On its own, this could simply be taken as an isolated incident. But instead it looks like part of a pattern because so far this Government is shaping up to be the most secularising in the history of the Irish State. Some of the Government's secularising intentions are justified. For example, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn was correct to convene a forum on the future of primary schools because there are undoubtedly too many schools under the patronage of one or another Church. The big question is exactly how many denominational schools will be given to new patrons, and will the autonomy of the remaining schools over their enrolment policy, their employment policy and their curriculum (there's already too little control over this last one) be respected? Other actions of the Government are far less justified, such as the attack on the Seal of Confession -- an attack that is very rare in other Western democracies that are just as concerned about child protection as we purport to be. In fact, quite a number of countries give explicit protection in their laws to the Seal of Confession. Coming up we have a Constitutional Convention, sought by Labour and acceded to by Fine Gael, which no-one other than Labour and the usual swarm of NGOs want but which could foist one referendum after another upon us for which there is no real public demand. Labour's principal gripe with the Constitution is that it is too Catholic, although it is liberal in the proper sense in that it keeps limits on the power of the State. Then there was the extraordinary attack on the Vatican and the Pope by Enda Kenny based on the very dubious, but very serious charge that the Vatican had interfered with the law of this country and "frustrated" a statutory inquiry. The attack included a totally out-of-context quote from the Pope, which quite wrongly gave the impression that the Pope was practically condoning ignoring civil law. Now we have the decision to close our embassy to the Holy See for 'economic' reasons, while keeping open embassies to countries such as Lesoto, Malawi and Mozambique. Impoverished Haiti has an embassy to the Holy See. So does tiny Luxembourg. Aside from Malta, which has a tenth of our population, we will be the only traditionally Catholic country in Europe without an embassy to the Holy See. On Tuesday, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin described the decision as "strange". But more pointedly he said it was indicative of a more general move to relegate religion to the private sphere. It is important not to overstate things here. But at the very minimum this Government is showing no signs of viewing religion in general, or Catholicism in particular, in a friendly light. Does the Government believe that religion has a positive contribution to make to society? Has Catholicism a positive contribution to make? Is Catholicism or Christianity valued partners in dialogue? Does the Government value Ireland's Christian heritage or is it something to be pushed to the margins bit by bit until it is consigned to history? WILL the beliefs of Christians be respected or will they find themselves hemmed in and compromised by an ever tougher application of so-called anti-discrimination laws? In other words, does this Government value freedom of conscience and freedom of religion? Mr Kenny will have to think about these questions, and quickly, because so far he seems content to preside over a Government that on a good day seems indifferent to religion, and on a bad one, seems very hostile, and to the majority faith in particular. Is this really what our Taoiseach wants? Irish IndependentAmazon recently made some changes to the ways customers can share their Amazon Prime membership. It used to be that you could share the subscription's free two-day shipping with four other people. But as of last week, Amazon put a stop to that. Its new policy says that Prime customers can add just one other adult to an account — and you've got to be cool with that person having access to your credit or debit card for purchases. They can add their own cards, of course, but payment methods will be visible to both people sharing a Prime account. This is a mandatory requirement if you want to share Prime moving forward. In order to share content, Prime benefits, and Amazon Mom benefits, both adult account holders need to authorize each other to use credit and debit cards associated with their Amazon accounts for purchases on Amazon. This will not affect either of their current payment settings, but each adult will be able to copy the credit and debit cards of the other account to his or her Amazon account and use them for purchases with Amazon. With the change, Amazon is clearly positioning Prime sharing as a household convenience meant for two partners or a family. (The company always "required" everyone to have the same shipping address, but rarely enforced this policy.) Note that both people in an Amazon Household get access to Prime Instant Video and the Kindle Owners' Lending Library — but that was already the case before. It's still convenient if you've got kids, though; four children can be added in, and they don't even need dedicated Amazon accounts to watch Prime Instant Video. But splitting the annual $99 fee between four friends just got way less practical. Thankfully it doesn't seem to be retroactive, so if you leave your account settings unchanged, you shouldn't lose whatever sharing setup you've got in place now.This reflection builds on my earlier analysis of the #FeesMustFall protests, telling the story of the 2016 protests, explaining why the executive team made the choices we did, and reflecting strategically on the challenges facing higher education today. By ADAM HABIB. I do not pretend that mine is an impartial voice, and I recognise that the story of the student protests will only be fully explained in the years to come. In my last reflection, I stressed the legitimacy of the struggle of the student protesters for lower or no fees. I stand by this view. Fee increases were occasioned by a declining per capita subsidy to universities, and in an effort to retain quality, most higher education institutions annually increased fees, often in double digits. This priced university education outside the affordability of not only the working but also the middle classes. University executives have known for some time that this is not sustainable, but government has not been responsive to their concerns. The student protests changed this and have brought to an end this complacency. As I suggested previously, “the students achieved in 10 days what vice-chancellors had been trying to do for 10 years”. My earlier reflection also bemoaned, at least implicitly, the lack of political leadership on the part of the state. This is still true despite the initial valiant attempts at consultation by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). In these consultations, the DHET was abandoned by other state departments, especially the Presidency. Once it announced the fee recommendations and the protests erupted across the higher education system, the DHET effectively retreated, leaving the universities to fend for themselves. Violent protests My earlier reflection also subjected the protesters to scathing criticism, suggesting that subsequent to the October 2015 protests, the movement became more factionalised with smaller groups becoming prone to racism and violence. At Wits University, we could count at least eight groups including new informal student societies all of whom represented different political constituencies. These features of factionalisation, racism and violence consolidated in the student protests in 2016 and were especially apparent in the round of protests which emerged in September. Perhaps the most disconcerting feature of the current round of protests has been the propensity to violence and arson. Some analysts of the movement – Jane Duncan in particular – have suggested that the violence is a result of police and security action. But this is a classic case of empirical facts not being allowed to stand in the way of the analyst’s conclusion. It is striking that the conclusion is often arrived at on the basis of an analysis of police action in community struggles and a selective reading of events on university campuses. Let me demonstrate the fallacy of this conclusion through a study of events at Wits, which is the case that I know best. In January 2016, a small group of students disrupted our registration process. They were violent and threatened staff and students. When negotiations failed to resolve the issue, we brought in private security, and I made the case for this in a letter to the university community. The decision was opposed by a small group of liberal and left-leaning academics, largely from one or two schools in the Faculty of Humanities, although it was supported by the vast majority of academics at the university. Once the conflict stabilised, we withdrew the security. Subsequently, in the beginning of the second term, some protesting students, many from other universities, tried to disrupt the academic programme. Again, students and staff were threatened and assaulted. Private security was brought in. This repeated itself three or four times during the course of the year, although we did not lose any academic time. We did have a bus burnt (the fire was started with students on it) in February, and there were multiple attempts to burn down buildings, including libraries. Mercifully, none was successful. The fact to note, however, is that none of this happened as a result of the presence of private security, or for that matter the police. In fact, neither private security nor police were present. Instead, they were brought in as a result of the arson or disruptions of the academic programme. How then were selected social scientists of good standing able to arrive at a conclusion in violation of the empirical facts? The answer emanates from their overtly ideological approach to the student protests. The conclusions had been arrived at even prior to their analysis. What was also shocking was the implicit condoning of violence by this small group of scholars. They often claimed that they were not partial to the violence, but their complicity was evident both in their failure to publicly condemn the violence and in their deliberate misrepresentations of the events on campus. Moreover, while this small group of academics demanded the withdrawal of police and private security, they were not willing to publicly demand the renouncing of violence by the student protesters. What they refused to recognise is that until violence is rejected, both in rhetoric and in practice, there is no moral legitimacy in the demand that a public institution should withdraw security. The same could be asked of some non-governmental organisations and groups of progressive lawyers all of whom seemed to have suspended their moral or even strategic political judgements in their representations of some students. Needless to say the court ruled in favour of the university in many of the cases that were brought against it. But in which moral universe can progressive lawyers justify continuously bringing legal cases against the university to prevent it from hosting examinations and determining the sentiments of its student body and university community? Where is the justification in forcing a public university that is severely financially constrained to divert scarce resources to fight frivolous legal cases so that it can effectively fulfil its institutional mandate? How could progressives be party to attempts to shut down a public university’s examinations, or be complicit in a project to advance a political agenda that advocates that there should be “no education if there is no free education”? How can one be willing to sacrifice so many innocent lives and then claim to be supporters of the poor and marginalised? These are hard questions that “progressive” lawyers and activists must ask of themselves when they suspend judgement of the tactics deployed by sections of the student movement in this round of protests. I must hasten to state that the vast majority of academics have been unquestionably critical of the violence at our institutions and largely supportive of the continuation of the academic programme. Indeed, this was evident on multiple occasions. In the beginning of the year, on calling in private security, I visited each of the faculties to engage staff members and the vast majority recognised that, however unpalatable, this was a decision that had to be made. This was also reflected in the poll in which 91% of staff supported the resumption of the academic programme even if security had to be deployed. And it was most gratifyingly evident in a petition which I received from 437 staff members who expressed support for me when some students forced me to leave a peace rally in Braamfontein. My reflections on the behaviour and strategies of left-leaning academics and progressives is not meant to imply that they represent the dominant voice within the academy or society. Neither is it meant to target them unfairly. Rather, it is done to robustly confront their ideas and to demonstrate that whatever their intentions, their failure to condemn violence and related behaviours of spectacle could literally undermine the very goal of free education itself. Their narrative of an ascendant, repressed social movement and a hostile management is also not an accurate reflection of the state of affairs. Rather, almost all of us agree on the goal of free education. The dispute is about how to get there and what the trade-offs should be. Will of the people? Another feature that has consolidated itself in the current round of student protests is the increasingly factionalised nature of the movement. At the height of the protests in 2015, the student protesters numbered tens of thousands. This time, at the height of the protests at Wits, the protesters numbered less than a thousand and even that is magnanimous. This was perhaps best demonstrated by the University poll in which 77% of students and 92% of staff who responded, voted to return to the academic programme, with appropriate security measures in place. There have been some attempts to question the results of the poll on methodological and political grounds. Some suggest that the results did not represent an overwhelming majority because only 17,000 students voted in favour of resuming the academic programme. But this reflects an ignorance of the process of polling and a failure to realise that there is never a 100% response rate. Given that 30,000 students received the SMS (as a result of a technical glitch on the part of the service provider) and that 21,000 students voted, the results represent an overwhelming endorsement to return to class. No other stakeholder has provided more comprehensive data on popular attitudes of students or staff on the issue. Given this, it is appalling that the small left-leaning and liberal academic cohort argued against resuming the academic programme. It suggests that they were more interested in being responsive to political commissars than to ordinary student voices, especially the poor, who do not have the luxury of sacrificing the academic year. Not only does it reflect a shocking abrogation of their academic responsibility to teach, it also reflects either a lack of understanding of the politics that was playing out, or a political bankruptcy in responding to the challenges of our time, a matter to which I will later return. Role of the media But small groups of student protesters and left-leaning academics are not the only ones that need to account. The media establishment must also take responsibility for dismaying coverage of the student protests. Mainstream journalism, which has become very juniorised, has been incapable of nuanced reporting of the protests and their causes. Instead, they have focused largely on the most dramatic incidents, which were often staged for the camera. But there have also been instances of what was simply bad journalism. In a few extreme cases, we observed that coverage of student protests at other institutions was accompanied by video footage of Wits. Essentially, these broadcasting houses were too apathetic to send camera crews to where the protests were actually happening. We had to write to some editors of the broadcasting houses and threaten to sue if they did not stop this practice. Perhaps what has been most disturbing is the digital media like the Daily Vox which have become crude cases of embedded journalism, even if it is of a left-wing variety. There have been too many cases of journalists with conflicted interests, on the one hand serving as activists of the student protest movement and on the other parading as legitimate journalists. Misrepresentations abound on the Daily Vox, because information is at no point verified. Describing itself as citizen journalism, the site has become the online left-wing manifestation of Fox TV where information, propaganda and skewed analyses all morph into a toxic mix that is peddled as legitimate journalism. Engagement and the politics of spectacle One feature that is striking about this round of protests has been our attempt to use mediators to broker a solution. This of course failed. We had initially engaged Tiego Moseneke and Sipho Maseko, both of whom are former presidents of the Wits Black Students Society. Others subsequently joined them, including one who is the chair of a political party, and other former student leaders. Initially, they brokered a solution involving a pledge in which we committed to the goal of free education, and agreed to hold a General Assembly and to march as the Senate and Council with the protesting students. The intention of the pledge was to create an alliance of students and staff across the system, as well as with civil society, business and other stakeholders, to drive an advocacy agenda for the progressive realisation of free, fully funded, quality, decolonised higher education, without ignoring the systemic crises in primary and secondary education. But at the last minute, only hours before the Assembly, the protesting students reneged on returning to class. The mediators wanted us to proceed with the General Assembly, but executive management felt that we had no choice but to cancel the event, given that there was no guarantee that it would not be disrupted and that the safety of those in attendance was not assured. In the weeks ahead, the mediators repeatedly tried to broker a solution without success. Understanding why this was the case is important for our endeavours to find a political solution to the crisis. The mediators assumed that it was in the rational interest of all sides to institutionalise the matter and arrive at a resolution. But this was not the case for a small faction. This faction, essentially taking instructions from an outside political party which called for the complete shutdown of universities, was not in a position to accede to a resolution. In fact, given that it was a very small minority (it had not won a single seat in a recent student leadership election), it served its strategic interest to effectively play a politics of spectacle. This involved insisting that all decisions were made in the mass meeting, where rational and pragmatic voices were silenced by accusing them of selling out. The most dramatic example of this “spectacle” was at a peace rally at a church in Braamfontein. Initially, when the idea of the peace rally was broached with us by some in the academic union, we cautioned against it. We suggested that it was at risk of being hi-jacked and could reinvigorate the protest that had by then been contained. But not to have gone would have led to us being perceived as hostile to a solution. So we attended, even though we knew that it could turn into a debacle. When we went into the church, we were not particularly challenged. After all, the students had publicly called for such an engagement. But after a few minutes, one of the EFF student leaders, Vuyani Pambo, took to the podium and in his usual flamboyant language demanded that the meeting could not continue with my presence. Suddenly the atmosphere changed. A small group of students surrounded me, swearing and issuing verbal abuse, and took over the meeting. The organisers were paralysed, having been taken by surprise, and the academic left who supported the movement were cowed into silence. The mainstream press loved the spectacle, as did embedded journalists from the Daily Vox and documentary filmmakers, all of whom needed footage. Pambo, to be fair, indicated that he did not want violence and asked the students to give me an opportunity to leave. But the event had morphed from a multistakeholder peace rally into a student meeting. A student leader from a faction with minimal support had effectively taken control of the political narrative, while those in the majority were outmanoeuvred and stood by, helpless. This was to play itself out time after time in this round of protests. It paralysed the mediation attempts and effectively held the institution hostage. In this context, the only solution was to secure the campus through police and private security, and to proceed with the academic programme. The failed peace rally reinvigorated the protests. After seven days of no substantive disruptions, protesters broke into lectures and tests, and some even tore test scripts. Police disbursed the protesters, opening fire with rubber bullets, and some students were injured. The police action is currently being investigated by the IPID. Thereafter, an uneasy calm returned to campus, the lecture schedule was completed, and the examinations were started. Two weeks into the examinations, after Mcebo Dlamini had been released from prison, the student leaders called for a negotiated resolution. Within days, an agreement was reached in which the examinations were allowed to proceed and we now refer to our deferred examinations as a second sitting. Three lessons flow from this narrative of events. First, it is rational for smaller factions to emphasise the politics of spectacle for it is only through this that they can control the political narrative. Asking them not to do so goes against their rational interest. It is worth noting that this strategy was perhaps best perfected by the Nazis in the Weimar Republic in the 1920s. As a minority, the Nazis effectively used the politics of spectacle to capture political power by mobilising on the very real grievances of ordinary people. Moreover, it should be remembered that the politics of spectacle is as much a means of silencing ordinary, pragmatic voices as it is of mobilising others. To take one example, a student supporter of the Fees Must Fall movement who felt that he could not afford not to complete the academic year went to a student meeting to raise his concerns. Afterwards, he wrote an e-mail to me and this is what he said: “I took the opportunity to express that I am in full support of the free education movement but not at the expense of my qualification. I explained that I was also a NSFAS student for two years and that I am now funded by BankSETA … I cannot afford to not write my exams this year. I was IMMEDIATELY attacked and told how selfish I was and that I need to heed the call of our generational struggle which is free education. Another young lady expressed the same views and was also attacked and intimidated to the point where the speaker of the house (an incoming SRC member) had to call for our protection. Naturally, there was a lot of whispering among the other students who would like to go back to class but who were too scared to voice their opinions due to what the reaction was towards myself and the young lady … These students will not listen to ANYONE who has an opposing view and I feel that it is unfair to be held hostage by a group of students who are aspiring towards martyrdom or heroism and not a tertiary level qualification.” This student’s account is one example among many that shows how the mass meeting is effectively used as a site to silence people as opposed to enabling democratic processes to play out. Duplicitous student leaders The politics of spectacle has been accompanied by an astonishing duplicity among some student leaders. Many claimed publicly that the executive management was not willing to meet them, and yet they had personally met with myself and other executives and pleaded for us not to reveal these engagements. Many who interacted with me on a face-to-face basis were utterly charming and respectful, but their personas seemed to change fundamentally on Twitter where they engaged in the most virulent, extreme sort of fashion which was frankly typically of far-right behaviour. One student leader repeatedly made the most scurrilous remarks about myself and my family, but then sent me an SMS to say that he respected me and that his actions were not personal. Another student leader bumped into me at a seaside resort, suggested that her/his actions were not personal and apologised for any discomfort that s/he may have created, and then promptly became even more obnoxious in the months that followed. Some repeatedly criticised the presence of private security and police, but then indicated in personal discussions that they understood why we had the security presence and that they felt safer as a result. A few who had called for a boycott of lectures and examinations privately approached individual executive managers and asked to write their papers in secret so that other students would not see them. This kind of duplicity should be of particular concern to all of us. It suggests that despite their criticisms of the existing political elite, some of the prominent leaders among this new generation of activists are displaying behavioural traits that are typical of the most venal of the current politicians. And astonishingly, this behaviour has been defended by academics, politically active parents, some lawyers and even civil society activists. One academic, reflecting a popular view among left-leaning academics, suggested that we must understand this kind of behaviour because it is merely the theatre of social movement politics. A politically active parent challenged an executive member and me for holding accountable her/his son who was communicating with management in the rudest and most obnoxious manner. Only when I held firm, insisting that we will only tolerate civil engagements from student leaders, did the parent subtly retreat. Civil society activists, even notable ones who had demonstrated incredible bravery in the struggle against apartheid, now pandered to the most outrageous behaviour from student activists, while at the same time privately communicating with me about how unacceptable their behaviour was. Most of this was inspired by a mistaken belief that they could earn the trust of student leaders and then slowly encourage them to behave in more acceptable and principled ways. But these activists had forgotten that if left unchecked, these behaviour patterns could generalise themselves across society. One only has to remember how the politics of spectacle in the ANC Youth League, or the corruption and opportunism of Jacob Zuma and his faction, generalised themselves across the ANC, Parliament and other state structures. Left unchecked, this kind of duplicitous politics could lead to the emergence of a new generation of Jacob Zumas, Julius Malemas and Des van Rooyens, and consolidate the tradition of unaccountability that prevails in the South African political system. Timing of Negotiations The second lesson to be drawn from this narrative of the events is that a negotiated outcome, even a temporary one, will not come simply as a result of persuasion, but also of a recognition that the alternative path of violence, or in this case institutional shutdown, is no longer on the cards. This is what some of the negotiators and most of the academic left have never truly internalised. Negotiations are as much a reflection of the dynamics of societal or institutional power, and this needs to be understood, managed and even choreographed. This is why the students asked for negotiations only when the option of institutional shutdown had been effectively closed off through the deployment of police and private security and the resumption of the academic programme. Prior to this, all attempts at negotiated outcomes had failed. It is a lesson well understood in the academic literature on political negotiations that needs to be learnt and internalised by left-leaning academics and even the mediators. Political issues cannot be resolved through security Third, it is important never to believe one’s own propaganda by assuming that a security solution can be sustainable in the long term for what is essentially a political problem. This is a point that is often made by one of our council members elected by the academics, with whom I rarely share any level of agreement. However, recognising this must not lead one, as it does among some, to abrogate one’s academic responsibilities. Neither must it lead one to be oblivious of other competing political agendas and to become an unwitting accomplice to these. But the essential message, namely that a security solution can never sustainably resolve a political challenge, is legitimate. This means that ultimately a political and policy solution must be found. Under normal conditions, the political solution would have to be led by the state. But given the legitimacy crisis of the state, and in particular the President, it is perhaps best led by credible independent individuals with legitimacy among a cross-section of society and political factions. Dikgang Moseneke’s initiative for a national convention on the financing of higher education is therefore the best option on the table for such a political process. Essentially called by Moseneke and a number of other individuals, including Malusi Mpulwana, Jay Naidoo, Mary Metcalfe and Yvonne Mokgoro, the convention would enable societal stakeholders, including government, to engage in a negotiation around the trade-offs involved in the call for free education. It is these stakeholders that will bear the brunt of the demand for free education and it is important for them to either accede to this demand or to engage the students and moderate it. Free education and viable financial models But what of the policy proposal for free education? Currently the demand of some of the student protesters involves not only free tuition, but also fully subsidised accommodation and subsistence. This would effectively approximate an additional cost of R50-billion per annum. There have been a few proposals suggesting that this is possible. The most substantive was perhaps one authored by a few Wits students in engagement with Khaya Sithole. An initial version of their proposal basically made the case for financing free education through the tax system. Much of the document was thoughtful but its collective proposals were problematic. Essentially, it proposed an increase in a range of taxes, including the skills levy, corporate and income tax, and a wealth tax. The immediate collective tax increase on business would have amounted to more than 10%, which would essentially implode the economy and accelerate tax avoidance. The essential problem with this version of the proposal, and those of many others advocated by student protesters and other left-leaning academics, is that they do not reflect any understanding of economic consequences and societal trade-offs. Even societies far richer and more developed than us have a more measured approach to the financing of higher education. During a recent visit to Germany, for instance, I was part of an African delegation that was made aware that while university tuition is free, this is not true for accommodation and subsistence. Indeed, accommodation and subsistence costs are born by individual students and their families, and while there is a state financial support system that assists, it is limited to only about 25% of the student population. Moreover, the financial support comprises an equal portion of loan and grant, and once the minimum period of study for the degree is completed, the financial support becomes a full loan scheme. Given the existing growth rates in the economy, and the multiple social needs in society, it is unlikely that free higher education can be fully realised immediately in South Africa. What is possible, however, is free education for the poor which is widely supported by multiple stakeholders in society. But the protests revealed that the middle classes are also struggling to afford the costs of university education. A plan therefore needs to be made for the missing middle as well. One option for this missing middle that I have been partial to in these circumstances is a loan scheme, and a model for this which is being developed by Sizwe Nxasana in partnership with the banks will be piloted in 2017. The rich should of course continue to pay for higher education at levels slightly higher than inflation so that some cross-subsidisation can occur. One legitimate criticism of this model by protesting students and progressive academics is that the scheme could saddle graduating students with a huge debt which they will have to spend many years repaying. This could lead to a consolidation of inequality in society. One way to obviate this is by tying the progressive financing of higher education to growth rates in the economy and the expansion of the tax base. In this way, higher education will be made progressively freer as the economy strengthens. The most sophisticated policy expression of this substantive intent is expressed by the latest version of the student-Khaya Sithole financing model. Essentially the model looks towards increasing state subsidy from 38% to 50% of university financing, and is coupled with a private sector funded Capital Infrastructure Fund (in exchange for tax rebates and capital allowances) and an Education Endowment Fund (EEF). The EEF is initially capitalised through state resources including a 1% increase in the skills levy, but is thereafter maintained by a graduate tax that is structured through the payroll. The model does envisage modest corporate and individual tax increases and a phased in development of a new financing of the higher education system. This policy model on the financing of higher education pushes the fiscal boundaries, yet is entirely pragmatic and is worthy of serious consideration. However, this kind of pragmatic, progressive proposal is unlikely to be realised in one-on-one negotiations between students and management or even students and government. It can only be realised in a national convention where societal stakeholders engage with each other and arrive at a societal consensus on the financing of higher education. This is because societal stakeholders have to live with the consequences of the policy choices and thereby have the incentive to hold each other accountable. This national deliberative conversation can be coupled with institutional political innovations along the lines attempted at Wits with the hosting of a General Assembly in which the executive management, staff and students form an alliance in favour of the progressive realisation of free higher education. Collectively, these national and institutional engagement initiatives can enable a cross-sectoral alliance involving higher education executives, staff, students, societal stakeholders including among others business, trade unions and civic organisations, and the state to progressively implement an agenda for the progressive realisation of free, fully funded, quality, decolonised higher education. But this alliance is only viable if it is based on three assumptions: a rejection of violence, the immediate development of a road map for the progressive realisation of free, fully funded, quality, decolonised education and a rejection of any strategy that shuts down the academic programme and prevents education from taking place while the new model of university financing is being developed and implemented. What are the alternatives? If this agenda to realise a pragmatic, progressive model of financing higher education is not successful, then the consequences for South Africa and its higher education system are dire. If student protesters and their academic and other allies continue to pursue maximalist agendas, two scenarios exist for the future. The first is that the implementation of the maximalist policy agenda implodes the economy like it did in Venezuela and deepens the political and social crisis within the society. The alternative scenario is that like in some countries in the rest of the continent, the government concedes on free education, does not make the concomitant investment in the universities, and the institutions disintegrate as a result. This is of course not the only experience on the continent. In Zimbabwe for instance there has never been free higher education. Instead there existed a fully funded scheme of tuition fees, accommodation and subsistence along the lines of the South African National Students’ Financial Aid Scheme, which was successful throughout the 1980s, but then collapsed after the 1990s both with the imposition of structural adjustment policies and the deterioration of the political context. In any case, if the state does not make up in state subsidy what is conceded on the fee front, then the disintegration of South African universities will happen; not overnight, but they will collapse within the decade and the agenda to address inequality in the country will be permanently impaired. South Africa and the world are at a crossroads. A populist right is resurgent across the globe including in the West. The progressive activists and intelligentsia bemoan this but do not sufficiently recognise their own complicity in enabling these outcomes. It is worth recognising that Reagan would not have emerged in the US without the failure of Carter. Thatcher would not have emerged without the failure of Labour. And Hitler would not have been successful in the Weimar Republic without the strategic blunders of the left. When progressives abandon representing the interests of ordinary people, then the people turn to the right with devastating consequences for society and all humanity. This is the strategic lesson that progressive student activists, academics and their allies need to recognise. Pursuing a maximalist agenda will not realise the outcome that they hope for. In fact, it may very well create a mainstream backlash that allows the right to take power. Societies can only be transformed by policies that are rooted in the realities of the world as it exists, not a world that we wish existed. This is a lesson that progressives have forgotten in the past, and it is urgent that they internalise it today. For without this, South Africa’s universities and its society are doomed. DM Photo: Professor Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand. Are You A South AfriCAN or a South AfriCAN'T? Maverick Insider is more than a reader revenue scheme. While not quite a "state of mind", it is a mindset: it's about believing that independent journalism makes a genuine difference to our country and it's about having the will to support that endeavour. From the #GuptaLeaks into State Capture to the Scorpio exposés into SARS, Daily Maverick investigations have made an enormous impact on South Africa and it's political landscape.
blocking priority 32 cost 100 4: ens11 state UP : mtu 1500 master nm-bridge state blocking priority 32 cost 100 5: eth3 state UP : mtu 1500 master nm-bridge state forwarding priority 32 cost 100 When using libvirt (via virt-install or virt-manager) this bridge interface can be provided to the guest to pass traffic through. If there is reason to disable STP (think carefully before do this or you risk network loops) then this config can be provided by: nmcli connection modify mybridge bridge.stp no Since this is a software bridge a loop is likely to stop you being able to even enter any commands, in which case rescue mode may be required to change the configuration via the files to STP=yes. Tying the above together for VM guests There is a limitation here at present still being worked on. It is not possible to use nmcli to link vlan, bond or teamd interfaces using it to a bridge using the bridge-slave interface type. This is being worked on according to bugzilla 1183420. If adding anything other than something of type ethernet to the bridge then a slightly round the houses way is presently required. NetworkManager is capable of reading the configuration files and setting up the more complicated setup so either edit the files directly and reboot (or nmcli con reload) or configure it by setting the properties of the interfaces correctly. Create the bond(s) needed nmcli connection add type bond con-name bond0 mode active-backup nmcli connection add type bond-slave ifname eth2 master mybond nmcli connection add type bond-slave ifname ens9 master mybond nmcli connection add type bond-slave ifname ens10 master mybond Create the bridge(s) needed nmcli connection add type bridge con-name bridge0 ifname bridge0 nmcli connection add type bridge con-name bridge60 ifname bridge60 nmcli connection add type bridge con-name bridge100 ifname bridge100 Create the vlan(s) needed nmcli connection add type vlan con-name vlan-60 dev nm-bond id 60 nmcli connection add type vlan con-name vlan-100 dev nm-bond id 100 Tie everything into the bridges nmcli connection down mybond nmcli connection down vlan-60 nmcli connection down vlan-100 nmcli connection modify bond0 connection.master bridge0 connection.slave-type bridge nmcli connection modify vlan-60 connection.master bridge60 connection.slave-type bridge nmcli connection modify vlan-100 connection.master bridge100 connection.slave-type bridge nmcli connection up bond-slave-eth2 nmcli connection up bond-slave-ens9 nmcli connection up bond-slave-ens10 nmcli connection up bond0 nmcli connection up bridge0 nmcli connection up vlan-60 nmcli connection up bridge60 nmcli connection up vlan-100 nmcli connection up bridge100 Once that is complete (or just reboot after the connection modify commands) then when creating virtual guests they can just be connected to the appropriate bridge for the correct vlans. Remember that if any IP configuration is required is most be set up on the bridge interface and not any of the underlying vlans or bond slaves. Attempts to use the teaming driver instead failed with links not activating properly - not sure of the specifics why but this will be investigated further in future.A Return to the Champions League after 3 years ended with a disappointing 2-2 draw against Seville. Bad day at the office. Retrospectively, a draw against Seville is not the end of the world. But, in the midst of the heated debates of Defender’s brain fart moments (That’s you Lovren), Polar Midfield and a superb front three or not, We find ourselves staring at the weekend’s match when Burnley visits Anfield. The Clarets were handed a daunting looking start to the campaign when the fixtures were released in June, facing five of last season’s top six in their first five away games of the season. But so far Burnley have relished the challenge, beating champions Chelsea at Stamford Bridge before securing a draw against Tottenham at Wembley. Burnley was very lucky to win 1-0 against Crystal Palace last weekend, as the Eagles missed loads of chances in a game that they should have put to bed. Burnley are unbeaten away from home this season, following up their stunning opening day win at Stamford Bridge with a late equalizer at Wembley to take a point against Tottenham Hotspur Burnley does look a different team this season and it is apparent in their results. I got an opportunity to have a chat with a Clarets fan to understand more about our next opponent [ap_divider color=”#CCCCCC” style=”solid” thickness=”1px” width=”100%” mar_top=”20px” mar_bot=”20px”] Koma: A great start to the season for Burnley, especially the coveted away win and that too against Chelsea. What do you think Dyche has changed this season? OC: Our Away form with a win and a draw so we are unbeaten away so far having played the top two of last season! We have almost as many points now as we had all season away last year. My thoughts are he has replaced Andre Gray several times over so we now pose different threats up front, he has upgraded a few positions in midfield and brought younger players like Tarkowski that have been developing into the team. Jack Cork has been a good buy, Defour has made up with Sean and after not giving his all last season, has become a reformed man. We have gone very Irish too. We can now play 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 and will do both probably. He has also developed a new training facility to help develop talent in the way we used to in the 50s and 60s. Equally, he hasn’t changed the work ethic, the focus on the group and our hard to break down defense. TD: We now have a midfield who will improve our ball retention so we are beginning to look more attractive. Although, under Dyche, it will be a long time before we are described as an attractive side to watch. Dyche has copied the old Liverpool way of making players wait for a place in the first team. He is incredibly loyal and new players have to wait for either player to leave or until they have shown enough to play the Dyche way. That hasn’t changed and won’t. He is a manager who doesn’t waver from how he believes the game should be played. Koma: Tom Heaton has always performed brilliantly against Liverpool but now that he is injured, how do you think young Nick Pope will cope? OC: Nick Pope came as a prospective future international and will cope no problem. He’s bigger than Tom too. Ask Benteke TD: Tom Heaton will be a big miss and for me, it’s going to be all down to Nick Pope’s nerve. Pope has the full backing of the defense which is important. Koma: Chris Wood has been a revelation hasn’t he? Any other player Liverpool should be afraid of? OC: Chris Wood is a natural goal scorer and creates chances but we have yet to see him create much for others, as it’s early days. Sam Vokes and Ashley Barnes cause defenses a lot of trouble too. They can both score and create chances. Watch out for Defour and Brady’s free kicks. TD: Chris Wood has made the start all strikers wish for, scoring early goals to settle himself down and win over the fans. You know what strikers are like when they are on a run of scoring goals. Koma: Burnley surprised us during the start of last season. At home What should be, as per your opinion, be the best approach against Klopp’s Liverpool? OC: I guess we will let you have most possession and try to contain your forwards and midfield, hit you on the break, though your defense is shaky and prone to errors as happened at the Turf. So expect some pressure if you pass back to the keeper. TD: Dyche will stride purposely towards Klopp, give him a warm handshake with a smile then shake hands with Klopp’s backroom staff. He will then move into his box and not look at Klopp until repeating the same procedure at the end of the game. Liverpool will be given no special preparation. Koma: Special Mention to Jon Walters. That monster has almost always scored against Liverpool for Stoke. How has he been this Season for your team? OC: Walters looked good and scored a few in pre season, but hasn’t done much or had much game time in the PL though he should have scored an equalizer against WBA. I like him and if he an put the hex on you again, that would be great. TD: I hope Jon Walters plays some part in the game then Koma: What is the biggest threat for Burnley against Liverpool and how would you tackle that if you were Sean Dyche? OC: Your attack could run rings round us and Firmino seems the one to contain, though it’s good Mane is out, Coutinho seems back in favor and if he is fit will be a problem. Tarkowski and Mee seem to stop most attackers though. TD: I would probably say pace and 25-yard shots Koma: What is your prediction for the game? OC: I predicted a 2-1 win for us but realistically expect a draw. It largely depends on which Liverpool turns up, the team against Arsenal of the one that lost to City. We played well in the last 15 against Spurs and first half v Chelsea, we need to see that rather than the poor display we had vs Palace. TD: Liverpool will score and concede. 😀 Koma: Where do you see Burnley at the end of the season OC: I think we should be around 10th if we can maintain the home form of last year and keep up our away form. TD: Burnley will escape relegation Koma: Any other thoughts? OC: We seem to have some impact on the managers on teams playing against us, with Wenger Mourinho sent to the stands and deBoer losing his job. A few players have been sent off against us too so beware! We may well clip Klopps wings I would like to thank Oldcolner (OC) and Thedonz (TD) from Turfites Talk for their answers.One of the things we learned from build high performance systems is that algorithm complexity is important for system performance, but it is (usually) easy to see. Controlling allocations is something that you don’t see. But it can have an even greater impact on your system. In particular, allocations require some CPU cost immediately, but the.NET framework is pretty good about keeping that small. In most cases, that require only bumping a counter value and giving you some memory. The true cost of allocations happen when you need to release that memory. GC, compactions, multiple generations, etc. There are whole fields of study that deal with optimizing this issue. The downside of allocating a lot of memory is that you are going to pay the cost later. And that figuring out what exactly allocated that memory can often be quite hard. Especially if you are trying to figure it out from a production trace. And even with the state of the art GC and memory management subsystems, your best bet to reduce memory management pressure is to reduce the number of allocations. We are far from the first to run into this. In fact, see the guidelines to contributing to Roslyn. With RavenDB, here are a few commit messages dealing (only) with this issue: The results of the performance improvements on those cannot really be overstated. In some cases, we save an allocation by just 8 or 16 bytes. But in a hot path, that means that we reduce GB of memory being allocated. The problems with allocations is that they can be pretty well hidden, here are a code sample with hidden allocations: var fileNames = new List<Tuple< string, bool >>(); foreach ( var file in System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(dirToCheck, ".dat" )) { using ( var fs = new FileStream(file, FileMode.Open)) { uint crc = CalculateCrc(fs); var crcStr = File.ReadAllText(file+ ".crc" ); var crcMatch = crc == int.Parse(crcStr); fileNames.Add(Tuple.Create< string, bool >(file, crcMatch)); } } We will assume that CalculateCrc does absolutely no allocations, just calling ReadByte() until the end. We’ll further assume that there are 10,000 files in the directory. How much memory is going to be allocated here? I’ll freely admit that I’ll probably miss some, but here is what I found: The fileNames list, which will allocate (using power of 2) a total of 256KB (32,764 items total in the list below, times 8 bytes per pointer) new Tuple<string,bool>[4] new Tuple<string,bool>[8] new Tuple<string,bool>[16] new Tuple<string,bool>[32] new Tuple<string,bool>[64] new Tuple<string,bool>[128] new Tuple<string,bool>[256] new Tuple<string,bool>[512] new Tuple<string,bool>[1024] new Tuple<string,bool>[2048] new Tuple<string,bool>[4096] new Tuple<string,bool>[8192] new Tuple<string,bool>[16384] <—This goes in the large object heap, is is 128Kb in size The call to GetFiles will allocate about 0.5MB: It also uses a list internally, then it calls ToArray on it, so the same costs as the list, plus another 78Kb for the array. And another 128Kb buffer is in the large object heap. Note that I didn’t went too deep into the code, there are other allocations there, but it uses an enumerator internally (to feed the list), so I’ll assume not allocations. Creating a FileStream isn’t all that expensive, but reading from it (which is done in the CalculateCrc method) will force it to allocate a 4KB buffer. So that is 39MB right there. File.ReadAllText is a really nice convenience method, but it uses a StreamReader internally, which has a 1Kb buffer, and that uses a FileStream, which has yet another 4Kb buffer. So another 48MB. 10,000 strings for the file names returned from GetFiles, assuming that each file name is 8.3 characters, that gives us 107Kb. 10,000 strings for the CRC values we read using ReadAllText, assuming each is also 11 characters (text value of 0x576B6624 ), we get another 107Kb. ), we get another 107Kb. Oh, and I almost forgot, we have another 10,000 strings allocated here, the file+”.crc” filename, which is another 146Kb. Finally, we have 10,000 tuples, which comes to about 90Kb. Overall, calling this method will allocate about 90MB(!), including several allocations that fall into the large object heap. Note that most of those calls are done on your behalf, inside the List handling, but mostly instead the I/O routines. It has been our experience that allocations inside various I/O routines are a really common problem, especially when you have no way to send your own buffer (which you can pool, reuse, etc). For example, there is no way to share the buffer between different FileStreams instances. I created a Pull Request in CoreCLR for this feature. But in the meantime, profiling memory allocations (vs. just the memory used) is a great way to find such issues.LWN.net Weekly Edition for December 15, 2016 The Fedora distribution has had a habit of missing its release targets over the years, but has also tried to target releases at certain times of the year (early May and late October). That led to a rather short development cycle for Fedora 25 as its predecessor was substantially delayed. Fedora project leader Matthew Miller recently floated an idea on the fedora-devel mailing list that might plausibly help the chronic delayed-release problem and perhaps have other beneficial effects: move Fedora to an annual release cycle. There was more to it than just that, of course, and support for the idea was mixed at best, but the conversation makes it clear that Fedora is willing to look at fairly radical changes as it moves forward. Miller's message started by noting a graph of distinct IP addresses connecting to the Fedora mirror network for updates, which shows Fedora 25 performing quite well compared to earlier releases. The graph is not a direct measure of the number of Fedora installations, by any means, but does provide some rough measure, especially when compared to previous Fedora releases. "One week after the release, we're at about the 40k mark, and previous releases going back to F21 were at around 30k at that time." But he also noticed something of a trend: On the graph, you can see that each release has steady growth until the next release's beta comes out, at which point it slows down, and then drops dramatically when that next release is out. This is even true of the year-long F20 release. This suggests that by keeping to the shorter schedule for F25 — which was longer* than I wanted! — we cut off F24 from reaching its full potential. So, first, putting together a release is a lot of work. If we're stepping on the toes of the previous releases, are we wasting some of that work? Annual releases? He noted there might be public relations advantages to having one big release per year. Moreover, the Modularity and Generational Core initiatives "give us an opportunity to rethink how we are doing releases entirely". Those efforts are aimed at reworking how the distribution is put together, such that it can better support "modules" that encapsulate kind of a "unit of functionality" (e.g. a web server) with all of its dependencies. Modules may have different lifecycles than other components of the operating system, which would be built up using several different components (Base Runtime, System Runtime, and Shared Components). All of those would be collected up into a "Generational Core": While the Base Runtime, System Runtime and Shared Components modules will be built separately and maintained for independent lifecycles, they will be delivered to end-users as part of a single combined module stack called the Generational Core. (Defining "Generational" in the sense of "genealogy" as opposed to "creation"). Unlike the Base Runtime and System Runtime, the Generational Core will be installable and very similar to the "minimal install" of previous releases of Fedora. It will be somewhat more stripped down even than those. For example, the Generational Core does not need to provide network management services, remote login capabilities or network storage connectivity. These features will be provided by additional modules and module stacks built atop the Generational Core. That would certainly be a sweeping change for the distribution. But Miller's thoughts go even further: What if, instead of two releases a year, we updated the Generational Core on a cycle aligned with the kernel — roughly every three months — and had one June release of Fedora Workstation and Fedora Server every year, with an optional ".1" update in November or December? Fedora Atomic would keep to two-week updates as a rolling release. And Spins could pick their own release dates, either with the Editions release or separately (to get their own chance to shine). He solicited input and listed a number of features that he would like to see in any kind of plan going forward. The list included things like predictable calendar dates for releases, increasing QA time and maintaining or increasing the quality of the QA efforts, allowing the QA and release engineering teams some time to "breathe" and to work on infrastructure, maximizing user growth, and so on. In some ways, it all comes down to "not being on a hamster wheel which routinely bursts into flame". Reaction But Gerald B. Cox was not convinced by Miller's concern about newer releases stepping on the toes of older ones. I don't believe we are "wasting" work. Regardless of their lifespan, all releases are appreciated and valued. They don't have to "age" like a wine. If you're trying to say resources are limited and the current release schedule has become unsustainable - that is another issue entirely. The recent cycle for Fedora 25 was planned for five months so it would, hopefully, land in late October, which was something that Miller pushed for. He now thinks that was a mistake and is questioning whether the frequency of Fedora releases is worth all of the effort that goes into them. But Michael Catanzaro is not so sure. He is concerned that Fedora would lose its place as the premier GNOME distribution if it moved to annual releases: I think it's part of the story behind our recent rise in popularity. Right now we are that leading GNOME distro because we usually follow about 1-2 months behind a GNOME release. It's a huge advantage over, say, Ubuntu, where people complain about needing PPAs to get the latest software and upstream has already moved on to newer versions half a year ago. Right now this is one of our biggest strengths as a distro, and your proposal would throw that away. Miller is thinking that the ".1" update he proposed could incorporate even larger changes like a newer GNOME release, however. But the underlying Modularity initiative is also being questioned. Cox pointed to a comment by Kevin Kofler that was strongly critical of the idea, likening it to the "RPM hell" days. But Chris Murphy said that Modularity is not required in order to effect Miller's plan. There was some discussion of what the end-of-life strategy for the.0 and.1 pieces might be, but Miller seemed to agree that it was a workable scenario. Another barrier to Miller's original idea is that Fedora release engineering is not prepared to handle all the parts and pieces. Dennis Gilmore pointed out that some significant work would need to be done to support it: We currently do not have the release engineering resources to do everything [separately], we would also need to spend significant time retooling how we build everything, for instance today we ignore sources for the spins, if we ship things on different cadences we would need to make installers per spin that included the binaries and sources that go into each one. [...] There is a lot of pieces here that I suspect have not been considered because they are in the back of house and most people do not ever think of them. we would need to reconsider how upgrades work, or if we ship things as a rolling release. a big concern I have with any of it is making sure that we publish the matching sources for each binary deliverable. More concrete All of that led Miller to propose two "more concrete" options for ways to do an annual Fedora release with one large update six months or so later. His proposal did that without "taking modularity into account in any way; it's 'how we could do this with our current distro-building process'". In both cases, Fedora 26 would be targeted for a June a release, and 26.1 (or whatever it is called) would created from that base. The first option would batch up all of the non-security updates starting in October and test them together "in Some Handwavy Way for serious problems and regressions" before releasing the whole batch at the end of the month. The other option he suggested was to branch the release a month or two after its release; updates to Fedora 26 would be added to the 26.1 branch, which would get frozen and validated in much the same way as a regular release (though without the Alpha stage). Fedora 26 would continue on as usual until January when it would be switched over to use the 26.1 repository. While there was some discussion of the technical parts of the plan—the second option had far more support than the first—much of the thread concerned the justification for even looking at changing the roughly six-month release cycle at all. Several participants seemed to think that the reasons for even considering the change had not been established. For example, "drago01" asked: "Which problem are you trying to solve with those proposals?" In answer, Miller pointed back to the list of properties in his original email. But drago01 and others are skeptical that a sweeping change as he has suggested will actually preserve those properties. Peter Robinson was concerned that Miller's proposal might create more hamster wheels (flaming or otherwise) than it would actually eliminate. Adam Williamson was also unenthusiastic: Frankly, this all seems like a lot of churn and mess and process change for no very obvious benefit. I'm a hell of a lot more interested in looking at smaller and more frequent'release' events than larger less frequent ones. Overall, Miller's thoughts were a bit scattered, at least partly because he was posting in and around a conference he was attending. When he mentioned perhaps considering four-month cycles, Williamson was not seeing how that meshed at all: Our release cycles are entirely arbitrary; they're precisely what we say they are. So I'm not sure how to say whether one "feels compressed", or understand how "four month cycles" would make us "stay on track". What track would we be staying on? When I mentioned shorter cycles, I wasn't suggesting we do all the same stuff we do now, only in a smaller space of time. That would be awful. I was honestly thinking more about far more automated and less significant'release events'. He also wondered why Modularity and Generational Core were not part of the picture given that is the direction Fedora seems to be heading. At that point, Langdon White spoke up to try to link those two initiatives into the picture: So, what I hope for with gen-core/modularity is that the decision to "release" becomes entirely unrelated to engineering. In other words, at any given time there is a fully working/fully tested, up to date gen-core and all the applications (or modules) that sit on it. Those applications will also, likely, be able to run on multiple gen-cores. As result, the processes to produce working artifacts that users can install will always be running. Hopefully, with enough CI (read: automated testing) that there is little to no human involvement in ensure that everything is in "good shape." If we can get to that point, then we can make "release" and "lifecycle" decisions purely based on the desire of "not code" reasons. In other words, we can decide how many versions of things are currently available based on the effort required to maintain them. We can also decide when a "release" makes sense based on marketing or other considerations and just "pull the trigger" on that day. Or we could allow users to decide for themselves by opting in to a "rolling release" style of deployment. The problem, of course, is that the Modularity and Generational Core initiatives are still rather new and a lot is left to be done to get to the vision that White outlined. That may well mean that the 2017 releases of Fedora 26 and Fedora 27 proceed along the usual lines, with possibilities of larger changes sometime beyond that time frame. That is why Miller is trying to find a middle ground, though his justifications for that seem weak to several in the thread. Some of these proposed changes are being driven by the new container-oriented world that is starting to change how packages and software stacks are delivered to users. Things are clearly changing in the world of distributions and it is not entirely clear what the "right" path forward is. One suspects we may see more of these kinds of discussions over time. Comments (6 posted) The Domain Name System (DNS) is an amazing technological achievement, but it suffers from a historical excess of trust, which makes it possible for people who rely on it to be lied to. The DNS Security Extensions (formally DNSSEC-bis, more usually just DNSSEC) are a mechanism for including robust trust information within the DNS. Here we discuss briefly what DNSSEC does, how it does it, and how (and whether) you can use it to secure your domains. The problem DNS is the distributed system that maps domain names to IP addresses; it is one the largest distributed databases in the world. However, its design dates back to an earlier era when there was more trust around; specifically, information propagated by the DNS is often cached, while only being validated by checking the IP address of the supplier. There are at least two problems with this. First, just because a DNS packet comes from the configured resolver is not necessarily a good reason to assume the content is trustworthy. And second, because much DNS information is propagated via UDP, which makes spoofing sender IP addresses trivial, a DNS packet claiming to be from the configured resolver's IP address may not actually come from that resolver. The fascinating field of security research has unearthed many ingenious attacks against cryptographic protocols, such as power analysis, which are elegant and effective but unlikely to be seen in quantity in the wild anytime soon. DNS spoofing, though, is widespread; it's easy to do, and lots of people are doing it, for all sorts of reasons. In March 2014, Turkey blocked access to Twitter after recordings damaging to the Turkish government were leaked there. The country did this by instructing Turkish ISPs to return wrong IP address information when twitter.com domains were resolved, so that DNS would instead return IP addresses that took users to a government web page announcing the block. Turks quickly discovered that setting their DNS servers to foreign recursing resolvers such as Google's would bypass the block, and some went a step further by spray-painting the IP addresses of Google's DNS servers on public buildings. Other governments engage in similar practices on a routine basis. The solution It's been slow in coming, but DNSSEC is now pretty much here. It enables cryptographic signatures to be distributed in the DNS alongside existing information, so that resolvers that care about such things can ask for it; they can also rely upon the answers they get. This is done by defining a few new DNS Resource Record (RR) types: RRSIG : This one's the workhorse; it's a signature for an RR, made with the appropriate key pair. To verify the authenticity of some RR that has just been queried, whether it was an A record, an MX, a CNAME, or some other record, the accompanying RRSIG is the starting point. : This one's the workhorse; it's a signature for an RR, made with the appropriate key pair. To verify the authenticity of some RR that has just been queried, whether it was an record, an, a, or some other record, the accompanying is the starting point. DNSKEY : This asserts one of the keys (yes, plural, we'll come to that) for a particular zone or subzone. This is something given out to the world for your own zone(s), much like an SSH server announcing its own public key on connection. : This asserts one of the keys (yes, plural, we'll come to that) for a particular zone or subzone. This is something given out to the world for your own zone(s), much like an SSH server announcing its own public key on connection. DS : This is how trust is distributed. It's a fingerprint for the primary DNSKEY record, generated by the zone's parent (usually, the registrar) and distributed as part of the glue. Like any other RR, it also comes with an RRSIG record, also generated by the zone's parent. This is how people can trust your DNSKEY records when you return them in response to a query. Its existence also functions as a flag that DNSSEC extensions should be checked by a capable resolver for queries in the zone in question. : This is how trust is distributed. It's a fingerprint for the primary record, generated by the zone's parent (usually, the registrar) and distributed as part of the glue. Like any other RR, it also comes with an record, also generated by the zone's parent. This is how people can trust your records when you return them in response to a query. Its existence also functions as a flag that DNSSEC extensions should be checked by a capable resolver for queries in the zone in question. NSEC3 : It is as important to sign your negative responses as your positive ones, otherwise any attacker could simply sit there returning faked NXDOMAIN responses for queries about all your hostnames. NSEC3 provably says that no such RR exists, in such a way as to cover a range of possible name queries without enabling a brute-force search of the namespace. Can I use it? Should I? How do I? The chain of trust ends up with the public key that is used to sign the DNS root. This is the DNSSEC equivalent of your browser's CA bundle, and it should already be known to any resolver that intends to do DNSSEC.Not all top-level domains (TLDs) currently implement DNSSEC. Wikipedia's list of TLDs includes information on which do and do not support DNSSEC, but it's pretty widely supported, and if you're not doing registration in some obscure country-code TLD just to get a cute domain name, you probably can deploy DNSSEC. The following shows how I enabled DNSSEC on teaparty.me.uk by following a procedure which was developed from NLNetLabs' excellent HOWTO, to whose authors I am grateful. You will need to be using a BIND implementation that is DNSSEC-capable, but I'm using BIND 9.8.2 on CentOS 6, which is pretty old, and it works fine. First, you have to generate your zone keys. Second, you have to include your keys in your zone file and sign your zone. Finally, you have to generate your DS record, and propagate it through your registrar. So, first off, generate the keys. They come in two types: a key-signing key (KSK), which is used only to sign other keys, and a zone-signing key (ZSK), which is used to sign all the other RRs. These do not have to be different keys, but best practice is to use a different KSK and ZSK. Key lengths and algorithm choices are a matter for you to decide. Also, the choice between /dev/random and /dev/urandom is yours to make; my server has a hardware random-number generator (RNG) attached, without which this process might have taken some time. Note also that I do this in the parent of the directory that holds the zone files themselves, as I find it convenient to keep the keys there. [root@lory dns]# dnssec-keygen -r/dev/random -f KSK -a RSASHA1 -b 2048 teaparty.me.uk Generating key pair...............................+++..........................+++ Kteaparty.me.uk.+005+02104 [root@lory dns]# dnssec-keygen -r/dev/random -a RSASHA1 -b 2048 teaparty.me.uk Generating key pair.....+++.................+++ Kteaparty.me.uk.+005+60996 -b -a .key .private .key [root@lory dns]# grep DNSKEY teaparty.me.uk.key Kteaparty.me.uk.+005+02104.key:teaparty.me.uk. IN DNSKEY 257 3 5 AwEAAdCM/LeSga8... Kteaparty.me.uk.+005+60996.key:teaparty.me.uk. IN DNSKEY 256 3 5 AwEAAcQxmpGFwWw... DNSKEY DS Here, thechooses the key length and theis used to choose the cryptographic algorithm to be used. The last line of the output in each case is the base name of the key files, one endingand the other ending in, which have just been created in the working directory. The filename includes the zone name, the algorithm type ( 005=RSA/SHA-1 ), and a five-digit random key identifier which helps detect key rollovers (about which more may be found here ). Now, let's extract the meat, that being the new keys, from thosefiles we just created:The keys in the above output have been truncated to avoid filling your screen with gibberish. Note the leading 256 and 257 in theRRs: an even number indicates a ZSK and an odd number, a KSK. Your KSK is your zone's primary key, from which we will later derive yourrecord. Next up is to put the two DNSKEY RRs into your zone file, then sign it with the keys you have just created. Signing is accomplished with the dnssec-signzone command: [root@lory ~]# cd /var/named/chroot/var/dns/primary/ [root@lory primary]# /usr/sbin/dnssec-signzone -o teaparty.me.uk \ -f teaparty.me.uk.signed -K.. -k Kteaparty.me.uk.+005+02104.key \ -e +3024000 -N unixtime teaparty.me.uk Kteaparty.me.uk.+005+60996.key dnssec-signzone: warning: teaparty.me.uk:8: no TTL specified; using SOA MINTTL instead Verifying the zone using the following algorithms: RSASHA1. Zone signing complete: Algorithm: RSASHA1: KSKs: 1 active, 0 stand-by, 0 revoked ZSKs: 1 active, 0 stand-by, 0 revoked teaparty.me.uk.signed -o specifies the zone origin (domain name); this can be inferred from the filename, but I prefer to keep it explicit. specifies the zone origin (domain name); this can be inferred from the filename, but I prefer to keep it explicit. -f specifies the file that will contain the signed zone; I will need to alter my named.conf file so that the zone is taken from this signed file in future. specifies the file that will contain the signed zone; I will need to alter my file so that the zone is taken from this signed file in future. -K specifies where to find key files. specifies where to find key files. -k specifies the file containing the KSK. specifies the file containing the KSK. -e specifies the date until which I wish the signatures to remain valid. +3024000s is now + 35 days, which is designed to let me automate this signing with cron on the first of every month without the signatures ever expiring, even if the leap second people at the IERS decide to put quite a lot of extra seconds onto the end of any given month. specifies the date until which I wish the signatures to remain valid. +3024000s is now + 35 days, which is designed to let me automate this signing with on the first of every month without the signatures ever expiring, even if the leap second people at the IERS decide to put quite a lot of extra seconds onto the end of any given month. -N specifies that the zone serial number (SN) in the new, signed zone file will be Unix time. I could use -N keep to preserve the SN from the input unsigned, zone file, but I prefer this. First,
as spy gear, I must have decided that I didn't want to be a mutant, six-fingered secret agent because I don't recall getting a lot of play value out of this. Of course, the kids on my block who owned these didn't wear them as modeled by the kid on the package, but wore them as an extended (but cap-firing) middle digit. (And it could be that an entire generation of proctologists got their start with Sixfinger.) Sooper Snooper by Marx (c. 1965). A favorite toy and part of my spy gear. I used to go under the deck next to our above-ground pool and make this thing emerge to spy on swimmers. It was also handy to use looking down alleys without exposing oneself. The little lever on the bottom made it possible to look to the sides, but it was the periscope functionality I liked the best. Rube Goldberg Toys (all by Ideal) Mouse Trap (1963) is still with us, but in an inferior guise. When Grandma bought one for my son in the late Eighties, the trap refused to spring consistently. We took it back. Crazy Clock (1964) was my favorite - I liked the clock. At left is a photo of me (age eight) posing with my Crazy Clock game. Fish Bait (1965) was the last in the series. Not as complex as the first two, and not as interesting. Other games: Monopoly, Battleship, Stratego and Tip-It. Fang Bang required two kids. You'd blow up those long skinny balloons, attach the snake heads (which had sandpaper as "fangs") and go at it. A fun game, but after running out of balloons I didn't get much play out of it. Jack and the Beanstalk (Schaper, 1965) was a simplistic and juvenile game that appealed to me for some reason. I guess I liked the leaves and the paint job on the beanstalk! Hat's Off! (Kohner, 1967) was cool because the little launchers with the sliding score keepers appealed to me. It was fun to play, too. This Bingo game is memorable to me because the numbers were on black circular pieces that looked like liquorice to me, consequently, I put them in my mouth and chewed on them. Yes, I was a weird kid - tell me something I don't know. Space and Instrumentation I describe elsewhere how wild I was for outer space and instrumentation. I got a lot of play value out of some of these toys... The Jet Rocket Space Ship by Honor House (1964). I discuss this monumental rip-off here. The Corny 7 Rocket by Kellogg's (early 60's). Something you would endure a box of unsweetened cereal for. Prior to stumbling across these images, I had forgotten that the Kellogg's Corn Flakes rooster was named "Corny." The Astro-Float by unknown (early 60's). Another food-space crossover (suggested by the name and the reference to its being "AOK"). Most of my astro-floats involved Bubble-Up and not Coke. Also marketed with space - sputnik, fizz-nik - was the Fizz-Nik. I think I had the transparent blue one. Mercury Capsule Bank by unknown (early 60's). I liked the coppery color. I recall that it flew across the room pretty well when halfway filled with pennies. (Note: For an interesting story about this particular item, see the e-mail in my 9/17/12 letters section.) Space Capsule and Astronaut Figures by unknown (early 60's). An inexpensive blister pack toy. I liked the silvery colored astronauts and especially the ones is the far-out "robotic" gear (at top). Two Rocket Toys by unknown. I had the one on the left, which did not require the caps. Not a whole lot of play value with these - I barely remember them. Operation Moon Shot or Operation Orbit by Transogram (circa 1962). I liked that orbiting sun/moons structure on the left. I don't recall making many landings, however. I would have been too impatient and unskilled. The Bobbin' Head Astronaut Manufacturer unknown (early 60's). I was at a tiki party when I saw this little guy; not sure if it's an original or a reproduction. Anyway, I had one as a kid. The only thing I liked on it was the silvery space suit. For me, astronauts were rough and tough adventurers, not cute little bobbin'-headed children. I'm pretty sure I broke the ceramic head of mine with a thrown d-cell battery, my projectile of choice. I preferred it with a spring sticking out of the neck rather than that smiling face; at least then I could pretend it was a robot. What gives it away as an astronaut is that little box he's holding. I suspect they reused a fighter pilot's head, which would explain the lightning bolts on the helmet. My father or mother (I forget which) once took me to an Angels game where I got a bobbin' head baseball player - that one didn't last long at all. Astro Launch by Ohio Art (1963?). A very well-designed, futuristic-looking pressed metal game. (Actually, just a themed version of "Aggravation" or "Trouble"). The play pieces were green, blue, red and yellow space capsules; green being my favorite color, I always insisted upon taking green. Jimmy Rutherford would always take blue, and Mom would take red. I loved the atomic design on this one, and the fact that if your opponent put his capsule on the top of that neat clear plastic "pop-o-matic" hemisphere the flipped dice would occasionally launch it! (I am happy to say that sometimes one's childhood can be recaptured. I bought a well-preserved Astro Launch game recently via e-Bay for a very nominal $10, and I enjoyed playing it with my kids. Even better, it passed my son's coolness test.) Deluxe Reading's Jimmy Jet (1961). If I couldn't pilot a spacecraft, a jet was the next best thing. I liked all of the gauges on this one, and the thing that looked like a sight was an appreciated feature as well. The only thing that annoyed me about the Jimmy Jet was that Deluxe Reading heraldic crest on the steering wheel, which looked like it belonged on a '49 Plymouth, not in a jet cockpit. An excellent description of this toy is at the Kevin Preston Toy and Game page, here. Space Orb Kaleidoscope Unknown manufacturer (mid-1960's). Instead of abstract shapes and colors, this one made funny-looking monsters and aliens. (Video.) I found it kind of boring when I had it, but had the idea that I ought to set this toy aside to have as an adult, when I'd appreciate it more. I was right - I'd like it more now! Mine came from an odd sort of specialty store - I forget the name of it - that sold gimmicks and clever things. Another item from this store was a keyfob with a parking meter timer on it which I appropriated from Dad. I recall when we bought this toy, just before Christmas 1966. I heard Frank Sinatra's hit song "It Was a Very Good Year" on the car radio and thought it was the most depressing song I had ever heard. I still feel this way about it. Operation Moon Base by Marx (1962). My favorite piece in this set was that flat blue spacecraft in the middle, with the rear end in the crater. When I saw an identical experimental NASA jet suspended from the ceiling of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (probably the inspiration for the toy), ancient chords of memory were strummed. Seeing this picture, now I know why. A page from the 1962 Sears Christmas catalog. X-500 Launch Pad by Deluxe Reading, 1960. Image from the plan59.com site. I can see that I had this from a hazy 8mm home movie of Christmas morning, 1960. See Operation X-500 Rocket Base, below. Operation X-500 Rocket Base by Deluxe Reading (1960). Now we're talkin'! What was that dome-like instrument for, in the center of the control panel? Didn't know - didn't care. It looked so cool! I remember the glee I had in firing six of those missiles off in all directions, like Dr. Strangelove. In the photo, I'm playing with it when I first got it - Christmas, 1960. From an 8mm home movie. A better image from the plan59.com site is here. Fireball XL-5 by Multiple (1964). I was a real fan of the TV show. As I recall, the first stage of this rocket - lamely called "Fireball Jr." - separated from the rest of the craft. The Magic Brain Calculator by unknown (c. 1966). Purchased from an ad in the back of a comic book, this is one of those toys that sounded a whole lot more fun than it actually was. I always did poorly in math - perhaps I bought this hoping it would do my homework for me. Anyway, it was a variation on an abacus. I'm pretty sure I didn't learn how to properly use it. Countdown by E.S. Loew (1967). For some reason or other I never played this game, but I certainly liked the astronaut/space cards and little rocketship/capsule playing pieces that came with it. Deluxe Reading's Playmobile Dash (1961). What I really wanted was the dashboard to a 1961-1963 Ford Thunderbird, which I thought was the coolest-looking car of all time. It had great rocket taillights, space age bucket seats, power windows, side scoops and a wraparound aluminum instrument panel that looked like a rocket's. The one I wanted had a light blue paint finish. To get closer to my ideal, I made and then cut out little Thunderbird logos and stuck them all over the Playmobile Dash - but it just wasn't the same. (Especially not with that heraldic crest.) An excellent page describing this toy is here. Major Matt Mason by Mattel (1966). I liked the space sled, but that was about it. By 1966 I was into spy stuff. Major Mason may have even wound up in Vietnamland, like Captain Action (see below) - I don't remember... Moon Landing Diorama by Monogram (1969). One of my last space items, this was a plastic model that, when assembled, formed a diorama of the Apollo 11 moon landing site. I recall a cardboard background and a brown plastic frame that this kit doesn't have. Perhaps I am misremebering the manufacturer? Anyway, I assembled and displayed it on my shelf. Big Loo, by Marx (1963). As I recall, I got mine on Christmas 1964, and he made the trip to Burbank when we moved from Silverlake in February 1965. Unfortunately for Loo (I wonder if they marketed him with this name in the U.K.?), I spray-painted him turquoise; why, I do not remember. In retrospect, I realize that I was capable of some devilish acts. I wish - oh, how I wish! - I had Loo today. Not only would he have been a great toy for my son, but today he's worth hundreds of dollars! Books and other printed material Hector Heathcote book (1960?). There is only one thing I remember about this book: Once, when my parents and I drove to Ensenada, Mexico on a vacation, I took it with me and read it in the hotel. I refused to eat the eggs they ordered for breakfast. They both got terrible cases of stomach sickness, I didn't. Earlier, they kept talking about getting me a "Mexican haircut," which, for some reason, terrified me. So I saw the egg incident as my revenge. The How and Why Book of Planets and Interplanetary Travel by unknown publisher (1962). At one time I thought it was terribly important to know how much each planet weighed in tons, and, unless I'm very much mistaken, this is the book that taught me that. Note the cigar-shaped rocket ship on the cover. When I was a kid, real space ships (not capsules) looked like that. Various Beatles magazines from 1964 For me, real status came with owning that yellow-covered "All About the Beatles" magazine. I begged my mother for it. I recall a thrill of pride when I got it; it made me feel a part of some kind of great Beatles youth movement. The fact that my friend Jimmy and I were initially repelled by the Beatles when they first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on 2/9/64 (we were also taken aback by his sister Kathy's ecstatic response to them) meant nothing in the intense wave of publicity and media attention, which swept all doubters aside. The Beatles Fun Kit was my second magazine. I remember it had a circular picture of the Beatles that one could cut out and put in a telephone dial. I didn't do this to mine because it involved damaging the magazine, but at a party my older friend Jane Holland did. She came outside to where I was and told me, "Hey, Wesley, you have a phone call." I ran into the house and there were the Beatles scotch-taped onto our telephone dial. As for "the Dave Clark Five vs. the Beatles," I recall Jimmy's sister Kathy disparaging the DC5 for making a trademark out of their foot stomping, which she claimed the Beatles gave up in Germany. When you think about it, one pop group being lined up "versus" another is a characteristically innocent, 1960's concept. (As are the "so and so says" comments about the match-up depicted on the cover.) The Dave Clark Five vs. the Beatles? No contest in my neighborhood. And, finally, I recall those "talking pictures," which I thought were very clever and led to a lifelong interest. To this day I love captioning photographs. Phantom of the Opera paperback (Dell - 1940's). I loved the cover! I think I got it in 1967 along with some old comic books at a bookstore in Glendale. It was a wartime edition with some text encouraging readers to read it and pass it on to some other G.I. to read, which I found interesting. I didn't care for the story compared to the movie adaptations, which I thought were all better. Will Rogers Big Little Book (1935). Mom found this at an antique store and, naturally enough, I read it. From it I learned that Rogers was attracted to the woman who would later become his wife by her cropped hair, which was the result of an illness - a fact I have strangely retained all these years. Doctor Dolittle books (Lippincott - 1960's reprints of 1920's books). I first read The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle in February 1967 as part of a fifth grade Newbury/Caldicott program. I liked it so much I bought all the other books. The amazing thing is that, unlike just about all of the toys and items on this page, I still have them! Reading them was a feat as they were mostly over 300 pages. A good little reader, was I. Doctor Dolittle pop-up book (Random House - 1967). I'm pretty sure I got this on Christmas 1967. I was a fan of the Hugh Lofting books from the 1920's and was excited to learn that a film would be coming out, but was vastly disappointed with the production. 365 Bedtime Stories (Whitman - 1955). One for each day of the year, obviously. The one for my birthday (April 27th) was about some kids living on "What-A-Jolly Street" who put a note in a tumbleweed, encouraging whomever found it to phone the kids, telling of its discovery. They then launched the tumbleweed. Later on, somebody found the note. This was a Christmas present from 1966, I think. I was slightly too old for these by then. The Wizard of Oz (1950's). A circa 1965 Christmas present. I was disappointed in it because the illustrations in it didn't look like the Judy Garland movie production. As a kid I was into consistency, I guess. The Golden Book Encyclopedia (Western Printing - c. 1964). These were available at grocery stores and I had the entire set in a shelf next to my bed. I used to love reading through them; as it turned out, it encouraged my natural interest in many subjects. Good buy, Mom! The Golden Book High School and Home Encyclopedia (Western Printing - c. 1964). High school... even better! I felt smarter reading them. They, too, were on a shelf next to my bed. The Complete Sherlock Holmes (late 1960's). A circa 1970 Christmas present. I took the dust jacket off of it because I thought it looked garish. At age fourteen, this was the book which transitioned me away from comic books. After reading it I no longer had a taste for them - I wanted literature. I still own it! My next book read would be the complete short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Other Crashmobile (Tri Play Toys 1960's) - At last! A toy that actually encouraged a boy's desire to destroy things! I loved mine (which was turquoise with a red top). Sears train set (1964). I got this set (the $29.89 one) second-hand from somewhere - Mom brought it home one day. This was in early 1965, just before we moved to Burbank. I don't think it was a Christmas 1964 gift, but it may have been some other kid's gift that, for some reason, didn't work out. So I got it. I loved it! The transformer plugged into the wall, hummed dangerously, got warm and made sparks when you ran a wire across the terminals - just the sort of thing for a seven year-old boy! I assembled it on the living room floor in our Los Angeles house, but really got the most play value out of it when we moved into Burbank, where we got a big sheet of plywood and located the thing into the back house. Hours of joy with this toy. I especially liked the smoke fluid you could drop into the smokestack; it smelled neat. Who Am I? cards by Topps (1967). After puzzling over the clues, you scratched off the disguise to arrive at the correct portrait. These were the non-sports cards; they also made a series based on baseball players. (No interest there!) For some reason I recall the ones for Henry VIII and Paul Revere the best - they were especially creepy. Jon Gnagy art sets (c. 1960). I recall watching him on television and making it all look so easy. But rendering those shadows on geometrical objects was a source of frustration to me. It's worthwhile to note that back when I was a little kid, the only people wearing goatees were artists, jazz musicians, drug dealers and other non-conformists. Nowadays it's much more common. I wish the fad would pass. Kenner's Bagpipe (c. 1962). I don't know what my parents were thinking. Yes, I had one of these, no, I didn't play it much - and I suspect my parents appreciated that fact. From the 1962 Sears Christmas catalog. Spelling board (c. 1962). "It's fun to learn to spell or count." Not if you're me, it isn't. It's a lot more fun to simply enjoy the kinesthetic pleasure of sliding the blocks around. From the 1962 Sears Christmas catalog. If I didn't have this exact one I had one very much like it. Porter Microscope (c. 1965/1966). One year my parents apparently decided to make me a scientist, so I got a microscope and a chemistry lab set (see next entry). It didn't work. I don't recall much use or play value with this. The Gilbert Home Laboratory (1965/1966). I think I made two clear chemicals turn magenta, once, by pouring them together. Other than that, the only thing I remember about this was that the chemicals were smelly. As I'm pretty sure I didn't bother to read the instructions, my play and educational value with this was very limited. Fritos and Nabisco dinosaur premiums (1960s). I couldn't have gotten much play value out of these but I certainly do remember collecting them. Green Hornet flicker ring, Batman buttons and the rubber Batman ring by various manufacturers (1966/1967). Cheap crap that came out of gum ball dispensers. I recall being especially disgusted with the rubber Batman rings. Who on earth would wear one of those? I didn't. I lit matches under 'em. Vari-Vue flicker buttons (Dimensional Research - c. 1966). These were popular in the schoolyard for a time, but images of the ones I had seem to be hard to find on the Internet. I had the "Yes/No" one and the "Cool It" one; the other two are familiar - I may have had those. I also had one that featured moving gears... I liked that one best. It was a "Collect 'em All!" kind of thing. Paladin ring from a gumball dispenser (1962?). While I never could muster enough interest to watch the show, I liked the title sequence and the theme song. And when I went on an early trip to Disneyland, I thought the horse-headed poles on Main Street (meant to invoke the old times when people needed to tether horses) had something to do with this show! Batman and Robin Society button (1966). I was equally unimpressed with the quality of this item, mainly because the sloppy printing made Robin look grossly overweight. King Tut (1960's). The "mystery action" with this was that he spun around due to a magnet. It engrossed me for about, oh, about 2 seconds. Flicker pin (1965/1966). This one was one in a series, and I made it a point to get them all because I admired the clever flicker action. I especially liked one with rotating gears. Images of these have got to be on the Internet somewhere... I wish I knew where. Flicker TV (1960's). Were these pencil sharpeners? I forget. I do recall that they normally came with dorky flicker subjects, such as this comic dog. Lido TV (1962). This inspired me to manufacture my own rolling image television, which I made out of paper and cardstock. My images, of course, were much better than the commerically-produced ones, as they had to do with space and other things I was interested in. (In general, whenever I could personalize a toy it was more fun to play with - which is probably why my favorite toys were Lego bricks, crayons and discarded large appliance boxes.) Pencil Case by Sterling Plastics Co. (1960). Not much to say about this other than the fact that I had a mild fascination with the gear action. And no, strictly speaking, it wasn't a toy. Corina Cigars box (c. 1963). This really isn't a toy, either, but I got a lot of use out of them. My Mom used to bring them home from Toppys, where she worked as a waitress, and I'd fill them with pencils, crayons, smaller toys and whathaveyou. I figured if they kept cigars fresher six times longer I'd get six times more life out of my crayons and toys. Plus I liked the pretty lady on the lid. Warner Brothers Cartoon Character Paper Plates (1959). These weren't toys, either, but I include them here because seeing them gives me the same jolt of recognition that I get when viewing the old toys I had. I am absolutely certain that we ate my birthday cake off of these, but in what year? I don't know. Wooden gliders by various manufacturers (60's). These were only a quarter each and were therefore well within the purchasing ability of just about any kid. I had about 437 of 'em, growing up. I had some of the ones shown. I remember once, riding down Victory Boulevard with my dad in the family car, I held one out of the window and pretended to accidentally lose it; he then had to stop so I could recover it. I was mainly curious to see how it would fly without my actually tossing it. The results weren't worth Dad's effort. Monkey Division Booby Trap Land Mine by Remco (1963). Remco made a collection of Monkey Division gear; the only thing I had that I can recall is this booby trap land mine. I distinctly recall setting it up in the overgrown jungle behind Jimmy Rutherford's house. Green Ghost by Transogram (1965). The television ad made it look intriguing and creepy. The glowing pieces, the novelty of the game, faded quickly in the dark, making it a major disappointment. (My wife has the same memory from her childhood.) Transogram perpetrated a massive fraud on the game-buying public with the cover art for this one. Memory Card Matching Game by Milton Bradley (1966). I used to enjoy this game a lot, mainly because I liked the little pictures on the cards - the variety and rendering. My favorites were the mysterious owl near the window and the mosaic goldfish. I see from the box that this game was licensed to Milton Bradley by Otto Mayer Verlag, so I'm guessing that the designs are German. No wonder I liked them! The Game of Life by Milton Bradley (1960 edition). Richard Springer and I played this one a lot in the Summer of 1967. It did not predict a successful existence for me as I normally wound up in the Poorhouse. One problem seemed to be that family planning played no part in this game; I kept getting the pin-like kids at random to stick in the limited seating of those little 1950's-style cars. (And, naturally, we named the girls "Peg." The wife pins were named for whomever it was we had crushes on at the time.) Still, it did not go unnoticed by me that one way to increase one's net wealth at the end of the game was to take the college route - something I did in real life. So I guess I have Art Linkletter, who "heartily" endorsed the 1960 edition of the game, to thank. (By the way, I have three children. None of them are named Peg. But I guess there's still the possibility that I could wind up in the Poorhouse.) Gothic Chess Set by Peter Ganine (copyright 1947, 1957) - Pleasantime Games. Richard Springer taught me how to play chess, and my first set was the Peter Ganine "Gothic" chess set, produced in the late 1950's and the early 1960's. I have always admired the solemn-faced designs on this particular set, and, to this day, consider this the most artful and striking set I have ever seen. (Peter Ganine was a Russian-born sculptor working in Southern California.) For plastic pieces they were quite nice: on mine the white pieces looked like ivory, and the black pieces were like jet. I recall how we got them, in a memory that is something like a dream to me: my mother and I and a friend of hers named Diane were milling around in some kind of vacant lot. I must have been three or four, as this is a very old memory. Mom found this chess set in the lot somewhere. Even more oddly, I recall seeing the colors white and purple in conjunction with this, and getting the idea that these were "medieval" colors somehow. Perhaps I just made a connection between something we saw that was white and purple-colored and the chess pieces. Anyway, it was my primary chess set until Christmas 1968, when Mom bought me the deluxe E.S. Lowe Renaissance set in gold and silver-colored plastic. Unlike nearly everything else on this page, I still have them! Coup d'Etat by Parker Brothers (1966). Every Christmas Eve my parents allowed me to open one present. As I was an only child and got lots of presents, it didn't take away from Christmas morning at all, so, on Christmas Eve 1968 I selected one present, and it was this one. I immediately liked the graphic art on the box, the obscurity of the French words and the little daggers. Obviously this was a quality game and I was intrigued. But what's that on the box? "An adult game for 3 to 4 players." The only person who ever played games with me was Richard from across the street - my parents rarely did. (And when Mom did she usually got frustrated when it appeared I was winning and claimed I was cheating somehow.) So I didn't meet the requirement for a minimum of three players. Also, I honestly tried to read and understand the directions, but they were beyond my twelve year-old brain. So this handsome game found a home on a shelf in my closet where it was never again opened. I think we sold it at a yard sale in the mid-Seventies. Hands Down by Ideal (1964). When I was playing Richard Springer at board games during my board game phase (ages eleven to twelve), I found that I normally lost the games that required tactical thinking and won the games which required frenetic, sudden motion. I remember once making a list of all the board games in my closet and titling the list, "Games I Lose." The colorful Hand's Down, featuring "Slap-O-Matic" action, was not one of these. It seemed tailor-made to my hyperactive persona, as did another game, "Reflex," which it seemed I could not lose. After puberty I calmed down some. The Last Straw by Schaper (1966). I think this must have been a Christmas present; I certainly would not be interested in it and didn't ask for it. But it turned out to be a lot of fun. One of the times when my parents knew best, I guess. Booby Trap by Parker Brothers (1965). Everybody in the house and every one of my friends was better at this game than I; consequently I didn't like it. What's worse, it was made out of wood. I felt like a pre-schooler playing with a Fisher-Price toy. Marble Maze by Hasbro (early 1960's). I think my parents bought me this toy when I was sick in bed with a fever. The reason I think this is because looking at the design reminds me of sickness and of smelling the rubbing alcohol Mom would wipe on my wrists to cool me down. I probably didn't have much interest in it when I was sick, and I didn't have any afterwards. The box states that it's "a real test of coordination." Since I didn't have any of that - or patience - it wasn't very fun. I was an easily frustrated child... Playtime Water Colors by Binney & Smith (1960's). I thought those children's heads looked bizarre. I didn't do much water coloring with paints. I preferred crayons and markers. Supercar by Remco (1963). I loved this show, and learned to draw the Supercar pretty well. I can remember making this toy move around on the flat kitchen floor. While I really liked the inserted disk that caused the car to make various patterns (and the futuristic plastic bubble packaging), I recall being disappointed with the minimum effort paint scheme. I also had this Supercar comic book and Little Golden Book. The Roller Derby #10 Skate Board (c. 1964). These were very primitive versions of the ones available today. Mine was noisy and rough (note metal wheels), and had a nasty habit of stopping at cracks, leaving me traveling at speed. My friend Jimmy Rutherford and I went all over the neighborhood on these, and we always seemed to have nasty scrapes on our knees and legs as a result. I recall nearly constant scabs and pus, which I suppose was a boyhood thing. The Wham-O Superball (1965). I remember taking one of these (the large one, not the small ones pictured) and giving it a mighty bounce against the sidewalk; it flew high up into the air (the "amazing zectron" property) and came back down into the rush hour traffic along Buena Vista Boulevard. I thought for sure I was about to cause a major accident - but didn't. The ball was lost, however. The Wham-O Monster Magnet (1965). Eh. I liked the more powerful magnets I could get by tearing large speakers apart. Motorific by Ideal (1964). These were battery-powered cars that raced along a "torture track" which included a crash test and a ramp into space as part of the gauntlet. The cars I had included a Rolls Royce (which I pretended was the "Burke's Law" car), a Lincoln, a Ford GT, a Jaguar XK-E (the quintessential 60's luxury sports car) and even the mundane Chevy Impala, which was my first Motorific car. My favorite, however, was the Ferrari. They were well-packaged in attractive, clear plastic cases that displayed the powerful CU-25 engine. (Click here for a view of the innards of the Motorific car, and here for some other cars and parts.) The only problem with these was that there was no control on the part of the driver; these cars moved along at their own pace. It was kind of boring, which is why I introduced falling Lego parts to the gauntlet. The Batman Utility Belt (1966). Geez, I wish I had this again. I could auction it on e-Bay and buy some nice furniture! Batman Pencil Box (1966). The main problem insofar as I was concerned with this item was that Batman didn't carry a gun. He was so awesome he could kick butt without one. DUH. Ideal's Captain Action (1966). My wife calls these and G.I. Joes (which I never had) "Dolls for Boys," and she's right. One would get the basic posable Captain Action and buy outfits - okay, heroic costumes - to replace the ridiculous nautical-themed base costume. (A skipper's hat on a super hero? Yeah, right.) I quickly bought the Captain America and Batman costumes, and never had the slightest inclination to buy "Action Boy," the sidekick. (I hated super hero sidekicks.) Where dolls for boys differ from the dollies that girls play with, however, is in their fate when one got tired of them; what toy manufacturers call "play patterns." Mine wound up in the backyard "Vietnam Land," streaming bright scarlet enamel from various tortures inflicted upon him by the Viet Cong. Monster bubble bath by Imco (1964). I demonstrated to friends that you could distort Frankenstein's features to make him look even more monstrous by holding lit matches under his face. A chronic over-user, I got, maybe, two baths out of this amount of bubble bath. (I never liked that stupid fish the Creature from the Black Lagoon was holding.) My interest in monsters is described here. Monster Old Maid by Milton Bradley (1964). I vividly recall those lurid green and purple colors! Monster wallets (1963). These came in a variety of designs: Frankenstein/Dracula (the one I had), The Mummy/The Wolfman, The creature from the Black Lagoon/The Phantom of the Opera, etc. Monster pencil sharpener (1965). I had the Frankenstein one. I think I melted it in the back yard. Aurora Monster Models (These get their own page.) The Kenner Give-A-Show Projector (1963). I couldn't be bothered. Fright Factory by Mattel (1966). I had this and the "Creepy Crawlers" set. The thingmaker, used to heat and solidify the plastigoop, was a great toy in itself. Essentially a heating element which had to be plugged into the wall, I enjoyed watching a round ball of spit dance around the surface and boil away. In the early Nineties I bought my son an updated version that used a lower-temperature formulation plastigoop that was heated by a 40-watt bulb. Feh. The Beverly Hillbillies Car by Ideal (1963). Entirely missing the point, I removed the pots that hung on the front fenders and the rickety ladder on the back, causing as they did a slovenly appearance. The Official Beatles by Remco (1964). I didn't really want these - I thought they were grotesque - but Mom bought them for me. It had to be admitted: there was a certain amount of neighborhood status in owning them. John Guitar brooch, 1964 - John was my favorite Beatle. I don't recall having the other three. The thing I really treasured, however, was a humble circular button featuring a group portrait of the Beatles encased in a yellow plastic border. I recall gazing at it in rapt adoration. I'm now... A FAN. Piglet Breakfast Buddy (Nabisco, 1965). A prize in a cereal box. I didn't get the other characters, just piglet. He could sit on your spoon or cling for dear life onto the rim of your cereal bowl. Coca Cola Soda Fountain by Trim Molded Productions (1953). As I recall, playing with one of these things meant you had to use it, restraint thrown to the winds, which meant consuming lots of Coke. Bottles and bottles of it. Candy Cigarette Bank by Minor-Matic (1960). Coke, cigarettes... the next logical step would be Sen-Sens and a kid's playtime cocktail bar. I seem to recall using this toy as a makeshift control panel when the candy that came with the bank was used up. (As I parent, I don't buy toys that require consumables. I never forgave a friend of ours for once buying our kids a toy gumball machine.) Hamilton's Invaders by Remco (1964). I didn't have this toy; my next door neighbor and boon friend Jimmy Rutherford did, and we got a lot of play out of it. (We did not, however, deign to wear that ridiculous helmet.) The grotesque monster bugs crawled across the kitchen floor when their strings were pulled. Clackers (early 70's). I was too old for these but could think of deadly uses for them. $1.98 plus tax, medical attention not included. The Thing bank by Poynter (c. 1965). You put a coin in the slot, a
's decision and the proceedings are kept confidential, which is a benefit to producers who want to keep controversial incidents away from the public's prying eye. When asked for comment, ABC, which broadcasts the show, referred CNN to Warner Bros., which declined to comment on the contract or the investigation.Emery Smith claims to have autopsied about 3,000 different types of ET humanoids. The day after we announced his coming forward, he was hit with an attack that landed him in the emergency room. Right before his health collapsed, three black SUVs followed him and abducted his dog Raven. Miraculously, Raven was found alive by a good citizen after the perpetrators dumped her off on the highway. However, immediately after the abduction, Emery developed pneumonia-like symptoms with a fever that skyrocketed up to 105. The ER in Palm Springs could not admit him until 7AM the following morning. His oxygen level went down to 90 percent, which when coupled with the enormously high fever could very easily have killed him. This all screams of “foul play.” As we were finishing this article, his health slipped and he had to go back into the hospital once again. We are calling for your prayers for his health and safety. Our last article shared the story of the dog’s abduction in an update, but not everyone reads updates. For Emery’s security, we did not say how sick he really was, or that he was in the hospital, until he stabilized. These attacks reek of desperation on behalf of the Deep State. Why would they try to completely destroy his life if he was simply making up stories, as their paid trolls will assert? [UPDATE NEXT DAY, 12/29: Emery had a miraculous improvement after our call for mass meditation and prayer and does not need to be in the hospital.] CLICK HERE FOR OUR CHRISTMAS DAY ARTICLE FOR CONTEXT: “STUNNING NEW BRIEFINGS” THINK ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS When you have been lied to for so long — in fact, born into a world where all you’ve ever known is lies — it can be very difficult when the truth finally appears. It’s almost like a person who has been locked in a room their whole lives, never allowed to see the outside world, finally being set free. There are plenty of movies, television shows, video games and the like that have prepared us for the type of cosmic disclosure that Emery Smith is bringing to the table. However, for most people there is still an enormous difference between enjoyable science fiction movies and the idea that this stuff is actually true. There is a level of UFO secrecy that goes far above the US military, the highest generals, even the Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces. What we are calling the Deep State is in possession of far, far greater secrets than most could ever even imagine. IT ALL WENT DEEP BLACK IN THE 1950s The whole UFO-related insider world “went private” during the Eisenhower administration, from 1953 to 1961. This led to his infamous 1961 warning about the “rise of unwarranted power and influence… by the military-industrial complex.” Here is a copy of that part of his Presidential farewell speech from the US National Archives: EISENHOWER WANTED TO INVADE AREA 51 In 2013, a former CIA insider revealed Eisenhower had tasked him to threaten the folks at Area 51 that they would be invaded if they did not share their information. This is what the insider said, in his own words, about Eisenhower’s reaction when he was called in to be part of a team that would confront Area 51: http://exopolitics.org/eisenhower-threatened-to-invade-area-51-former-us-congress-members-hear-testimony/ [In this meeting within the Oval Office,] President Eisenhower [told the insider]: We called the people in from MJ-12, from Area 51 and S-4, but they told us that the government had no jurisdiction over what they were doing…. I want you and your boss to fly out there. I want you to give them a personal message…. I want you to tell them, whoever is in charge, I want you to tell them that they have this coming week to get into Washington and to report to me. And if they don’t, I’m going to get the First Army from Colorado. we are going to go over and take the base over. I don’t care what kind of classified material you got. We are going to rip this thing apart.” In response to Dolan’s question, “Eisenhower was going to invade Area 51?” the CIA agent confirmed that Eisenhower indeed planned to do so with the First Army. After traveling to Area 51 and S-4, the CIA agent said that he saw several garage type doors with flying saucers in them. He described seeing a Gray alien at the S-4 facility that his boss “partially interviewed”. Upon returning to the White House, the agent and his boss relayed what they had seen at S-4. Significantly, the FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, was also present during the debriefing of the CIA agent and his boss over what they had witnessed at S-4 and Area-51. According to the CIA agent, Eisenhower was shocked. ALLOW YOURSELF TO SPECULATE…. What we are seeing is that even the President of the United States was only given a little taste of what was going on at Area 51, even after threatening them. If the military-industrial complex (MIC) had access to a live ET, and various ET technologies, they obviously would be able to make contact with other ETs. From there, it isn’t hard to imagine that those ETs would have friends, and would ultimately introduce us to a much larger community. Once ‘we’ entered into that community, there could be all sorts of rewards, including hyper-advanced technology they would teach us how to build. Multiple insiders have said we are uniquely good at integrating technology from many different sources, where the result is greater than the sum of its parts. Thus, a huge discrepancy began occurring in the 1950s, where technology that is still superior to what we have today was being developed covertly. This included “smart-glass pads” that are made of a fully clear, see-through material and superior to the Ipad — including holographic displays. Where Emery worked at Sandia Labs, they simply called it a “folder,” perhaps as a way of “reducing psychological impact.” Once you hear him speak (and the full-length first episode will be made free online in January,) it’s hard not to be convinced that he is the “real deal.” HOW WOULD ‘WE’ BE PAID? If ‘we’ (in the MIC) went into the manufacturing business with all the cool stuff that we learned, various ETs would need to start “paying” us for our products. There is no money exchange in this greater cosmic society. No one is going to accept your worthless pieces of paper just because you say they have value. Instead, we see a barter system. You trade one item of value for another that is also seen to have value. Some groups might have much easier access to certain commodities than others, for various reasons — including the places they go and the things they do. Apparently, one of the key forms of payment ‘we’ have been receiving for many years now is samples of dead bodies from ETs all over the galaxy. This was seen as very valuable…. for obvious reasons. Only then would we really be able to figure out “who’s who in the zoo”, and have some idea of the vulnerabilities of potentially hostile races. Emery appears to be one of potentially thousands of covert military employees who autopsied bodies that were being given to us as “payment”…. by our “friends.” You can see how someone like Emery complicates the idea of a neat, tidy, “partial disclosure” that rolls out over the next 50 to 100 years. The multiple, brazen attempts on his life would not be happening if he had nothing to say. THERE ARE DEEPER FORCES TRYING TO STOP DISCLOSURE Even the Tom DeLonge “soft disclosure” we covered in the previous article included the idea that some deeper force was working to prevent this information from ever being distributed. If our own elected officials have no access to such potentially significant programs, going all the way back to Eisenhower, we have a very serious problem on our hands. After Eisenhower was JFK. Many insiders, documents and reports suggest Kennedy got some info on UFOs, but not very much. We also have heard from multiple sources that Marilyn Monroe was assassinated after calling a friend to organize a press conference where she would tell the world the UFO info she heard from JFK. In May 2017, the UK Express covered this story with film clips from Michael Mazzola and Dr. Steven Greer’s film Unacknowledged. It is very difficult to imagine how far ‘we’ might already have gone with the full cooperation and technology of multiple ET races, all kept in secret. A surprising number of insiders have surfaced to shed light on this amazing story… but for most people it still seems hard to accept. Nonetheless, someone like Emery Smith has the potential to create a revolutionary wave of disclosure — particularly now that the Tom DeLonge phase is fully operational. YOU MIGHT FIND YOUR WAY INTO THIS THROUGH THE MILITARY Some people end up finding their way into this classified world by starting out in the military, and then getting pulled into privatized defense-contractor programs — like Emery. They are sworn to secrecy, upon pain of death, and usually have no idea that the highest military officials in the nation — even the Joint Chiefs of Staff — may be completely unaware of their activities. I have known Emery Smith since 2008. I kept his identity so secret that I didn’t even give him the pseudonym of Paul until very recently. When people would say “David Has No Evidence,” or “No Other Insiders Have Corroborating Testimony,” I held my tongue — for Emery’s own safety. Emery did appear openly at many CSETI gatherings where CE-5 contact protocols were being used to call in potential UFO sightings. He also appears in the movie SIRIUS as one of the speakers, as do I… but no one was aware of how much he really knew, including his friends and family. The things he has told me over the last ten years may seem quite sensational, but they line up precisely with what we end up hearing from many other insiders. By the time Corey Goode started talking in late 2014, I already had seven years to meditate on the implications of what Emery and many other insiders had already shared with me. EMERY NEVER INTENDED TO COME FORWARD Emery never wanted to come forward about any of his black-ops experiences. He had no intention to ever do so. There were threats and attempts on his life since I started anonymously leaking some of his intel, as well as the complete loss of all his worldly possessions. This is exactly what happened to Pete Peterson after coming forward on Cosmic Disclosure with much more controversial information. Every last thing Pete owned was stolen. On August 14th, 2017, I wrote David Wilcock’s Brakes Sabotaged: Was It the Dark Alliance?, which featured some of Emery’s intel. Very soon after this was released, Emery’s home in New Mexico was broken into, and everything was stolen or otherwise destroyed. This included large crystals that had been completely smashed to worthless powder on the ground. Evidence was planted to make it all look like the work of drug addicts. When Emery went to see the damage, all that was left was a box with some of his military badges in it, with an armor-piercing bullet next to it, left standing upright on the counter. The police were so intimidated by all of this that they refused to even go inside and investigate. I was very reluctant to publicize this at the time. Nothing about this incident appeared on this website until October 22nd, 2017, two months and one week later. WHY DID WE POST SOMETHING ON OCTOBER 22ND? The October 22nd article was entitled Something Big is Coming, Part II: Is Wikileaks About to Drop the Nuke?, and it was very extensive in scope. Some of “Paul’s” intel was mentioned. In this case, I profiled his testimony on “smart suits,” which as it turns out are very advanced. I mentioned films like Spider Man: Homecoming, in which the Tony Stark character gives Peter Parker a similar suit as he himself was using as Ironman. Emery has had the opportunity to try out these smart suits, and they are quite spectacular, including giving you the ability to jump up to 30 feet high. The article also revealed much more of the Alliance operations against the Deep State, which the adversary is very grumpy about. Only a half-hour after this intel was posted, Emery suffered a head-on collision while driving his SUV in Topanga, California. The timing was very, very suspicious… to say the least. This definitely appeared to be intended to take him out, as well as to threaten both of us in the hopes of using fear to prevent us from talking any further. Here is what I wrote about it at the time, and posted into the existing article as an update: BEGIN EXCERPT OF 10/22 ARTICLE UPDATE https://divinecosmos.com/index.php/start-here/davids-blog/1221-4chan-wikileaks UPDATE III, SAME DAY [OCTOBER 22ND, 2017], 3:43 PM: TRAGEDY, BUT MUCH GREATER LOSS AVERTED I just got done having a text exchange with my insider, Paul. I am still in shock but feel it is essential to report what happened. Just 30 minutes after this article went up last night, at 6:30 PM, Paul was struck unexpectedly in his vehicle… and suffered a head-on collision. The driver had wildly veered over into the oncoming lane right before the impact. Thankfully, he survived with only concussions and whiplash. His vehicle, however, was completely totaled. This is a guy who has already lost everything, just like Pete. The last worldly possession he still owned was the vehicle. After I leaked his intel in David Wilcock’s Brakes Sabotaged: Was It the Dark Alliance?, his house was burglarized to the bare walls. A single bullet was left standing on his countertop. This is a still from the video where he filmed this: He was the one who had leaked the intel to me about the “smart suits,” which I debuted here last night at 6PM. The timing, particularly in light of everything else that has been going on the last few months, is extremely suspect. As with the complete theft of everything in his house, I have asked him to document the vehicle damage with photos and video for later publication. This may have been an example of vehicle hacking being used to steer another car into hitting his car. It is totally crazy. A WORD ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON So let’s talk about how all of these things may be related. In response to some scornful comments we received, I am NOT saying these accidents are because of me. What I AM saying is that the Cabal is on the verge of a mass, public exposure. I am one of the people covering that story with intel most others don’t have. The reason this and the previous articles have been so lengthy is that the data will be scrutinized far more in the future if this comes to pass. The case is very complex. The Alliance will make its moves regardless of whether I am involved in any of this or not. Their plan does NOT revolve around me or my work. That being said, I did have my life threatened. Corey’s life was threatened. Pete’s life was threatened. Paul’s life was threatened. Tompkins actually died. The brakes did go out on my car. Now Paul has just had a head-on collision. It is a miracle that he wasn’t injured more greatly. It was a big, bulky SUV. THIS DOES SEEM TO BE INTERCONNECTED I had been telegraphing for three days via electronic communication that I was writing “the big one” — i.e. this article. Therefore, I have theorized that the Cabal is trying to “clean it up” before either being exposed or attempting a Partial Disclosure. The Partial Disclosure could involve UFOs and / or ancient ruins in Antarctica. Any scholars or insiders who could credibly and intelligently counter these plans would become a threat. Certain individuals could throw off the narrative the Cabal is trying to spin more than others. We are simply some of those people. Tompkins’ testimony is of almost singular importance in establishing the origins of the Secret Space Program during WWII for the US, as one example. Many others are undoubtedly facing similar threats at this time. END EXCERPT OF 10/22 ARTICLE UPDATE I WENT INTO MORE DETAIL ABOUT THE THREATS ON NOVEMBER 12TH, 2017 On November 12th, 2017, I wrote Something Very Big, Part III: Saudi Mass Arrests Sign of Impending Cabal Defeat?, which was chock-full of very exciting intel about pending indictments and arrests. At the beginning of this article, I shared more of what had happened to Emery, including the head-on collision that occurred only a half-hour after the previous article went up. This was the first time that I actually posted pictures of the crash, further proving that it did really happen. Take a look: BEGIN EXCERPT OF 11/12 ARTICLE UPDATE https://divinecosmos.com/start-here/davids-blog/1222-something-big-iii ONE OF OUR TOP INSIDERS WAS ALMOST KILLED Just half an hour after we released Part Two, one of our top insiders we have been calling Paul was nearly killed in a head-on collision. This was particularly significant because we had released more of his highly sensitive intel in that same article. I didn’t find out what happened until a day or two after the event took place, as he had been in the hospital. This was the same insider who had everything he owned stolen, with nothing left but an armor-piercing bullet on the countertop of his home. This had occurred shortly after the last time I had released intel from him in August: The police said there was no traceable evidence of a break-in, despite clear boot-prints on the door where it was kicked in. They were so frightened by whatever this was that they wouldn’t even enter the house. They dropped Paul off outside and he had to go in alone: The attack was very spiteful, including smashing all his crystals to bits on the floor and stealing every personal record and belonging from the previous 30 years. Holes were cut in the wall where various classified items had been stored — and all of these precious documents and keepsakes were removed: VERY DISTURBING VEHICLE ACCIDENT In the second and even more serious incident, which again was only a half hour after my article had launched, Paul suffered a head-on collision. Paul had just pulled out of a grocery store onto a busy, double-lane road. The driver of an oncoming car steered directly into Paul’s lane. Paul had a brick wall to his side, leaving him with nowhere else to turn… and no escape. It was the perfect trap. Instead of slowing down or steering away, this driver maintained his collision course — and actually accelerated. The Range Rover was the last item of value that Paul still owned, and it was destroyed beyond repair in the collision. Paul turned away from the car to try to change the impact angle and reduce the severity of the crash at the very last second. This may very well have been a move that saved his life, even though it brought the impact even closer to his side of the car. Paul’s body collided with the windshield, leaving visible cracks as you can see here. Blood was found on the window and the driver’s side door. Luckily, he escaped with whiplash and a concussion and nothing more severe, other than the final loss of everything he owned. Since then, we have taken elaborate precautions to insure that his valuable information can never be lost. We will have more to say on that soon enough. END EXCERPT OF 11/12 ARTICLE UPDATE “ELABROATE PRECAUTIONS” MEANT GETTING HIM TO COME FORWARD What I did not say at the time this was written was that Emery and I were already at Gaia HQ, in Colorado, taping his testimony in episode-length installments. I knew we were running a very dangerous game here. It was vitally essential that we preserve his knowledge and experience in case something happened. We had a lot of fun with it and managed to produce fifteen very hard-hitting episodes. As I have said before, I had many great surprises during this process, since he shared much more on camera than he had ever told me before. I remember in the past being frustrated when I would ask about certain things and know he was holding back, for whatever reason. In this case we made sure not to do anything stupid, as in anything that would jeopardize national security. We were also extremely thorough. I did not want to say a single word about what we had done until at least one episode had already aired. Why? Simply put, although I didn’t like thinking this way, I was well aware that Emery might be attacked once again. THE PATTERN HELD TRUE It is possible that various assets in the Dark Alliance were unaware of the “soft launch” of Emery’s testimony on Cosmic Disclosure until I wrote about it. If they were watching his finances through covert means publicized by Edward Snowden, then they knew he had gotten very close to absolute zero. Gaia has offered him some assistance, but this is a grassroots company that pays everyone equally and cannot throw large amounts of money around. Furthermore, everything business-related gets delayed around the holidays, making it even tougher. One thing we’ve learned about the Dark Alliance / Deep State is they get really, really pissed off when they are trying to destroy someone and we then rise to their aid. They obviously felt they were very close to destroying Emery. Then when you rose up to defend him and keep him from going “over the cliff,” they were obviously furious. On Christmas Day, you began saving Emery’s life by sending him donations. On the day after Christmas, the Deep State attempted to kill him. Again. Here’s the update I wrote to the last article about this, in case you may have missed it: BEGIN UPDATE WEDNESDAY 12/27, 11:33 AM: EMERY SMITH HIT WITH VERY SERIOUS ATTACK https://divinecosmos.com/start-here/davids-blog/1223-targeted-arrests?showall=&start=1 Last night I got the kind of text from Emery that you never want to see. Here was a part of it: We pulled over to let dogs pee and in 5 min three black SUVs followed us right after sunset. They pulled off about 50 Meters away and took my dog and accelerated away! I’m devastated! My only last family member Emery was extremely distraught, as expressed in other personal texts I will refrain from sharing. His health was also very bad, with what he believed was pneumonia. This could have been the result of how rough things got before we bailed him out, coupled with lack of sleep and massive stress. For some time we didn’t hear very much. I was just encouraging him to get to a safe place and make sure to hydrate. I was very sorry about the dog. I could only imagine what might have happened, and my thoughts were pretty dark, I must say. This was very obviously a Dark Alliance targeted attack, not just three random black SUVs who happened to follow him and want to abduct his dog. The whole thing was just crazy. “Someone” obviously ordered this attack. That same “someone” is clearly trying to intimidate us into not speaking about the Secret Space Program. WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS? This is an act of total desperation. If the Deep State were smart, they would totally avoid targeting someone like this after they came out. By doing this attack, they are absolutely, 100 percent signaling that Emery is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That means that some aspect of the Deep State already has a program where even one employee, in only 3-4 years of time, can personally autopsy 3000 different ET bodies. Based on the number of operating rooms and floors in this one base alone, there are probably THOUSANDS of other employees doing the exact same job. Again, Emery has no “smoking gun” that can absolutely prove everything Corey is saying is true. He has seen live ETs in person as well, at various times, including tall humanoid reptilian types. So there are many, many validations. Part of why Corey made sense to me was that I had heard Emery’s stories long before we ever spoke. Now you are getting this for the first time. Please send your prayers and support to Emery in this difficult time. “They” are trying to punish him for coming forward, and it only further proves he is for real. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DOG? The story had an unexpected twist, well after I first heard the news. Emery is already plugged into Alliance networks. With that in mind, check out the text I got after having a long time to think about this and mourn his dog: We have recovered Raven who was thrown out of an SUV on the highway. An angelic woman took her to Pet Smart to buy her water and snacks and posted on Facebook ASAP, which my colleagues immediately zeroed in on and contacted her! The search and abduction was over in 90 minutes without me calling in the satellites! We are very, very grateful that Emery’s dog Raven was not killed, and that he was able to get the dog back. The adversary very likely did not count on anything like this happening. I have asked Emery to get as much documented evidence about this as possible, so fake Dark Alliance trolls won’t accuse him of making this up. It was similarly irrefutable for him to take pictures of his car after he suffered a head-on collision. Just so we are clear. This is all very real. Anyone accusing him of making this up is acting like a psychopath and should be shunned. I recommended documenting any tissue damage to the dog, photos of the Facebook post with the name scrubbed, et cetera. WE ARE NOT GIVING UP Since Emery already gave us the initial bulk of all of his coolest stories in the course of 15 episodes, I am not sure why this was done. Granted, we can go into a lot more detail, and we plan to. This kind of a move, however, just reeks of desperation. The Deep State obviously wants to make other insiders afraid to come forward. They don’t even care at this point. It’s just wild and chaotic. With that being said, we will not let Emery’s life be in vain. This only further motivates us to do whatever we can to get the truth out. This is a very real battle, with very high stakes. So please consider giving financial assistance to Emery if you have not already done so. He became very despondent from this, as expected. He is only human, as are we all. The Cabal folks seem very angry and jealous right now. If we can step away from the immediate shock, horror and crisis of this, we can be grateful that he got his dog back, relatively unscathed. This also is a very significant event in the history of disclosure. Acts of terror like this reek of total desperation. It can come back around on them in very unexpected ways. From a spiritual perspective, attacks against Emery like this (or anyone else) also authorize the “good guys” to do much more to quicken the Deep State’s downfall. After coming back from breakfast and checking on this with a single click, there was another repeating-digit pattern — this time 555. UPDATE, 12/27, 3:28 PM: PROOF OF DOG’S ABDUCTION I asked Emery and his associates to provide proof of where the dog’s discovery was announced on social media. I obviously do believe him, but in today’s sad world of paid Dark Alliance trolls, who viciously attack everything, some degree of proof is useful. This is the first level of what came in. Much more documentation will follow. We will probably write a separate update about these events. Please devote some time to praying and / or sending positive, loving thoughts to Emery right now, as he is in very poor health. Thanks. CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO THE EMERY SMITH SURVIVAL FUND END 12/27 UPDATE HE WAS ALREADY IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM BY THIS POINT Many things were left out of this update for Emery’s own safety. It was a combined operation. What happened to the dog was only a part of it. Simply put, he was already in the emergency room by the time I posted the proof of his dog’s abduction. He thought he had pneumonia. It turned out to be a very, very severe case of influenza, with a fever that skyrocketed all the way up to 105. Bear in mind that this is only 2.6 degrees below the temperature where permanent brain damage or death can result — 107.6 degrees Fahrenheit. We are not sure exactly how Emery suddenly became so violently ill. One possibility, based on things Pete Peterson had told me, is that Emery was shot with an “ice dart” by one of the SUVs that went by, before grabbing his dog. This might not feel like more than a bug bite, but it could easily be loaded with viruses or pathogens that could make you develop a sudden, huge fever. Whoever did this may have ‘hoped’ that the added shock of having his dog stolen could further weaken his health and cause him to actually die. SAD, BUT TRUE… The sad part is that even with all of this said, there are people who will deny, deny, deny that any of this actually happened. Some, if not many of them will be paid Deep State trolls, who are probably told horrible lies about us to make them feel good about what they are doing. For this same reason I told Emery that he needed to document his visit to the emergency room with as much photographic evidence as possible. Too many people think this is all a game, just something to read about if it can hold their interest for a few minutes. “They just made this all up. It’s all about Ego and Money.” This is the same thing I’ve heard for the entire 22 years I’ve been doing this. It never stops. If Emery had a “big ego,” why did he absolutely refuse to come forward for ten years until he was threatened with imminent death? No level of proof will stop the “paid trolls” from making such accusations, but my goal here is to reach the real people who might still be on the fence. PHOTOS OF EMERY’S STAY IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM With that being said, here is some of the documentation we gathered from Emery’s visit to the Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs. In case anyone tries to question this aspect of the story, Eisenhower was the best emergency care he could find for the area. As I said before, they were already at full capacity the night this happened, and wouldn’t admit him for seven more hours. He ended up going back to a hotel to sleep, and returning after waking up around noon the next day — still very violently ill. I was deeply concerned about all of this, but until he got healthier I did not want to tip off the adversary with any news that he was this unstable. At one point the medical staff considered moving him to a more sophisticated hospital, but they were worried that if they moved him, he would die. Literally. Here is a wider shot of Emery on the hospital bed, showing more of the equipment in the room: This was the first shot he sent me, where it became very clear how sick he was: I asked him to take a photo of his wristband, and here it is: I also said it was important to get documentation on his symptoms and treatment. This is a close-up showing he had a temperature of 103 at the time this was taken. At other times it had gone up to 105. The Oxygen Saturation level was at 91, and had come up a point from 90, which is extremely dangerous. This also shows the medications he was given for a shortness of breath — which he is still suffering from now: Lastly, this is a full-page view of the same document that the above image was taken from: UPDATE WHILE WRITING: HE HAS TO GO BACK As I was writing this update and had gotten to this point, Emery texted me and said his condition has worsened again… and he is going back in. Even if you “don’t believe in this sort of thing,” please send Emery your thoughts and prayers for a full and fast recovery. The best way to do this is to clear your mind, go into a relaxed and meditative state, and send him feelings of love and peace. If you so choose, you can visualize him surrounded with white, healing light. I feel it is very important that we do this. He might not be suffering from a normal flu. There could be something at work here that is harder to fight than normal. I would only call for this in a genuine emergency, and this is it. The only other thing I have to give you his “signature” at this point, since all of this is so new, is a brief clip from our first episode. Nothing else is online yet. Gaia uploaded this to my YouTube account, since I granted them access, and made it live earlier today: WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED I am documenting what is happening to Emery because this is an incredibly brazen attack by the Deep State. Let’s bear in mind that we have eyewitnesses to three black SUVs pulling up and grabbing his dog as it was walking around on its own, 50 yards away. We also have proof that the dog Raven was found by a concerned citizen, which was miraculous in and of itself, and Emery was able to get her back. Normally the Deep State would simply roll out a whole mess of “troll videos” trying to discredit Emery and make him look bad, for whatever reason. By attacking him so forcefully and frontally, they are indeed making it very obvious that they are “on the ropes” and feeling threatened by this. All it does is show us how very real all of this is. If Emery was “larping,” i.e. making it all up, I highly doubt any of this would have happened. Additionally, Paypal locked up his account after only allowing a very small amount into his bank, citing a “fraud investigation.” Furthermore, they are giving themselves three days — 72 hours — to complete the investigation, even after seeing my website. So please, Paypal staff, bear in mind that we have a large audience and we really do want to help Emery Smith. There is no fraud going on here. WE WILL PULL THROUGH THIS I feel confident that with your help, Emery is going to make it. We already have taped enough from him that a Cabal hit would only make him even more of a hero. No one is stopping those 15 episodes from getting out. We are taking multiple precautions to ensure his future safety. The power of our mass consciousness to affect his healing process cannot be undermined. So again, please send Emery your thoughts, prayers and good wishes, and if you feel inclined to donate, now would be the time. Our next update will go much more into Corey’s latest experiences with various ET groups, but it was important that we get this out first. By the way, Corey’s Sphere Being Alliance website has been very severely hacked. That is obviously not an accident. Additionally, just since I said I was about to do more YouTube videos, the entire service has been overwhelmed with tons of new, fake David Wilcock videos. Clearly, “they” are doing everything they can to try to distract, divert and destroy our efforts. With that being said, don’t lose track of the massive work we just released on Christmas Day about mass indictments and targeted arrests of the Deep State. ONE FINAL INTERESTING NOTE…. I was originally going to add this as an additional update to the last article. When I clicked to check on it, I had yet another three-digit synchronicity: For me, that was another ‘sign’ that this really needed a full article all its own… well before I knew he would be going in again. I do find it very upsetting that this is happening. This was not at all easy to write. That does not mean we are backing down. I know that by pulling together as a team, we can surround Emery with protection and ensure his survival. Thank you for helping. We do appreciate it. CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO THE EMERY SMITH SURVIVAL FUND UPDATE, NEXT DAY, 12/29, 1:06 PM: MIRACULOUS RECOVERY I am very happy to report that Emery had a miraculous and very fast recovery today after our call for a mass meditation and prayer. We spoke on the phone and he said he had the remarkable intuitive sensation of feeling contact from many thousands of people, all at once. He was still very sick when he briefly woke up at 1:30 AM last night, but when he got up this morning, he was much, much, much better. His temperature has come down, his vital signs have stabilized and he is not in the hospital. I couldn’t be more pleased with what has happened here. I do not believe he would have improved so quickly without our collective assistance. The science proving this works is very well established, as I have written in The Source Field Investigations and covered in Wisdom Teachings. Nonetheless, it is very rewarding to see it in action in a situation like this. Paypal is also going to “expedite the investigation,” and is saying Emery should have full access to your gifts as of some time tonight. THIS IS A GAME CHANGER Anyone who thinks this was just a “normal flu” should remember that it started immediately after three black SUVs abducted his dog, right near him. We are taking elaborate precautions to ensure his future safety. Disclosure could get a lot more interesting, at a much faster speed, thanks to Emery. We heard from Corey Goode that the Deep State has a gag order on the mainstream media not to cover ANY aspects of the UFO field other than the agreed-upon “talking points.” It is interesting, however, that they are still running with the Antarctic Atlantis story — but will only promote Secure Team 10, and never, ever any of us: 12/29: Massive Anomaly Lurks Bene
't Mr Fadnavis only followed the glorious tradition of Maharashtra CMs dating back to the Congress's Vasantrao Naik in the 1960s of "appeasing" the Senas of Mumbai? Forget "minority" appeasement, this is the real deal: appeasing the party of Mumbai's native "majority". And did anyone seriously think that the BJP is a party with a difference when it comes to law and order? After all, it's only the pesky "liberals" who will be frothing at the mouth. The "nationalists" will be delighted, won't they? And in the age of "hyper-nationalism" why should anyone succumb to the evil designs of woolly-headed "Anti-Nationals' who might like to see Pakistani filmstars perform in Indian cinema. The Union home minister may promise protection to the film producers, but why trust Rajnath when Raj can do the job? Also, the other Thackeray may be useful in the future, should the BJP look beyond the unreliable Shiv Sena as a potential ally. Kya strategy hai. Now we won't need a police posse outside theatres. Think about the savings for taxpayers. (Photo credit: India Today) And what of our frothing media warriors? For weeks, they have been calling for a complete boycott of Pakistani artistes. Now, when the MNS has done their "job", can any of them seriously accuse the saffron warriors of extortion? Once you've given the lynch mob the moral authority of the television studio, can you suddenly accuse them of breaking the law or holding the state to ransom? TRPs surely matter more than constitutional niceties. As does that amorphous notion of public or national "sentiment" (has anyone asked the tribals of Jharkhand whether the fate of Pakistani filmstars matters more or their livelihood issues). But above all else, you have our valiant film fraternity revealing their true colours. You know all those tough, muscular stars who fight ten villains at a time on screen? Did you see the "brave" performance of an Ajay Devgn when he spoke out against Pakistani filmstars (did he mention that he had campaigned for the BJP?) or KJo's video when he looked like a frightened rabbit trapped in the headlights, or Amitabh avoiding a question on the issue? Shah Rukh is silent (once bitten, twice shy?), Aamir has a film about to be released, Salman may have spoken out but he isn't really an "intellectual", is he? As for all the other celebrity actors and producers: hey, why should they speak up and jeopardise their careers? If India's biggest stars are silent, do you really want some minion to stand up to be counted (ok, Anurag Kashyap reassuringly is not quite a minion!) I mean today it is ADHM, tomorrow it could be someone else.The bottomline question then: Should political/business interests matter or some abstract notion of cultural freedoms and India-Pakistan people-to-people contact? As India's richest Indian Mukesh Ambani chanted, "It's all about India First!" What he didn't quite say, in the age of pseudo-patriotism, it's first about the money honey.Post-script: the last hope in this moral vacuum and constitutional darkness lies with our brave soldiers and their families. One can only hope that "izzat" or honour matters to them and they reject the Rs 5 crore being offered to them as a "price" for their sacrifice. While the rest of us prepare to watch ADHM on the Diwali weekend, they will be guarding our borders. Happy Diwali. Also read: First they came for Bollywood, then they will come for you.button { display: inline-block; padding: 5px 15px; color: #333; border: 1px solid #ccc; border-radius: 3px; background: linear-gradient(#ffffff, #e6e6e6); } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8.button { display : inline-block ; padding : 5px 15px ; color : #333 ; border : 1px solid #ccc ; border-radius : 3px ; background : linear-gradient ( #ffffff, #e6e6e6 ) ; } Subclassing .button .iconed-button:before { content: "\24BE\ "; }.dropdown-button:after { content: " \25BE"; } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.iconed-button:before { content : "\24BE\ " ; }.dropdown-button:after { content : " \25BE" ; } button <button class="button iconed-button">Button text</button> 1 <button class = "button iconed-button" > Button text </button> <button class="button dropdown-button">Button text</button> 1 <button class = "button dropdown-button" > Button text </button> .button,.iconed-button,.dropdown-button { display: inline-block; padding: 5px 15px; color: #333; border: 1px solid #ccc; border-radius: 3px; background: linear-gradient(#ffffff, #e6e6e6); }.iconed-button:before { content: "\24BE\ "; }.dropdown-button:after { content: " \25BE"; } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16.button,.iconed-button,.dropdown-button { display : inline-block ; padding : 5px 15px ; color : #333 ; border : 1px solid #ccc ; border-radius : 3px ; background : linear-gradient ( #ffffff, #e6e6e6 ) ; }.iconed-button:before { content : "\24BE\ " ; }.dropdown-button:after { content : " \25BE" ; } .button,.iconed-button,.dropdown-button <button class="button">Button text</button> <button class="dropdown-button">Button text</button> <button class="iconed-button">Button text</button> 1 2 3 <button class = "button" > Button text </button> <button class = "dropdown-button" > Button text </button> <button class = "iconed-button" > Button text </button> Result Modifiers .button.primary { background: #006dcc; color: #fff; }.button.disabled { background: #aaa; color: #eee; } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.button.primary { background : #006dcc ; color : #fff ; }.button.disabled { background : #aaa ; color : #eee ; } <button class="button primary">Button text</button> 1 <button class = "button primary" > Button text </button> .primary .disabled .button Parental namespacing .signup-form.button { padding: 8px 20px; } 1 2 3.signup-form.button { padding : 8px 20px ; } Button text Conclusion Most modern methodologies like OOCSS SMACSS are all about learning to think about your UI and CSS in terms of objects. Which appeared to be really useful and flexible approach to organize and reuse code-base leaving it simple and DRY.Objects are simple independent and indivisible components that are used across the project. We can think of them as interface elements like headings, form fields, buttons and content blocks.Here is a simplest example of a button object:Everything looks simple so far but apparently this is not the only type of buttons you’ll need during the project. You may need buttons of different size, colors and behaviour and here is where you have several options.Let’s think aboutas about parent class in programming languages, we’ll be extending with child classes. It’s useful for inheriting the properties of parent object while adding additional behavior. Let’s say we want to create two more simple types of buttons – button with icon before text and dropdown button.Now we are able to create both child elements by applying parent and child class toelement.orNot to create a mess in HTML and reduce number of classes applied to the element one more optimization is required. We can list our child classes with coma right after parent class in selector, so that all these classes will have common styles and two of them will differ in a minor way.In this case you can use only one ofclasses in your HTML applying it to the button element.Modifier classes are used to make minor modifications to the existing behavior or to indicate that the object is in a certain state. Nouns are used for object’s class names, in case of classes modifiers it is apparent to use adjectives.Modifiers are meant towhich means to override some properties of ‘default’ objects whereas subclassing is used to extend them with new properties, thus creating new objects.This is how by applying aormodifier to the button object we can now change the coloring of button. In this case, we also wanted to force these modifiers to apply to the button object only so we usedclass in selector.One more way to change object’s appearance or behaviour is to use parent’s class name in selector to add changes to the object. Location dependent styles are usually the kind of things you should avoid, because in general object’s styles should not depend on placement. But in rare cases you may come up with an idea of modifying object due to it’s location. For example let’s make the submit button larger than the default one.In this case the button will remain an independent object you can place anywhere on the page, and only if placed inside signup form it will change its appearance.Despite the fact that CSS, unlike programming languages, is declarative, there’s a lot to pick from object oriented programming. Thinking “objects” is the kind of skill that will help you create re-usable objects and stop writing redundant code. It becomes easy to maintain code base and make modifications to existing UI without harming different parts of application.Groundislava's new album Frozen Throne is, essentially, about one man's downfall after he loses the girl he loves in a virtual realm. (It's also, not surprisingly, an homage to William Gibson's Neuromancer.) There's a theme that lends itself to a slam-dunk music video, right? Whip up a concept in the vein of The Matrix or Tron, hit "record," and ta-da! Instant Vimeo hit. Groundislava—aka Jasper Patterson—took it a little further. He made the video a world you can actually play in. The playable version of "Girl Behind the Glass" looks like what would happen if Rick Deckard dropped acid and went to Coachella in 2019 to search for an origami unicorn. (OK, in this case it's a girl, but you get the idea.) As the song streams, players can point-and-click around in the video's world to see distorted versions of what's onscreen. There aren't really points or conquests or anything, but the simple act of exploring its neon headtrip is more engaging than most music videos out there. (Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" notwithstanding.) It's a vibe that permeates the Frozen Throne album and something Patterson wanted to infuse into the song's video. "Coming down from a number of different substances, [the protagonist of Frozen Throne] recklessly wanders into the cyberpunk abyss of a futuristic metropolis" before eventually finding his lost love," Patterson says. "We came up with a sort of roller coaster of scenes and images that exist in a realm somewhere between the virtual and 'IRL' worlds within the story, with the interactive component of the 'video' placing the viewer in the 'driver's seat' of said roller coaster." Created by "experimental director duo" The Great Nordic Sword Fights, the resulting "video"—actually more like an interactive videogame (download it here)—for "Girl Behind the Glass" feels like getting lost in a hyper-color Max Headroom clip. Users maneuver through the experience lead by a Power Glove-like hand and are free to look around the environment as they look for the eponymous girl. "If the mouse button is pressed the image will distort with colorful noises and effects," Patterson says, "simulating a lapse in the character's grasp on reality." It's fun, even a little goofy—and its soundtrack is heavenly for anyone who misses Tears for Fears and/or Level 42. It's also indicative of a mix of immense creativity and irreverence, that must run in the family. Patterson's father, Mike Patterson, is the guy who did the animation for a-ha's now-legendary video for "Take On Me." (He also worked on Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract.") Not that the younger Patterson was looking to necessary create the exact same 1980s magic of his father's videos. "I don't think his work directly inspired this video stylistically, but, in general, growing up around [it] created an unbreakable bond between sight and sound for me," he says. "It helps when I collaborate with visual artists to create a music video because I enter the process with such concrete visual concepts already in mind." Check out a more traditional version of Groundislava's new music video, which premiered today, above.Mike Williams made his highly anticipated debut on Sunday in Oakland. While he was on a pitch count, seeing only a handful of snaps throughout the day, he made his presence felt with a key third down conversion in the fourth quarter. The first-round pick caught a 15-yard in route on his lone target, moving the chains on 3rd-and-6 to the Raiders’ 19. “I just had a little dig route,” Williams said, describing what went through his mind on the play. “Just had to get my depth. I felt like the route was going to be there because they were playing a lot of cover-2. So I just had to find my depth, get past the chains, and get the catch.” A first catch is always a memorable moment for a player. However, outside of perhaps finding the end zone, Williams couldn’t have asked for anything more from his first NFL reception. After all, what’s better than a clutch catch on the road against the Raiders in the Black hole to set up a touchdown? In recent weeks, the Bolts have said Williams looked impressive while practicing on a limited basis. While it was only one catch, his teammates saw the player they expected under the bright lights. “He came through when we needed him,” said Melvin Gordon. “With a big catch, he made one that helped move us into a position to win. That is what it is all about. I think once he gets fully comfortable out there, once he gets in stride, he is just so big out there and can be a great possession receiver.” “Major,” Keenan Allen said. “Third down catch. He needed it. We needed it. So that’s confidence on both sides and it kept the drive going, too, so it was great.” Equally important, it was a confidence building play for the young wideout and his veteran quarterback who are still building chemistry. “I haven’t thrown him many balls, but it was a handful of those during this week at practice,” Philip Rivers said. “It was just good. It was good that he felt the hold. I kind tried to talk through the throw. He was wide open on that one. It was good. He was, as to be expected with both where he played in college and the big games he played in. He wasn’t real wide-eyed in there. He looked comfortable to me.” While his overall play may not have popped out to those watching on TV, it did make an impression on number 17. “All week we’ve been trying to sprinkle him in there and everyone was quiet all week on how much we thought he was going to play,” Rivers explained. “We wanted to sprinkle him in some and let him ease his way in. He knew that if he got his own coverage he was going to have a chance to be the primary guy on the in-route, and he did a nice job. He had a couple other nice in-routes and other things he was in there on. It was exciting his first catch, getting action in division game on the road. His first game. I know he’s been in huge crowds his whole career in National Championship games (at Clemson), and I think that was good for him. Now we’ll continue to mix him in and keep Travis (Benjamin) and Tyrell (Williams) fresh, keep them all fresh and mix him in there. It’ll be good for him.” As for the rookie himself, Williams said it felt natural to be back on the field. Still, that doesn’t mean he didn’t have butterflies.* Nationwide effort targets food industry, restaurants * Seeks voluntary reduction of sodium in U.S. food supply * Critics see it as more “paternalistic” regulation (Adds analyst comment) By Basil Katz NEW YORK, Jan 11 (Reuters) - New York City, which has banned smoking and artificial trans fats in restaurants under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is taking on another enemy of healthy living: salt. The city’s Health Department announced on Monday that it is coordinating a nationwide effort to reduce salt in restaurant and packaged foods by 25 percent over five years. The National Salt Reduction Initiative, a coalition of cities and health organizations, hopes the food industry will back its campaign to combat high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes by voluntarily reducing the sodium in the U.S. food supply. The announcement met with mixed reaction. Many food makers have already begun to cut salt content and said the reduction targets were reasonable, but some critics called it another attempt to regulate what should be a free choice. Bloomberg, who has just begun his third term as mayor, has crusaded for healthy living. Apart from the smoking and trans fat bans, the city required chain restaurants to post calorie counts of their menu items and started ad advertising campaign against sugary drinks. Companies are aware of the push to reduce salt and the New York initiative represents a challenge, said Tom Forte, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, an equity research firm. The restaurant industry will change its offerings if demand is there, but there is “not a lot of proof” previous measures in New York caused any major shifts in consumer behavior, Forte said. The effort targets restaurants and packaged food because only 11 percent of the sodium in Americans’ diets comes from their saltshakers. Nearly 80 percent is added to foods before they are sold, the Health Department said. High blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke kill 23,000 New Yorkers and 800,000 Americans per year, costing untold billions in healthcare expenses, the Health Department said. Salt intake has been increasing steadily since the 1970s, with Americans consuming about twice the recommended limit of salt each day. “Consumers can always add salt to food, but they can’t take it out,” said New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley. But J. Justin Wilson of the Center for Consumer Freedom, an industry-funded group that lobbies against restrictions on smoking, alcohol and the restaurant and food industries, called the initiative “paternalistic” and warned that if the City doesn’t get its way, it may try to make the proposals obligatory. “First it was trans fats, then it was mandatory labeling. The City’s Board of Health knows best.” Food manufacturers said the proposals are reasonable and have been a part of their strategy for some time. “Kraft Foods is supportive of the overall goal of New York City’s sodium reduction initiative,” said Susan Davidson of Kraft Foods Inc. KFT.N The New York City Health Department’s Dr. Sonia Angell said the sodium cuts are “not about banning any single product” but making sure the mix of high and low sodium products is balanced so that it packs “a lower wallop of sodium for all of us.” The city vowed to solicit additional comments from the food industry and consumer organizations until Feb. 1. For the proposed salt reduction targets, click on: here (Reporting by Basil Katz; editing by Daniel Trotta and Anthony Boadle)SDR (software defined radio) is a new technology that offers a simple alternative to bulkier analog radio, adding more flexibility, tunable performance and a smaller form factor. SDR’s are everywhere nowadays, from your cell phone to your wireless headset and your cable modem. But…Airspy is a popular, high performance, affordable Software Defined Radio system using innovative signal processing techniques to satisfy the most demanding telecommunication professionals and radio enthusiasts. It is a serious alternative to both cost sensitive and higher end scanners while featuringthanks to the tight integration with the de facto standardsignal analysis and demodulation software.The Airspy series offerspectrum coverage andand accurate scanning anywhere betweenwith 10 or 6MHz instantaneous view. External GPS or Rubidium clocks are also supported for professional usages in the R2 version. We also provideradios for thecovering the bands between 0 and 30 MHz withfor the size.With their powerful architecture, careful implementation and open API, Airspy radios are the weapon of choice for professionals and advanced radio enthusiasts seeking cutting edge performance at the lowest cost. Serious about SDR? Contact us!Yesterday concluded the first Idea Mapping Workshop in the entire Middle East. This event was organized by Forward Training and Consulting LLC. It was one of the most inspiring groups I have ever had the privilege to teach in 18 years of doing this work. Workshop success was so exceptional that we have already scheduled the next training for May 9-10, 2010 in Amman. I’ll let you know when registration is open, but if you feel you must get on the waitlist now you can call +(962-6) 4611277 or email Idea@FWDTC.com. Teams of people from the following companies were in attendance: Zain, Ahli Bank, King Hussain Cancer Center, ETQ, IHPCO, Idea JWT, Jordan International School, Smart Minds, Petralip, UNDP, Kettaneh, Elixir Day Spa, Lebanese Conflict Resolution Network, and Dana Productions. Here are a few photos from the workshop. More to come in follow-up postings!Here's a list of some of the books I read while writing Lauren Ipsum, a children's novel about computer science, and its upcoming sequel. Lauren and the Jargonauts will be about how communications and the internet really work. This list is a mix of the history of technology & social change, logical intuition, and the fundamentals of computer science itself. Neal Stephenson The internet is the largest and most interesting artifact created by mankind. Every country, every town, every no-longer-lonely island contains a piece of it. The rest lies under the waves. There aren't many tellings of the story of how undersea cables came to be, but this piece by Stephenson is my favorite. I had no idea about the eternal war between fishermen and cablemen, about how unlikely and fragile the whole system is, the cutthroat deals that go into every thread across the water, or why the British dominate the cable industry so hard. It's a book-length article that appeared in Wired, available for free online. Arthur C Clarke Many of the same basic facts of the story of the undersea cable network are given in this book, but in more technical detail, eg every major development in repeater technology. The second half wanders quite a bit into personal reminiscence, but perhaps that's expected from the guy who invented satellites. While gathering links for this post I discovered that it's pretty hard to get a copy of this book. I found mine in the dollar bin at my local used bookstore. Go figure. John Steele Gordon This narrative focuses on Cyrus W Field, the man who single-handedly convinced everyone that a telegraph cable across the Atlantic was possible. This book gives nearly zero time to the technology, which was disappointing. On the other hand, the other two books gave zero attention to Field. Thomas Khun A Googler recommended this to me after reading Pascal's Apology. Scattered throughout the sometimes dense language are quotes designed to piss scientsts off: Mopping-up operations are what engage most scientists throughout their careers... The scientific enterprise as a whole does from time to time prove useful, open up new territory, display order, and test long-accepted belief. Nevertheless, the individual engaged on a normal research problem is almost never doing any one of these things. He has a point. The gist is that science is a social process that progresses in stages. First you have a pile of facts. There is no mental framework, or paradigm, to tell people which ones are important, or to whom. So a motley crew of interested souls pick a few facts and try to explain them. Sometimes they get lucky, but almost never in the way they expect. For example, early scientists researching electricity studied different phenomena at random. Some played with bits of chaff, others with balls of sulfur and cats. Everyone had a pet theory and none of them were correct. The ones who imagined it was an invisible fluid decided, by analogy, to try to catch some in a jar. This borders on magical thinking. But after many failures and sheer dumb luck that one happened to work. Once the fluidists could store electricity in a Leyden Jar, they knew they were onto something. They were still wildly wrong from our perspective, but just right enough to point them in better directions. To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted... Throughout the eighteenth century those scientists who tried to derive the observed motion of the moon from Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation consistently failed to do so. Once there is a good-enough paradigm to hang your facts on, the normal business of science can commence: the mopping up, the building of devices to observe phenomena that the paradigm says must exist. Filling in the details. It all becomes a puzzle, and attracts the sort of people who like both a mental challenge and the reassurance that there actually is an answer, one that fits pre-determined rules. Kuhn's book goes into great detail about the mechanisms of science, and is much more even-handed than the quotes suggest. His point is that science evolves via punctuated equilibrium. For long periods there is an overarching paradigm that drives what new facts are discovered, as well as which ones get ignored as instrument error. Then along comes a paradigm shift that changes what a fact is, and the game starts anew. After reading this book I'm more convinced that computer science is in very early days, almost pre-paradigmatic. For example, why isn't there a standard diagram of how different data structures are related? Every one of the millions of people who've rubbed up against them have had to develop their own ways to cope, and it shows. Clifford Pickover Summaries of hundreds of important discoveries in math, and also has very pretty pictures. I use it mainly as a way to generate ideas for characters or situations. (I also use the Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures.) For instance, glancing through the book I came across Hilbert's Grand Hotel. From there I came up with Prince Hilbert, son of Count Modulo of the Infinite Isles, who needs to find an empty Isle to rule. Jeremy Kubica I really like this book. It's a collection of stories adapted from Kubica's blog of the same name, expanded, updated, and woven into a complete adventure story. "In rare cases, there might even be laughing involved." The morals of the stories range from basic algorithms, to deep computational intuition, to pragmatic lessons from software engineering. Charles Petzold This is a classic book, and informative. I think it makes the mistake of going through the system "bottom up", from switches to circuits to binary logic, etc. Many people love it but when I put on my beginner's hat I found my attention wandering too much. Fazlollah Reza I found a first edition of this book on a sidewalk seller's blanket in Venezuela. It was paired with another book in a series about electrical engineering. To my lasting regret I bought only this one. It was written in the late 1950s, not long after Claude Shannon blew the doors wide open with his theory about coding and error correction. This book was one of the first attempts to summarize the state of the field, and it has aged well. John Freely When taking in the long view of history, individual ideas are less important than how they move and mutate. Freely's book is a very good overview of the development of scientific tradition from its birth on a Greek colony off the coast of Turkey, to its heyday in Athens, its "third act" in Alexandria on the northern coast of Africa, its assimilation by various Muslim empires, and later fusion with what was left in scattered monestaries in Europe. Restless knowledge thrives at the edges of civilization, not the center. I especially love that this book gives equal time to triumphs and wrong turns. Sure, Aristarchus got the structure of the solar system right long before Copernicus, and you can shake your head at all the silly people who didn't listen to him. But it's important to remember that the other theories sounded just as reasonable. Copernicus's initial model didn't give more accurate predictions than Ptolemy's; people liked it because it was a bit cleaner. And as much as Tycho Brahe admired Copernicus he went to his grave believing that only Mercury and Venus orbited the Sun, which orbited a stationary Earth. Growing up in the West it's easy to get the impression that Muslims merely kept great Greek thought safe until civilization returned. This is not just wrong, it's insulting. Aladdin does a good job of reviewing the original contributions of Muslim scientists, which were in turn adapted by Newton, Harvey, and everyone else in Europe, though not everyone gave credit. Another interesting fact: the Byzantine and Muslim empires both managed to shoot themselves in the foot with spasms of religious fundamentalism. In Byzantium, Greek science was associated with dirty old paganism and snuffed out as Justinian solidified his hold on power. In the Islamic world, al-Ghalzali's popular attacks on scientific tradition drove people back to alchemy and mysticism. Eventually the Mongols sacked Bagdhad and burned all the books. It gives one pause, when reading stories like this, to realize how much of our history and culture was rescued by people running for their lives, and how much more has been lost forever. Armand Mattelart I often buy dollar-bin books solely on the title. This one turns out to be an excellent review of how technology, demography, economics, politics, and trade flowed and changed around the world as that world slowly learned how to talk to itself. I didn't know, for instance, that all the major news wires were founded around the same time, just after the birth of the global telegraph network they depended on. They also made an agreement early on to divvy up the world into oligopolistic chunks, which is why Agence France-Presse is big in Latin America but not in the States. Henry Petroski I've had this slim little book for over twenty years. It's a wonderful and sometimes frightening story about how and when and why things go wrong in physical engineering. Every time a plastic dongle snaps or a metal hinge falls victim to fatigue I think about Petroski making charts of the failure rates of his child's toys and his kitchen knives. It was written in the late 80s or early 90s, and gives an amusingly short dismissal of computer modeling. Apparently it takes away an engineer's feel for structure. David Flannery This one was recommended to me by a redditor after having read Lauren Ipsum. The square root of two is a deep and subtle subject. You could write a book about it, but David Flannery already has. (There are two other books with the same title. Be careful; one of them is just a list of the first 5 million digits!) It starts with a seemingly simple question: what is the square root of 2, as in the actual value? Like any good story it leads not to the simple answer you expect, but to a profoundly different way to think about the question itself. The story is written as a dialog between a master and a student, in the tradition of Galileo's Salviati & Simplicio. This style can be annoying at times because Flannery didn't write the voices to be different enough. The student makes rather intelligent leaps of deduction several times in a row, and rarely really goes off on a tangent the way a real student might. Brian W Kernighan I was surprised and pleased to learn that Brian Kernighan, one of the most famous programmers in the world, wrote an introductory computer science text and self-published it. The subtitle is What a well-informed person should know about computers and communications, and it is exactly that. Like Petzold's Code it is structured bottom up, but it's shorter, less strict about the progression, and overall is better-written. There is a simple metaphor or example approximately every three paragraphs, which helps enormously to anchor in the reader's mind not just the mechanism but the relative importance of whatever he's discussing. Willard Quine I found this one in a second-hand clothing shop in London. I never knew Quine was such a good writer, but I haven't finshed this book yet. I have a hard time slogging through formal logic even though I know there is really good stuff there. Neville Dean Pithy and good. I took it on vacation and filled a small sketchpad with notes and equations, thumbfingered and slow, but happy to stretch my mind a bit. About halfway through I finally understood why Carroll's What the Tortoise Said to Achilles is actually a proof of infinite regress buried in the mechanism of modus ponens. I liked the idea so much that Ponens became a character in Ipsum along with his cousin Tollens. Paul Lockhart This is a phenomenal new book, published a couple of weeks ago. Paul Lockhart became famous for Lockhart's Lament, a privately-circulated polemic against the current math education regime. Measurement is his vision for what it should be. It's written as a conversation between him and the reader. All along he stresses that math is an art form consisting of asking questions, posing creative answers, and then finding even more creative ways to prove they are true. Or false. What I really love about this book is the ha-ha-only-serious mood; he feels genuine joy every second he spends doing real mathematics. He cheerfully makes battle with the fundamental ideas of the universe, knowing full well that he knows nearly nothing at all. It truly is his favorite thing in the world, second only perhaps to getting other people to feel the same joy. Your first essays in this craft are likely to be logical disasters. You will believe things to be true, and they won't be. Your reasoning will be flawed. You will jump to conclusions. Well, go ahead and jump. The only person you have to satisfy is yourself... You will declare yourself a genius at breakfast and an idiot at lunch... The real difference between you and more experienced mathematicians is that we've seen a lot more ways that we can fool ourselves. Douglas Hofstadter The book that every programmer has heard about, many own, and some have even read. I have to confess that I had this book for years before making it all the way through. I didn't understand it the first few times through, either. It alternates between chapters with exercises and discussion, and dialogs between Achilles & Tortoise. This book gave me the idea to steal those characters for my own book. It turns out Hofstadter stole them from Lewis Carroll so I guess it balances. Hans Magnus Enzensberger This is fundamentally a good book, and lushly illustrated. It goes a long way to introduce mathematical intuition, not just facts. My major complaint is that it makes up a whole set of new Jargon instead of the real terms, eg 4 vroooom instead of 4 factorial, and hangs many puns on top of them. All Jargon, even your own supposedly easier Jargon, is going to seem random to most people. I mean, radish instead of square root? You might as well use the real words. John Seely Brown & Paul Duguid This book masterfully describes and then demonstrates the flaws in the technoutopian world envisioned in the late 1990s. The computer is the least important bit in the equation. What matters are the people who use the technology, and how. Malba Tahan A fabulous, lyrical story about math and reason. Written in the style of the Arabian Nights, you wouldn't think that it would teach you much in such a short space. But it does, and makes you smile too. I do wish the author spent more time on the mathematical reasoning, but it was intended as a puzzle book so giving away the secret was not the point. James Burke I found myself re-watching the accompanying TV series a lot while writing Ipsum. Burke is a master at explaining how a piece of technology works and why it's important. The Pinball Effect is a later book in the same vein. The margins contain a remarkable cross-index of all of the ideas, people, places, and technologies mentioned. This allows you to jump from one page to any other in a few hops, cutting your own path through the web of technology. I don't use the phrase tour de force often, but this book is one.When Push Comes to Shove: Nestle’s Advance on Public Water by Stephyn Quirke / Earth First! Newswire (An earlier version of this article was published in the Southeast Examiner.) William Shatner just announced a $30 billion fundraiser to build a south-flowing water pipe from Washington to California. Sadly, Shatner is not the only one who believes in exporting water from drought-stricken lands, though he may be the only one from the future. The Nestle corporation is the single largest marketer of bottled water in the world, and has often stood accused of over-pumping water, disrupting local water cycles, and depriving locals of adequate access to water during times of drought. In the past four years over 100,000 Oregonians have sent letters and emails to their representatives telling them to protect publicly owned water from the Nestle corporation. But Nestle scored a victory against opponents this month when its hopeful business partner, the city of Cascade Locks, convinced the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to ask state administrators to transfer water rights between wells in Cascade Locks and the pristine waters of Oxbow Springs, whose rights are held by ODFW. ODFW uses this water in a hatchery that raises endangered Idaho sockeye, but that water is highly coveted by the corporate giant, which wants to see it bottled as Arrowhead spring-water. Environmentalists say the proposal opens the door for the privatization of Oregon
which, if adopted, would forever put the sort of fact-seeking Lasch describes beyond our reach. Instead of criticizing government actions on moral grounds, digital-transparency organizations have focused on value-neutral process: a bipartisan spectator sport involving the mannered drama of leaked data and online spreadsheets. Hewing to the ideal of transparency requires no greater engagement with government secrecy than polishing the display window, and hoping that, in time, agencies will shuffle the right bit of information into the forefront. If “transparency is the new objectivity,” as Sifry insists, then we’ve discarded politics for procedure. If we think the necessary debates will just automatically follow from arbitrary data releases, we’ll never initiate the critical investigations that could actually prompt relevant disclosures or develop a focus to make use of the dumped info before more piles on top of us. *** Sifry and his colleagues often seem like an interest group without an interest. As critic Evgeny Morozov has pointed out, the new world of Internet activism has spawned nothing if not its own set of newly empowered and well-compensated consultants. But what are they driving us toward, and why have they proved so seductive? A glance back to the late 1990s helps explain the deeper roots of the transparency movement, when transparency and the Internet were emerging as twinned concepts, reinforcing each other and redefining public expectations about broader access to information. Law professor Alasdair Roberts pointed out in Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age that “the ‘Internet bubble’ was as evident in discussions about public access to information as it was in the stock market. Technological evangelists foresaw a world in which ‘anyone with a modem can gather nearly as much intelligence as the CIA.’ ” On one level technological transparency made perfect sense. Legitimate fears that democracy was buckling under the weight of state secrecy could be addressed not by the systematic dismantling of the state-secret apparatus but by opening a series of technological windows into it. Support for this sort of transparency was wonderfully bipartisan, endorsed with equal fervor among the cultural libertarians of the Wired set and the congressional class of Newt Gingrich’s Republican Revolution. The techno-libertarian faith effectively repealed the skepticism of technology beyond human comprehension and control engendered by the Cold War when critics like Jacques Ellul warned of the creeping ability of computers to spy and store secrets away from the public. During the Cold War’s endgame, Morozov argues, the West’s romance with the allegedly democratizing power of the web arose from its conviction that information technologies — photocopied samizdat, Radio Free Europe, the VCR — were instrumental in unraveling the Eastern Bloc. And sure enough, this belief persists: A Wired UK article by Peter Kirwan, “From Samizdat to Twitter: How Technology Is Making Censorship Irrelevant,” parrots that precise line of causation. But Morozov, a native of Belarus (Europe’s “last dictatorship”) and a veteran of that nation’s democracy movement, points out that “simply opening up the information gates would not erode modern authoritarian regimes, in part because they have learned to function in an environment marked by the abundance of information.” He makes the indispensable point that authoritarian regimes had built an obsessive cult of information gathering long before Wired founder Louis Rosetto came on the scene. For in our haste to ascribe regime-smashing power to the digital revolution, we become more likely to overlook how it also makes us more transparent. Belief in the inherent progressivism of the Internet and digital activism obscures the way transparency actually exaggerates those asymmetries of power that Sifry so earnestly believes will be reversed. Put another way, technology rarely helps unearth government secrets, but it can unearth ours for government. Sifry quotes Julian Assange, circa 2011, arguing that “transparency should be proportional to the power that one has.” But web technologies have rendered the defenseless citizen far more transparent than any well-fortified government agency or corporation. Institutions use their existing power to better exploit the affordances of new technologies; they don’t level the playing field, let alone turn the tables. The prophets of digital disclosure, in other words, have the central political calculus precisely wrong: As we get more transparent, we become less, not more, powerful as individuals. The larger irony is that prosecuting the government to reveal its secrets may now threaten the privacy of other individuals rather than corruption within the state itself. The British periodical Computer Weekly pointed out that the U.K. government had collected so much information about individuals that the projected release of government data under the official “transparency agenda” risked exposing them. Kieron O’Hara, author of the Cabinet-commissioned report Transparent Government, Not Transparent Citizens notes that legalistic definitions of privacy “have proved inadequate to provide a clear framework for analysis of privacy issues, especially in the context of jigsaw identification using recently developed de-anonymization techniques.” Anyone with sophisticated computer skills, that is, could put the personal information of the British citizenry — and, one can be confident, the American, German, or Brazilian citizenry — together like a puzzle. When Facebook reprocesses our personal information, the data miners are generally only trying to sell us weirdly specific products or target ads. But when the government is concerned, the stakes are different. In 2005, several telecommunications companies were caught supplying personal information to the National Security Agency, demonstrating the dangers of corporate data accumulation. What if the NSA decides it wants full personality profiles of everyone who “attended” #OccupyWallStreet on Facebook? It would be a matter of keystrokes to supply entire “social graphs” for each of them. The Obama administration has also sought to prevent lawsuits against the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping, no less, by invoking the state secrets doctrine; we are infinitely transparent, while the government is enshrouded, and the complicit corporations too. It’s for national security. Try filing a FOIA request.The Nintendo 3DS web browser is set to be released on June 7th at the same time as the eShop, allowing 3DS users to'surf' the web, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. However, if specifications for the browser found on the official Nintendo site are anything to go by, it appears that the browser will be missing a couple of essentials. As spotted by Nintendo 3DS Blog, the official specs note that neither Adobe Flash or HTML5 will be supported by the browser. This means that you won't be able to access a lot of online content, including browser games or even YouTube. Of course, this is in line with the browser offered on the DS and the Wii, but we'd really hoped that Nintendo were going to offer a little bit more this time around.Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton engineering 20 second-half points is the GMC Never Say Never Moment of the Week for games played on October 2-3, the NFL announced Friday. The GMC Never Say Never Moment of the Week is the best moment or play of the week that represents determination and perseverance. The Bengals entered Week 4 riding a 10-game losing streak to the Buffalo Bills. Down 17-3 at halftime, it appeared that run would be extended to 11 games. But Dalton, a rookie, helped produce 20 second-half points, running for a three-yard TD that tied the game with 4:09 remaining, and leading the Bengals on a 56-yard drive that concluded with the winning field goal with four seconds left. Dalton's performance was selected from among three moments by voters on NFL.com/gmc. The other two moments were Detroit Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson's two second-half touchdown receptions to complete a comeback win over the Dallas Cowboys, and San Francisco 49ers running back Frank Gore's game-winning touchdown run late in the fourth quarter to beat the Philadelphia Eagles. After the regular season, fans will have a chance to determine the GMC Never Say Never Moment of the Year from among the 17 weekly winners. Fans can vote for the winner on NFL.com/gmc throughout the month of January. NEVER SAY NEVER MOMENT NOMINEESWe are in Washington this week with some very powerful people. Nope, it’s not the ones you think—it’s the teenage finalists in the YouTube Space Lab competition. The global winners will be announced later in the week; in the meantime, we wanted to step back and remind you why Lenovo got involved with YouTube Space Lab. It’s because we believe strongly in the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. We believe in the promise of science and the importance of connecting people from every corner of the world. Of course, YouTube does a fine job of this, and the Space Lab regional winners come from India, Egypt, Spain, New Zealand and USA. Through our ThinkPad line of laptops, we also have a special connection to space. It just so happens that ThinkPads are the only laptops certified for use at the International Space Station. (We never get tired of saying that.) We often talk about the military-grade spec tests ThinkPads have to pass before they come to market—I like to think about how rugged a laptop must be to survive that moment a spacecraft leaves the Earth’s atmosphere. With this in mind, here are 10 (or so) fun facts about ThinkPads and space. • ThinkPad is the only laptop certified for use on the International Space Station (ISS). • ThinkPads have been used aboard the International Space Station since 1998. • ThinkPads have been on every NASA Shuttle space flight since 1995, when the ThinkPad 755 blasted off with the crew. • ThinkPad laptops are used by all the major world space agencies (e.g., JAXA, ESA) thanks to their partnership with NASA. • Some tests ThinkPads have to pass before they lift off: radiation testing, off-gas testing, thermal testing, fire & fire suppression. • Number of ThinkPads aboard the International Space Station: more than 60. • Number of NASA shuttle flights that have lifted off with ThinkPads aboard: more than 50. That’s it for now. What does ThinkPad’s long-standing heritage in space mean to you? Tell us in comments. Gavin O’Hara is Global Publisher for Lenovo Social Media.Is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau toast? It sure faces a lot of obstacles that could block its power. The House is about to take up the CFPB question as part of its bid to roll back the Dodd-Frank law, and its GOP-led revamp legislation is likely to pass. Dodd-Frank, which imposed stricter rules on banks in the wake of the financial crisis, is highly unpopular in Republican circles. True, passing a significant weakening of the 2010 law -- it also set up the CFPB -- is a lot easier in the House, where the Republicans have a larger majority, than in the Senate. In the Senate, they have a narrower (52-48) advantage, not enough to overcome a Democratic filibuster, which needs 60 votes. Still, Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump, also a vocal critic of the consumer agency, have several other chances to hobble its far-reaching powers. The GOP line is that the CFPB, created in 2012, has stifled economic activity by burdening lenders with regulations and lawsuits. They charge that its director, Richard Cordray, has unconstitutional authority: He can be fired only by the president and only for cause, such as malfeasance or negligence. Under the bill going to the House floor, the CFPB would be prevented from its freewheeling ability to go after what it sees as violations, and can only enforce what's on the books. Its director would serve at the pleasure of the president, and its budget -- now funded by the Federal Reserve -- would be shifted to Congress, thus subjecting it more to political forces. Sen. Elizabeth Warren: The fighter Democrats counter that the CFPB is a vital Wall Street watchdog that has aided ordinary Americans following the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. They argue that the bureau has returned some $12 billion to consumers who banks and other financial firms have harmed. The agency is the creation of the staunchly liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, who first proposed it when she was a Harvard law professor in 2007. She urged a union and consumer-advocate gathering this past winter to "send a message to Wall Street and their Republican friends, they better think twice about undermining financial reform." When President Barack Obama announced Cordray as the CFPB's first director in a White House ceremony, Warren stood with them at the podium. Still, with Republicans now in charge of both Congress and the White House, the consumer agency must face a host of assaults. It refused comment on its situation. Here's a list of perils that confront the CFPB: Legislative end run. If Dodd-Frank passes the House but can't muster the 60 votes to overcome a Senate Democratic filibuster, the GOP Capitol Hill leadership can always turn to a procedure called reconciliation. With this, Republicans need only deliver a simple majority in both chambers. The hitch is that the measure must affect the federal budget. With the CFPB, that test would be met, contended Norbert Michel, a senior research fellow at the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation. By adding the agency to the federal spending authority, and removing it from the Federal Reserve's financial support, "this has a budgetary impact." he said. How Dodd-Frank changed Wall Street Court fight. The Trump Department of Justice has launched an attack on the CFPB's independence in court, claiming that its current set-up is not constitutional because the director is not answerable to the president. It seeks to bolster a case brought against the bureau by a mortgage company. The anti-CFPB side won before a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Circuit last year, but thanks to an appeal, the case now goes to the full roster of judges on the court. A decision is expected in the fall. If the CFPB loses in court, it cannot appeal to the Supreme Court, said Joe Rubin, senior counsel at the Washington law firm of Arnall Golden Gregory. That's because it would need the approval of the Justice Department to do so. Cordray's looming departure. The bureau director's term ends in July 2018. So if all else fails, Republicans can wait him out and depend on President Trump to name a replacement more to their taste. That person could go about dismantling a lot of its activities. And lawyer Rubin said it's possible Cordray, the Democratic former attorney general on Ohio, could return home and run for governor. "The filing deadline is February 2018," he said. "It's a win for Republicans either way,'' Heritage's Michel said. "Cordray is a lame duck.''Senate hearing whitewashes militarization of American police By Tom Hall and E. P. Bannon 12 September 2014 The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing Tuesday on federal programs that have funneled billions of dollars in military hardware to state and local police forces. Under the heading “Oversight of Federal Programs for Equipping State and Local Law Enforcement,” the Committee called witnesses from the Defense Department, FEMA, and the Justice Department, as well as numerous “independent” experts, to testify about the militarization of American police as well as the events last month in Ferguson, Missouri. While the hearing was promoted in the press as an official “review” of the militarized police tactics seen in Ferguson, Missouri, its actual purpose was to support the continuation and regularization of the anti-democratic programs. The hearing procedures expressed the unanimous support within the political establishment for the decades-long conversion of local police departments into paramilitary forces. The only reforms presented were intended to make the militarization of police more efficient, not to scale it back. At no point in the proceedings were the actual motivations for the militarization of police mentioned; the explosive growth of inequality and poverty in the past 25 years, constant wars abroad, and the attack on democratic rights did not merit so much as a whisper. The right-wing character of the hearing was made plain by the opening remarks of committee chairman Tom Carper (D-Delaware). Carper stated, “These programs were established with very good intentions. The question is whether this equipment matches what the police truly need to uphold the law.” He then went on to cite the lockdown after the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 as proof that the programs were necessary and effective. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), chairwoman of the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, focused her remarks on inefficiencies in the programs and a supposed lack of training for local police forces, while emphasizing her support for the police, declaring that they “protect the people of this great nation through our very admirable rule of law.” While portraying police officers in postiive terms, McCaskill slandered the Ferguson protests as being whipped up by outside agitators and justified the deployment of armored vehicles against peaceful protesters: “I saw a vehicle extricate some police officers in a pretty dangerous situation in Ferguson,” McCaskill said, “once some of the outsiders started coming in from other states that wanted a confrontation with the police.” McCaskill then bemoaned the poor image that the occupation of Ferguson had given American police and, amazingly, cited the supposed success of occupying troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in winning the “hearts and minds” of the local population by acting “like a police force.” The witnesses were treated with kid gloves. At no point were any of the political issues involved brought to the fore. Senators continually prefaced their remarks with glowing depictions of the “brave men and women” in state and local police departments. Setting the tone for the session, Carper began the questioning by asking the witnesses what could be done to “[enable] law enforcement to have some of the resources that they need to meet the level of risk in their communities.” Republican senators Tom Corbin and Rand Paul, for their part, made a show of criticizing the programs, portraying them as federal overreach, in order to further their own right-wing states’ rights policies. Brian Kamoie of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), in remarks that were passed on in silence by the committee, said that the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security this year identified 38 urban centers as “high risk” areas, a designation that prioritizes the flow of funds to their local police departments, in consultation with both the Department of Justice and intelligence agencies. Despite this favorable treatment, the government witnesses tied themselves in knots defending their programs. Alan Estevez, head of the Department of Defense’s now-infamous 1033 program, which transferred billions of dollars in military hardware to local police, declared that the Pentagon exercised due diligence on requests for hardware by police departments, and that “if an agency requests 100 rifles and there are only ten officers,” the request would be rejected. When McCaskill cited two cases where departments with one sworn, full-time officer were each given fourteen assault rifles and two mine-resistant, ambush protected (MRAP) armored vehicles, Estevez equivocated, stating that he would have to look into it. The Senate committee rounded out its panel of “experts” with two representatives from police organizations who were asked for input on how to improve the image of militarized police forces. Scaling back or reversing these programs was categorically ruled out. Jim Bueermann, president of the Police Foundation, provocatively asserted, “Anyone who thinks that we’re not going to have tactical teams or high-powered weaponry in policing in the United States just has not been paying attention.” No members of the committee took issue with this assertion. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.An Israeli woman walks past construction in the East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images) Israeli officials announced Sunday that they had approved 1,200 new settlement homes in the West Bank, outraging many Palestinians. The timing is especially conspicuous, just a few short weeks into the Israel-Palestine peace process relaunched by the Obama administration. This is not the first time that Israel has met peace talks with settlement expansion. In 2010, Vice President Biden traveled to the region as part of a peace push only to be greeted by news of 112 new settler homes. This February, Israel approved 90 settler homes in advance of President Obama's visit. As far back as 1991, then-Secretary of State James A. Baker told Congress in a hearing on stalled peace efforts, "Nothing has made my job of trying to find Arab and Palestinian partners for Israel more difficult than being greeted by a new settlement every time I arrive." There are a few different theories for why the Israeli government does this. The most prevalent is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely trying to appease more hard-line members of his government, who might be unhappy with Netanyahu's decision to release 104 Palestinian prisoners, a concession to the peace process. Other theories are that Israeli officials are seeking to improve their negotiating position by approving settler construction that they can later roll back, that they're trying to deliberately undermine the peace process or that they want to humiliate Palestinian leaders and weaken them within Palestinian politics. I put these theories and other questions to Daniel Seidemann, who founded Terrestrial Jerusalem, an NGO that works on Jerusalem- and peace process-related issues. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation. WorldViews: This obviously isn't the first time that Israel has responded to a beat in the peace process with an announcement of settlement expansion, but the numbers seem higher than usual. What's going on? Daniel Seidemann: This is a surge. This isn't self-restraint, it can only be interpreted as an effort to humiliate the Palestinians on their way into the negotiating room, and I have doubts as to whether they'll be able to remain. WV: Do you think that's the idea, to force the Palestinians to throw up their hands and walk away from the table? DS: I would say this is, what's the legal term, "wanton indifference"? I've been predicting for the last week that Netanyahu would be doing something, because that's his pattern. Whenever he does anything that can be interpreted as conciliatory to the Palestinians, he does something in Jerusalem. He's always done that. But this goes well beyond what I'd anticipated. So I think that this is his opening up the settlement floodgates to placate his right flank, and either being indifferent or miscalculating the effect that this will have on the Palestinians. WV: So you think that this is more about internal Israel politics than about the peace process? DS: Look, six months ago, Netanyahu did not want a political process. He had hoped that [new Secretary of State John] Kerry would leave him alone quickly. His goal was, I believe, to have Kerry go away without leaving fingerprints, that he would not get blamed. I think that Kerry has been successful in making it extremely expensive, both for Netanyahu and for Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] to be viewed as having caused his failure. Netanyahu, I think he's serious when he says that Israel has an interest in conducting talks. He doesn't say reaching an agreement but in conducting talks. [Max here: Click here to see what we've written on this theory previously] However, he is not willing to expend major domestic capital on this, and if the price of going back to talks is placating his own party by settlement expansion, he's going to do that. I think he's miscalculated. I think that we're heading for a crisis over the next several days and that this is a crisis that Netanyahu will be completely blamed for. WV: Really, you don't think he sees the backlash coming? I always get the sense that they're very aware of the international response. DS: I don't think he would have allowed these approvals had he fully understood what's coming. But I may be wrong. Don't forget that the Palestinians are not looking for a pretext. And it's not because they're angelic, it's because Kerry has made it abundantly clear to them that they'll pay a price if they walk, if they bolt. But the approval of this many units in this short a time, 48 hours before negotiations, is just too much. WV: This is kind of a pattern, right? I know that the numbers are high this time and I'm not trying to downplay the significance, but it seems like there's been a number of times when they're about to have meetings with the Americans or there are about to be talks about talks about talks, and sure enough there are new settlements approved. DS: You can go back to Jim Baker, who appeared before Congress in 1991 and said, "Nothing has made my job of trying to find Arab and Palestinian partners for Israel more difficult than being greeted by a new settlement every time I arrive." That's 1991. There have been occasions, I believe it was September of 2009, [U.S. envoy to the Middle East George] Mitchell was meeting with [Netanyahu aide Yitzhak] Molcho to conclude the resumption of talks, and there was an announcement of new settlements. But I can tell you, I was involved in that, that was a blunder. Netanyahu did not know that was coming. And he found out about the announcement when Mitchell told him about it. That's no longer the case, there is no way that we've had an announcement of this many new units [this week], there is no way that Netanyahu can dissociate himself from this. WV: Would he dissociate himself from it? I would think that, if part of the rationale is internal Israel politics, then he would want to be seen as associated with it. DS: The fact of this is not surprising. Netanyahu clearly did not want the headlines of the newspapers to be monopolized by a release of [Palestinian] prisoners, because a refusal to release prisoners has been his political raison d'être since the 1980s. He wants that to appear alongside us sticking it to the Palestinians. WV: Do you think that is just a one-off effort to change the headlines or is it part of a broader, systemic change in approach? DS: If this will be indicative of limited, episodic settlements that are done around the time of prisoner releases, then this can be contained. If it's limited. If this is an indication of an ongoing issue, then there are not going to be talks. Already, yesterday, the indications were that this might be something that goes beyond episodic. But it could be contained. This many units in so short a time is much more than the traffic can bear. Tomorrow night there will be the release of 26 prisoners. There are going to be three more payments of 26 prisoners each over the next four months. The price of these 26 prisoners has been a very large number of residential units. If this happens, you're going to have on the order of maybe 8,000 units during negotiations? Are you kidding me? So either the calculus is going to change or there will not be talks. WV: One theory I've seen is that construction is approved but it won't start for a while and won't finish for a while, so maybe it's just a negotiating tactic, something to strengthen Israel's hand going into talks. Do you buy that? DS: I've been in this business for 21 years, and I have heard and believed often that "this is only a plan." And there are tens of thousands of "only plan" units out there, and the kids who live in those "only plan" units are really cute. Okay? Settlement plans are guns that are put on the table, alright? WV: I have to say, you sound not optimistic. DS: Number one, I was modestly optimistic last week. I think it's very easy to underestimate Kerry, he should not be underestimated. I think he's doing quite a remarkable job. And I am not despondent now. There is such a clarity over the consequences of the Kerry initiative failing that there is still a possibility of salvaging the talks. But that is not going to be done on the cheap, it's not going to be finessed. I think there's going to be blood on the walls over the next few days. The prospect of the Palestinians pulling out, with good reason, is not small. The consequences of this internationally are very high. I think we're about to see a mini-drama. WV: For talks to move forward, what would have to happen with the new settlement tenders? Or is it just too late, they're already out there? DS: The tenders are out there but the government can decide not to award them. Until the contracts are awarded, the Israeli government is at liberty. In fact, almost half of the units that were tendered yesterday are re-runs. They're scraping the bottom of the barrel so they're recycling old tenders that have failed in the past. WV: That seems like a sign for some optimism, then, right? Because they're not yet necessarily facts on the ground, as they say. DS: I wish you were right, but these areas are bound to be developed. They marketed, last year, 973 units in Har Homa [an East Jerusalem settlement]. They didn't succeed in marketing 80 of them. Did that change anything? No.Get coverage for your next trip.Get a quote now Embed this image on your site: <a href="http://www.tripinsurance.com/best-travel-destinations"><img src="http://www.tripinsurance.com/images/best-travel-destinations.jpg" alt="10 Best Travel Destinations" title="10 of the Best Travel Destinations" width="100%" border="0" /></a> The 10 Best Travel Destinations in the World (That Are About to Disappear.) If you are thinking about where to go for your next vacation and you are looking for ideas and suggestions, you've probably realized that there is a multitude of sites compiling lists of best travel destinations, and each travel agency or travel guide will have their own recommendations as well. Here at TripInsurance.com, we also wanted to share with you our list of what we consider 10 of the best travel destinations in the World. But there is a very good reason why you should seriously consider our advice over any other: sadly, these 10 amazing spots might not be here for much longer. Remember to take travel insurance with you. Share this with friendsPhotos by the author A citizen filming a police officer in New York City. Photo via Flickr user OakleyOriginals On April 29, when it seemed like the entire country was seething over the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in the back of a Baltimore Police Department paddy wagon, a protest in Denver turned tense, and then violent, and police and activists clashed openly in the street. Jesse Benn was among the protesters on the scene, and as many demonstrators do these days, he was filming the police—an act he says led to him being singled out for arrest and harassment. "During my arrest," he told VICE, "I suffered a concussion, a severely macerated lip, a loosened tooth, and multiple abrasions and bruises on my body and face... An officer also tried to step on my camera and just missed, in what was a clear effort to damage it." Benn's pregnant wife Jessica continued filming after her husband's arrest, attempting to document the chaos from a safe distance. Then she was spotted, she says, and suddenly became a target. "A cop in a blue uniform quickly approached me and grabbed my phone out of my hand as I filmed without saying a single word to me," Jessica said. "He simply snatched my phone from my hands and disappeared. He did not tell my why he was taking it, he did not say how I could get it back, and he did not give me his name or badge number." She added that she was shoved against a bus by a different officer, who pressed a baton to her throat, and was only released after she pleaded with the officer to not hurt her stomach. "I told the officer that my phone was taken and asked who took it," she said, "but he would not talk to me." Despite multiple attempts to retrieve the phone from the Denver Police Department, Jesse Benn said he and his wife had been stonewalled. "They essentially acted as if it's not possible that an officer would take her phone," Benn said, "and that if they did, it was Jessica's fault they couldn't find it because she wasn't able to get the officer's name or badge number. Of course, many officers had their badge numbers covered, as they do at most protests." The Denver Police Department declined to comment on Jesse and Jessica Benn's arrest, suggesting it was under investigation. But the couple's experience highlights the heated nationwide debate over the act of recording the cops. Many activists see it as the only way to hold police officers halfway accountable, while some cops clearly resent that sort of monitoring, judging by the occasional aggressive response to being caught on video. One thing's for sure: More people are filming the actions of law enforcement than ever. In Colorado, the ACLU has created an app that allows users to record footage on their phones, and, with a quick touch of a button, send them the resulting files. The app was modeled after the Stop and Frisk Watch app from the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), used to monitor the alleged racial bias of NYPD officers, which also has a recording function. The feature proved so popular that ACLU offices in 12 other states have developed their own Mobile Justice apps, set to be released this summer. But whether these efforts will have a tangible impact is tough to divine. "I'm a bit skeptical on whether the mass availability of cameras really does change things that much," says Lonnie Schaible, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Colorado Denver. "It may make us more aware of police behavior in some cases, but I'm not sure it changes the behavior of officers. Police are already aware that they operate in a fishbowl." Schaible adds that he'd be interested in a study checking out states with various laws regarding a citizen's right to film police activity, the idea being to see if areas with more lenient policies result in lower rates of police misbehavior. At the moment, he believes there is a real lack of data on this issue. There is at least some evidence that body cameras are an effective deterrent in police misbehavior. A study of body cameras worn by police in Rialto, California in 2012 found that in a single year, complaints against officers fell 88 percent, and use of force incidents fell 60 percent. Still, when Denver implemented a pilot program for body cameras on officers between June and December of last year, the results were underwhelming. A report from Denver's Office of the Independent Monitor found that in the district where body cameras were worn, use of force incidents increased by 11 percent and decreased by 7 percent in other districts. And the number of complaints actually rose 8 percent, while falling by 6 percent in areas outside the district. It's unlikely that body cameras were responsible for the rise in violence, but in their singular task of documenting that violence, they were apparently a failure. Nicholas Mitchell, Denver's independent police monitor and the author of the report, compared the number of use of force incidents with the number that were recorded on video and found that "relatively few of them had been captured on camera." Mitchell added that large portions of use of force incidents come from sergeants and off-duty police officers working security who were not given cameras. Of those who did have cameras, only 26 percent of their use of force incidents were recorded, oftenbecause officers apparently did not bother to turn the camera on. (Cities where police officers are required to record at all times have seen better results.) "One of the interesting things we saw was that there was no requirement for officers to notify citizens that they were being recorded," Mitchell told VICE. "And from a privacy and civil liberties perspective, we think it's important that police put citizens on notice that they are being recorded... Also, when both participants in an interaction know that they're on camera, they both might have some inclination to regulate their own behavior, and be less confrontational." Video plays a role, too, in the biggest police-related controversy in Denver at the moment: the death of Jessica Hernandez, a 17-year-old who was shot and killed by police last January. Officers asserted she tried to hit them with a car and claimed self-defense, but Hernandez's family's attorney has suggested they fired at the vehicle before it even moved. One nearby witness filmed some of the incident, and the video was given to to media outlets, who then blurred out Hernandez's body. Activists insist that this editing left out images of police misbehavior; one protester at a small rally on Tuesday told me that "she was manhandled, searched, and suffered a blunt-force contusion to her head after she had been shot. [The media] only showed a few seconds of the video, and we know it's longer." The Hernandez family attorney, Qusair Mohamedbhai, told VICE that the autopsy did in fact show Hernandez suffered injuries to the head after she was shot, but Lynn Kimbrough, director of communications for the Denver DA's office, said that the video in question "was of a very short duration, and did not have any substantive value to the investigation." Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey recently announced that there would be no criminal charges brought against the officers. In March, Colorado passed the "Right to Record" bill, which improved the protections for those who filmed the police; when it goes into effect next year, citizens prevented by cops from lawfully recording them could see $15,000 in damages. "We had heard multiple stories of people who had been intimidated by peace officers while recording them," said Colorado State Representative Daneya Esgar, a co-sponsor of the bill. "We wanted to not only make sure people understood [filming police] was within their right, but also make sure police departments were training their officers to know that as well. Taking someone's piece of equipment, deleting someone's recording, or stopping someone from recording is an infringement on citizens' First and Fourth amendment rights." And recordings can lead to results. A recent study by the Washington Post found that of the 385 cases of police deaths by shooting in the first five months of 2015, the three that have lead to criminal prosecutions were all captured on film. Schaible, the criminal justice professor at CU Denver, believes that cameras could have some impact on influencing police behavior, but that problems between police and citizens go far beyond simply documenting them. "In a lot of these instances, if you talk to the officer that is accused of misconduct, they're going to stand by what they did as appropriate," Schaible said. "In a dangerous situation, where they feel threatened, these officers are only human. Even if there's a camera on, I don't believe they're thinking about who is watching, they're reacting on a primal level, which is determined by culture, physiological factors, a whole host of things." So if cameras offer the prospect of hope for reforming police practices in
stuff. He directed very successful campaigns promoting Ivory Soap, for bacon and eggs as a healthy breakfast, and ballet. He directed several very successful advertising campaigns, most notably for Lucky Strike in its efforts to make smoking socially acceptable for women. The Role of “Herd Psychology” Bernays was quite open and even proud of engaging in the “manufacturing of consent,” a term used by British surgeon and psychologist Wilfred Trotter in his seminal Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War published in 1919. Bernays took the concept of herd psychology to heart. The herd instinct entails the deep seated psychological need to win approval of one’s social group. The herd overwhelms any other influence; as social humans, our need to fit in is paramount. But however ingrained, in Bernays’s view the herd instinct cannot be trusted. The herd is irrational and dangerous, and must be steered by wiser men in a thousand imperceptible ways — and this is key. They must not know they are being steered. The techniques Bernays employed are still very much being used to shape political correctness today. First, he understood how all-powerful the herd mind and herd instinct really is. We are not the special snowflakes we imagine, according to Bernays. Instead we are timorous and malleable creatures who desperately want to fit in and win acceptance of the group. Second, he understood the critical importance of using third party authorities to promote causes or products. Celebrities, athletes, models, politicians, and wealthy elites are the people from whom the herd takes its cues, whether they’re endorsing transgender awareness or selling luxury cars. So when George Clooney or Kim Kardashian endorses Hillary Clinton, it resonates with the herd. Third, he understood the role that emotions play in our tastes and preferences. It’s not a particular candidate or cigarette or a watch or a handbag we really want, it’s the emotional component of the ad that affects us, however subconsciously. What We Can Do About It So the question we might ask ourselves is this: how do we fight back against PC? What can we do, as individuals with finite amounts of time and resources, with serious obligations to our families, loved ones, and careers, to reverse the growing tide of darkness? First, we must understand that we’re in a fight. PC represents a war for our very hearts, minds, and souls. The other side understands this, and so should you. The fight is taking place on multiple fronts: the state-linguistic complex operates not only within government, but also academia, media, the business world, churches and synagogues, nonprofits, and NGOs. So understand the forces aligned against you. Understand that the PC enforcers are not asking you, they’re not debating you, and they don’t care about your vote. They don’t care whether they can win at the ballot box, or whether they use extralegal means. There are millions of progressives in the US who absolutely would criminalize speech that does not comport with their sense of social justice. One poll suggests 51 percent of Democrats and 1/3 of all Americans would do just that. The other side is fighting deliberately and tactically. So realize you’re in a fight, and fight back. Culturally, this really is a matter of life and death. We Still Have Freedom to Act As bad as PC contamination may be at this point, we are not like Mises, fleeing a few days ahead of the Nazis. We have tremendous resources at our disposal in a digital age. We can still communicate globally and create communities of outspoken, anti-PC voices. We can still read and share anti-state books and articles. We can still read real history and the great un-PC literary classics. We can still homeschool our kids. We can still hold events like this one today. This is not to say that bucking PC can’t hurt you: the possible loss of one’s job, reputation, friends, and even family is very serious. But defeatism is never called for, and it makes us unworthy of our ancestors. Use humor to ridicule PC. PC is absurd, and most people sense it. And its practitioners suffer from a comical lack of self-awareness and irony. Use every tool at your disposal to mock, ridicule, and expose PC for what it is. Never forget that society can change very rapidly in the wake of certain precipitating events. We certainly all hope that no great calamity strikes America, in the form of an economic collapse, a currency collapse, an inability to provide entitlements and welfare, energy shortages, food and water shortages, natural disasters, or civil unrest. But we can’t discount the possibility of these things happening. And if they do, I suggest that PC language and PC thinking will be the first ornament of the state to go. Only rich, modern, societies can afford the luxury of a mindset that does not comport with reality, and that mindset will be swiftly swept aside as the “rich” part of America frays. Men and women might start to rediscover that they need and complement each other if the welfare state breaks down. Endless hours spent on social media might give way to rebuilding social connections that really matter when the chips are down. More traditional family structures might suddenly seem less oppressive in the face of great economic uncertainty. Schools and universities might rediscover the value of teaching practical skills, instead of whitewashed history and grievance studies. One’s sexual preferences might not loom as large in the scheme of things, certainly not as a source of rights. The rule of law might become something more than an abstraction to be discarded in order to further social justice and deny privilege. Play the Long Game I’m afraid it might not be popular to say so, but we have to be prepared for a long and hard campaign. Let’s leave the empty promises of quick fixes to the politicians. Progressives play the long game masterfully. They’ve taken 100 years to ransack our institutions inch by inch. I’m not suggesting incrementalism to reclaim those foregone institutions, which are by all account too far gone — but to create our own. PC enforcers seek to divide and atomize us, by class, race, sex, and sexuality. So let’s take them up on it. Let’s bypass the institutions controlled by them in favor of our own. Who says we can’t create our own schools, our own churches, our own media, our own literature, and our own civic and social organizations? Starting from scratch certainly is less daunting than fighting PC on its own turf. Conclusion PC is a virus that puts us — liberty loving people — on our heels. When we allow progressives to frame the debate and control the narrative, we lose power over our lives. If we don’t address what the state and its agents are doing to control us, we might honestly wonder how much longer organizations like the Mises Institute are going to be free to hold events like this one today. Is it really that unimaginable that you might wake up one day and find sites with anti-state and anti-egalitarian content blocked — sites like mises.org and lewrockwell.com? Or that social media outlets like Facebook might simply eliminate opinions not deemed acceptable in the new America? In fact, head Facebook creep Mark Zuckerberg recently was overheard at a UN summit telling Angela Merkel that he would get to work on suppressing Facebook comments by Germans who have the audacity to object to the government’s handling of migrants. Here’s the Facebook statement: We are committed to working closely with the German government on this important issue. We think the best solutions to dealing with people who make racist and xenophobic comments can be found when service providers, government, and civil society all work together to address this common challenge.The Arab League warned on Saturday that President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE's potentially forthcoming decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital city would "fuel extremism" and violence in the region. “Today we say very clearly that taking such action is not justified... It will not serve peace or stability, but will fuel extremism and resort to violence,” Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in a statement, according to Reuters. “It only benefits one side; the Israeli government that is hostile to peace," he continued. ADVERTISEMENT Aboul Gheit's statement came amid media reports that Trump is expected to announce in the coming week that the U.S. will formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Trump has also vowed to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, though he is expected to pass on that move for now and reauthorize a waiver to keep the outpost in Tel Aviv. A potential decision to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel's capital would be controversial and could complicate Trump's efforts to broker a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinians want to establish Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state, and the city is home to holy sites for Jews, Muslims and Christians. While Israel considers Jerusalem its official capital, the international community does not recognize Israel's claim to the city and maintains that Tel Aviv is its official capital. The 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act calls on the U.S. to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, though presidents have signed waivers every six months keeping the embassy in Tel Aviv.While 46% of Scots back independence for their nation a large number are sceptical about staying subject to a powerful EU too A majority of Scottish voters have strong Eurosceptic views following last year’s referendum campaign, with nearly half complaining that the EU has too much power. The Scottish Social Attitudes survey, an authoritative annual study of public opinion, found high levels of Euroscepticism at the same time as the highest level of support for independence it had recorded since it was established in 1999. The findings were released two days after Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, surprised her opponents by setting a deadline for a new independence referendum by spring 2019. They highlight a dilemma she faces over her stance on Europe. The publicly funded survey, done late last year by the social research institute ScotCen, said that more than two-thirds of voters were critical of the EU: 25% wanted to leave the EU entirely while another 42% wanted to reduce its powers. The survey also found that 46% of Scots wanted independence – the highest level this study had recorded, and closely mirroring the findings of commercial opinion polls. But it showed that 21% of those pro-independence voters still wanted to quit the EU, while 41% wanted its powers cut, suggesting a majority of yes voters were unhappy with the EU’s influence and reach. When the first independence referendum took place in 2014, 17% of Scotland’s voters wanted to leave the EU and 36% felt it was too powerful. The attitude of pro-independence voters has softened since 2014 when 25% wanted to leave the EU, but then 36% believed the EU was too powerful, 5% fewer than now. Prof John Curtice, the elections expert who oversaw the survey, said those trends still showed ambivalence among yes voters towards Europe. Some could vote to stay in the UK rather than have independence in the EU, he said, while others might not take part. “There is a risk that linking independence closely to the idea of staying in the EU could alienate some of those who currently back leaving the UK,” Curtice said. Jim Sillars, a former SNP deputy leader, who voted leave in last June’s EU referendum, said last week he would abstain from the next independence referendum if Sturgeon insisted on joining the single market. Sturgeon insisted on Monday that the Scottish National party still believed Scotland’s best interests lay in full EU membership, but she and other senior party figures have made clear they could yet drop that plan in order to win the independence vote. Aware of growing Euroscepticism among yes voters, they floated the alternative option of joining the European Free Trade Association instead – a model known as the Norway option and one that key interest groups, such as Scotland’s vocal fishing industry, could support. That would allow full access to the single market and free movement of people, while allowing Scotland to retain control over its substantial and lucrative fish stocks. Fiona Hyslop, Scotland’s external affairs secretary, said the ScotCen figures showing historic levels of support for independence confirmed “beyond doubt” that her government had a mandate for the proposed referendum. Ian Murray, Scottish Labour’s Westminster spokesman, said: “This report makes clear that Scotland’s attitudes towards this is much more complex than the SNP would admit. There is a big debate that needs to happen in Scotland about the Brexit process and powers coming back to Scotland.”Greetings, Star Wars™: Armada fleet commanders! After sorting through countless submissions, the developers of Armada have chosen four fleets to fly to battle in the Star Wars: Armada Fleet Commander Contest. Congratulations go to Craig Lincoln, James Lockwood, Adam Pye, and Alexandra Smith! Their fleet designs managed to catch our developers’ eyes with their creativity and tactical genius. Naturally, per the rules of the contest, each of these fleets incorporates at least one of the Wave III flotillas and at least one Wave IV ship. They also highlight just how varied a role these new ships can play in your fleet designs. Craig Lincoln’s Rebel Fleet MC80 Star Cruiser with Mon Karren, Gunner Teams, Leading Shots, and Spinal Armament MC30c Torpedo Frigate with Lando Calrissian, Fire-Control Team, Assault Concussion Missiles, and XX-9 Turbolasers Nebulon-B Escort Frigate with Yavaris, Flight Commander, and Fighter Coordination Team GR-75 Medium Transports with Bright Hope, Leia Organa, Repair Crews, and General Madine B-wing Squadron B-wing Squadron “Dutch” Vander, Y-wing Squadron Dash Rendar, Outrider Objectives: Advanced Gunnery, Fire Lanes, Intel Sweep Total Fleet Points: 398 Craig Lincoln states that he designed his Rebel fleet so that it would feature “three imposing, threatening, and flexible ships with the flotilla there to patch any holes. An adaptable squadron wing is capable of eating up enemy squadrons as well as bombing ships.” He went on to add that he “chose General Madine solely for the added maneuverability he lends to the MC30c and MC80 Star Cruiser.” This suited the tastes of developer Sam Stewart, who says, “I asked for a maneuverable fleet, and Craig certainly delivered! With three of these ships able to hit speed three and one able to reach speed four, I look forward to getting into the mix of things quickly.” Sam even shed a little light onto the strategy he hopes to employ. “I’m hoping to hit a target hard, score points, and then bug out before my opponent can land a killing blow.” As for the decision to put General Madine aboard the Bright Hope, Sam feels Craig’s decision is risky, but respects his reasoning. According to Craig, the decision was made because he felt the Mon Karren would be an opponent's primary target: “Mon Karren will likely draw a lot of fire. For this reason, I put General Madine on the flotilla, to spread points across the fleet and to mitigate losses.” James Lockwood’s Imperial Fleet Imperial II-class Star Destroyer with Devastator, Captain Needa, Gunnery Team, Electronic Countermeasures, XI7 Turbolasers, SW-7 Ion Batteries, and Darth Vader Interdictor Suppression Refit with Interdictor, Admiral Titus, Targeting Scrambler, G7-X Grav Well Projector, MS-1 Ion Cannons Gozanti-class Cruisers with Repair Crews Gozanti-class Cruisers with Repair Crews “Howlrunner” TIE fighter Squadron TIE fighter Squadron TIE fighter Squadron TIE fighter Squadron Objectives: Contested Outpost, Minefields, Most Wanted Total Fleet Points: 399 James Lockwood’s Imperial fleet uses its Wave III and Wave IV components to facilitate the destruction unleashed by its heavily upgraded Devastator. He writes, “At an eye-watering 193 points, the Devastator is the centerpiece of this fleet, chaining together its upgrades for extreme, targeted damage. This works by firing the unmodified battery dice, then using Darth Vader to reroll as many dice as possible, ideally discarding a defense token. The Devastator Title and concentrate firepower commands are then triggered to add blue dice, which are guaranteed damage with SW-7 batteries. The XI7s are the nail in the coffin, virtually shutting down redirects without any use of accuracy. Any accuracy not used to target other defense tokens are converted to damage.” As for the fleet’s Wave III and Wave IV ships, James adds, “The other ships in the fleet are primarily intended to support the Devastator and keep it in the fight. The Interdictor provides support by reducing damage, interfering with deployments, and potentially exhausting enemy upgrades. The Gozanti flotillas pull triple duty by managing the fighter screen, repairing the two capital ships, and increasing the fleet’s total number of activations.” Developer Alex Davy tips his hat to the fleet’s unmitigated audacity. “This is a fleet with chutzpah! This is a fleet that isn’t afraid to sink half its points into a single vessel, station Lord Vader on the bridge, and wade into the fray, guns blazing. “That said,” Alex continues, “I didn’t pick this fleet for style points alone. It also fulfills my desire for a fleet built around the commander’s ability and appeals to my dark side: I tend to pursue highly aggressive strategies, and I absolutely love it when things go boom.” Adam Pye’s Rebel Fleet MC80 Battle Cruiser with Liberty, Raymus Antilles, Flight Controllers, Medical Team, Spinal Armament, XI7 Turbolasers, Leading Shots, and Garm Bel Iblis Nebulon-B Escort Frigate with Yavaris, Medical Team, and Turbolaser Reroute Circuits GR-75 Medium Transports with Bright Hope, Boosted Comms, and Bomber Command Center Jan Ors, Moldy Crow Dash Rendar, Outrider Wedge Antilles, X-wing Squadron “Dutch” Vander, Y-wing Squadron Y-wing Squadron Y-wing Squadron Scurrg H-6 Bombers Scurrg H-6 Bombers Objectives: Fire Lanes, Precision Strike, Superior Positions Total Fleet Points: 396 Producer Michael Gernes likes how Adam’s fleet gains strength from the variety of its squadrons. “Adam’s fleet puts a lot of power into its squadrons, making good use of some of the support from Wave III.” This was clearly Adam’s aim, as well, as he states, “Mine is a carrier fleet, and my three ships are not interested in charging into battle. Instead, they want to send the squadrons to distract and wear down the enemy until the Liberty can blow them away.” Adam is also confident of his fleet’s ability to deal with enemy squadrons. “Flight Controllers on the Liberty make my squadrons much better at anti-squadron duty than might be expected from the squadrons I chose.” Still, since the fleet features so many moving pieces, Michael acknowledges that he needs to be mindful of his positioning. “The GR-75 with its Bomber Command Center is essential. The real challenge is making sure that all the squadrons stay in its area of effect. If I can pull that off, and use Yavaris to double-activate the Scurrgs, I’m confident the squadrons will tear up any enemy ship enough for the Liberty to finish it off.” Of course, the fleet makes good use of its objectives, as well—enough so that Adam says the fleet should generally prefer to go second in order to play to its objectives, “Except for Jan Ors, every squadron I have is a bomber squadron, so Precision Strike is an obvious objective. Fire Lanes are great if the fleet goes second, as it forces my opponent to come to me (and into my waiting squadrons), and Superior Positions rewards my squadrons’ maneuverability.” Alexandra Smith’s Imperial Fleet Interdictor Suppression Refit with Interdictor, SW7 Ion Batteries, Targeting Scrambler, G-8 Experimental Projector, and Admiral Konstantine Victory I-class Star Destroyer with Ordnance Experts and Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams Victory I-class Star Destroyer with Ordnance Experts and Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams Gozanti-class Cruisers with Comms Net Gozanti-class Cruisers with Comms Net TIE fighter Squadron TIE fighter Squadron TIE fighter Squadron TIE fighter Squadron TIE fighter Squadron TIE fighter Squadron Objectives: Advanced Gunnery, Contested Outpost, Minefields Total Fleet Points: 398 Back when we announced the Fleet Commander Contest, developer Max Brooke admitted his preference for “fleets that unlock new strategic options for existing components, such as through clever combinations of upgrade cards and strategic pairings of ships and squadrons.” As he was going through the many fleet submissions, Max felt that Alexandra’s list stood out for the clever way it uses Admiral Konstantine and Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams to catch enemy ships within the powerful forward firing arcs of its Victory I-class Star Destroyers. The intention of the fleet was further clarified by Alexandra's strategy description: “This list is designed to force the enemy into performing only maneuver commands. Utilizing the movement disruption of the Interdictor and Admiral Konstantine, it wants to trap enemies in the deadly forward arcs of all three ships and blast away.” And the Gozanti-class Cruisers? Alexandra writes, “The Gozantis feed tokens to the sluggish Star Destroyers when required and allow you to activate only when it’s best for you.” Max likes how the pieces work together and especially how it revises the Victory I-class Star Destroyers role in the fleet. “The Victory I-class Star Destroyer brings a lot of potential hurt to the table, but loosing the full power of its devastating front arc against faster foes can be a challenge. I appreciate how Alexandra’s list transforms the function of the Victory through its use of new elements from Waves III and IV.” Which Fleet Will Win? The Fleet Commander Contest is not yet over! These fleets and their new Wave III and Wave IV ships are more than show, and our developers will soon demonstrate their varied strategies and tactics when they fly these fleets to battle against each other in an in-house tournament. Were any of these fleets more inspired than the others? Which will make the greatest impact on the ongoing Galactic Civil War? Go to Twitter to vote for your favorite, and share your opinions with the rest of the Armada fanbase on our Facebook page and community forums!General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien, GCB, GCMG, DSO, ADC (26 May 1858 – 12 August 1930) was a senior British Army officer. One of the few British survivors of the Battle of Isandlwana as a young officer, he also distinguished himself in the Second Boer War. Smith-Dorrien held senior commands in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) during the First World War. He commanded II Corps at the Battle of Mons, the first major action fought by the BEF, and the Battle of Le Cateau, where he fought a vigorous and successful defensive action contrary to the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief Sir John French, with whom he had had a personality clash dating back some years. In the spring of 1915 he commanded the Second Army at the Second Battle of Ypres. He was relieved of command by French for requesting permission to retreat from the Ypres Salient to a more defensible position. Early life and career [ edit ] Horace Smith-Dorrien[3] was born at Haresfoot, a house near Berkhamsted, to Colonel Robert Algernon Smith-Dorrien and Mary Ann Drever. He was the twelfth child of sixteen; his eldest brother was Thomas Algernon Smith-Dorrien-Smith, the Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly from 1872 – 1918.[4][5] He was educated at Harrow, and on 26 February 1876 entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He had hoped to join the 95th Rifle Brigade of Peninsular War fame.[6] After passing out he was commissioned in 1877 as a subaltern to the 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment of Foot, later to become the Sherwood Foresters.[6][7] Zulu War [ edit ] On 1 November 1878, he was posted to South Africa where he worked as a transport officer. In this role he encountered, and fought against, corruption in the army. Smith-Dorrien was present at the Battle of Isandlwana during the Zulu Wars on 22 January 1879, serving with the British invasion force as a transport officer for the army's Royal Artillery detachment. As Zulu forces overran the British forces, Smith-Dorrien narrowly escaped on his transport pony over 20 miles of rough terrain with twenty Zulu warriors in hot pursuit, crossing the Buffalo River, 80 yards wide and with a strong current, by holding the tail of a loose horse. Smith-Dorrien was one of fewer than fifty British survivors of the battle (many more native African troops on the British side also survived), and one of only five Imperial officers to escape the Zulu bloodbath.[8] Because of his conduct in trying to help other soldiers escape from the battlefield, including a colonial commisariat officer named Hamer whose life he saved, he was recommended for a Victoria Cross, but, as the recommendation did not go through the proper channels, he never received it. He took part in the rest of that war.[8] His observations on the difficulty of opening ammunition boxes led to changes in British practice for the rest of the war, though modern commentators argue that this was not as important a factor in the defeat as was thought at the time.[6] Egypt, India and Sudan [ edit ] Smith-Dorrien served in Egypt under Evelyn Wood. He was promoted captain on 1 April 1882, appointed assistant chief of police in Alexandria on 22 August 1882, then given command of Mounted Infantry in Egypt on 3 September 1882, and was seconded to the Egyptian army (1 February 1884).[9] During this time, he forged a lifelong friendship with the then Major Kitchener. He met Gordon more than once, but his bad knee kept him off the expedition to relieve Khartoum. He served on the Suakin Expedition. On 30 December 1885, he witnessed the Battle of Gennis, where the British Army fought in red coats for the last time. The next day (31 December 1885) he was given his first independent command, 150 men (a mixture of hussars, mounted infantry and Egyptians) with fifty infantry in reserve. His task was to capture nine Arab river supply boats (nuggars), in order to achieve which he had to exceed his orders by going beyond the village of Surda, making a 60-mile journey on horseback in 24 hours. For this, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1886.[9] Smith-Dorrien then left active command to go to the Staff College, Camberley (1887–9). Staff College was not yet much respected, and he later recorded that he devoted much time to sport whilst there.[10] He was posted to India, and promoted major on 1 May 1892. He became Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General, Bengal, on 1 April 1893 and then Assistant Adjutant General, Bengal, on 27 October 1894.[11][12] He returned to his regiment where he commanded troops during the Tirah Campaign of 1897–98. In 1898, he transferred back to Egypt. He was promoted brevet lieutenant-colonel on 20 May 1898 and appointed Commanding Officer of the 13th Sudanese Battalion (16 July 1898).[11] He fought at the Battle of Omdurman (2 September 1898), where his infantry fired at Devishes from entrenched positions.[10] He commanded the British troops during the Fashoda incident. He was promoted brevet colonel 16 November 1898 and Commanding Officer of the Sherwood Foresters and substantive lieutenant-colonel (1 January 1899).[11] South Africa [ edit ] On 31 October 1899, he shipped to South Africa for the Second Boer War, arriving at Durban 13 December 1899, in the middle of "Black Week".[10] On 2 February 1900, Lord Roberts put him in command of the 19th Brigade and, on 11 February, he was promoted to major general, making him one of youngest generals in the British Army at the time.[13] He later commanded a division in South Africa.[7] He provided covering fire for French's Cavalry Division at Klipsdrift, and played an important role at the Battle of Paardeberg (18 to 27 February 1900), where he was summoned by Lord Roberts and asked for his views in the presence of Lord Kitchener, French and Henry Colville. He argued for the use of sapping and fire support, rather than attacking the entrenched enemy over open ground. Kitchener followed him to his horse to remonstrate that he would be "a made man" if he attacked as Kitchener wished, to which he replied he had given his views and would only attack if ordered to do so. A week later he took the laager after careful assault.[14] At Sanna's Post (31 March 1900), Smith-Dorrien ignored inept orders from Colville to leave wounded largely unprotected and managed an orderly retreat without further casualties. He took part in the Battle of Leliefontein (7 November 1900). On 6 February 1901, Smith-Dorrien's troops were attacked in the Battle of Chrissiesmeer. Smith-Dorrien's qualities as a commander meant he was one of few British commanders to enhance his reputation during this war. Smith-Dorrien was mentioned three times in despatches in the "London Gazette" (including by Lord Kitchener dated 23 June 1902[15]), and Ian Hamilton later wrote highly of his performance and his grasp of the men's morale, whilst Roberts also thought highly of his South Africa performance.[14] He was at the top of a list (21 September 1901) of eighteen successful commanders of columns or groups of columns, including Haig and Allenby, whom French commended to Lord Roberts.[16] India [ edit ] On 22 April 1901, he received orders to return to India where he was made Adjutant-General (6 November 1901)[17] under Kitchener (who returned to India after the end of the Second Boer War, in late 1902). He was placed in command of the 4th (Quetta) Division in Baluchistan, a post he held from 30 June 1903 until 1907. He was raised to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1904 and promoted lieutenant general on 9 April 1906. He introduced the Staff Ride, erroneously attributed by Terraine to Haig.[18] He also helped found the Staff College at Quetta in 1907.[10] In the dispute between Kitchener and Lord Curzon over the role of the Military Member, Smith-Dorrien stayed neutral, torn between his relations with Kitchener and with the Military Member himself, Sir Arthur Power Palmer, who was his wife′s uncle. Home postings [ edit ] Aldershot [ edit ] Smith-Dorrien House in Aldershot was named in his honour Smith-Dorrien returned to England and, on 1 December 1907, became GOC of the Aldershot Command.[19] During this time, he instituted a number of reforms designed to improve the lot of the ordinary soldier. One was to abandon the practice of posting pickets to police the soldiers when they were outside the base. Another was to improve sports facilities. His reforms earned many plaudits (but were treated as an implied criticism by his predecessor, Sir John French).[20] Unlike many senior generals of the era, Smith-Dorrien could speak to troops with ease and was greatly admired by regimental officers.[21] In prewar training he wanted "individual initiative and intelligence" in British soldiers.[22] He later wrote: "one could never become an up-to-date soldier in the prehistoric warfare to be met with against the Dervishes".[23] He improved the frequency and methods of training in marksmanship of all soldiers (including cavalry, and including shooting at moving targets).[20] During this period, the higher ranks of the army were divided on the best use of cavalry. Smith-Dorrien, along with Lord Roberts, Sir Ian Hamilton and others, doubted that cavalry could often be used as cavalry, i.e. that they should still be trained to charge with sword and lance, instead thinking they would be more often deployed as mounted infantry, i.e. using horses for mobility but dismounting to fight. To this end, he took steps to improve the marksmanship of the cavalry. This did not endear him to the arme blanche ('pro-cavalry') faction, which included French and Douglas Haig, and whose views prevailed after the retirement of Lord Roberts. Aylmer Haldane recorded that at the 1909 manoeuvres French was "unfair" in summing up for Paget against Smith-Dorrien.[24] Smith-Dorrien annoyed French – with whom he had still been on relatively cordial terms at the end of the South African War – by abolishing the pickets which trawled the streets for drunk soldiers, by more than doubling the number of playing fields available to the men, by cutting down trees, and by building new and better barracks. On 21 August 1909 he lectured all his cavalry officers – in the 16th Lancers’ mess – about the importance of improving their men's musketry. By 1910 the feud between French and Smith-Dorrien was common knowledge throughout the Army. Smith-Dorrien objected to French’s womanising, a fact which Richard Holmes attributes in part to Smith-Dorrien being happily married to a young and pretty wife, and French’s nephew later claimed to have overheard "a ferocious exchange" between them, in which Smith-Dorrien declared "Too many whores around your headquarters, Field-Marshal".[25] He also tried to get the army to replace the old Maxim gun with the new Vickers Maxim gun, which weighed less than half as much and had a better water-cooling system, but the War Office did not approve the expenditure.[26] In 1911, he was made Aide-de-Camp to King George V. He was part of the King's hunt in the Chitwan area of Nepal; on 19 December 1911, Smith-Dorrien killed a rhino and on the following day shot a bear.[27] Southern Command [ edit ] On 1 March 1912, he was appointed GOC Southern Command (Douglas Haig had succeeded him as GOC Aldershot).[28] At Southern Command he had jurisdiction over twelve counties and many regimental depots. He had experience of dealing with Territorials (who would make up much of II Corps in 1914) for the first time and instigated training on fire-and-movement withdrawals which would also prove useful at Le Cateau.[26] He was promoted to full General (10 August 1912) and raised to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1913.[11] Although Smith-Dorrien was perfectly urbane and, by the standards of the day, kind-hearted towards his troops, he was notorious for furious outbursts of bad temper, which could last for hours before his equilibrium was restored. It has been suggested that the pain from a knee injury was one cause of his ill temper. It was rumoured that Smith-Dorrien’s temper was caused by some kind of serious illness. Esher (a royal courtier who exercised great influence over military appointments) had dined with Smith-Dorrien (28 January 1908) to see if he was indeed "changed and weakened". Lord Crewe (letter to Seely 5 September 1913) turned him down for the post of Commander-in-Chief India because of his foul temper (A.J. Smithers, probably wrongly, blames French’s enmity for denying Smith-Dorrien the promotion[29]).[25][30] Unlike French, he was politically astute enough to avoid becoming entangled in the Curragh Incident of 1914. Unlike a number of British generals of the era, Smith-Dorrien was not a political intriguer.[6] First World War [ edit ] In 1914, the Public Schools Officers' Training Corps annual camp was held at Tidworth Pennings, near Salisbury Plain. Lord Kitchener was to review the cadets, but the imminence of the war kept him elsewhere, and Smith-Dorrien was sent instead. He surprised the two-or-three thousand cadets by declaring (in the words of Donald Christopher Smith, a Bermudian cadet who was present) "that war should be avoided at almost any cost, that war would solve nothing, that the whole of Europe and more besides would be reduced to ruin, and that the loss of life would be so large that whole populations would be decimated. In our ignorance I, and many of us, felt almost ashamed of a British General who uttered such depressing and unpatriotic sentiments, but during the next four years, those of us who survived the holocaust – probably not more than one-quarter of us – learned how right the General's prognosis was and how courageous he had been to utter it."[31] With the outbreak of the Great War, he was given command of the Home Defence Army, part of Ian Hamilton's Home Defence Central Force.[32] However, following the sudden death of Sir James Grierson, he was placed in charge of the British Expeditionary Force II Corps, by Lord Kitchener, the new Secretary of State for War. Field Marshal Sir John French had wanted Sir Herbert Plumer but Kitchener chose Smith-Dorrien as he knew he could stand up to French, and in the full knowledge that French disliked him.[33] Kitchener admitted to Smith-Dorrien that he had doubts about appointing him, but put them to one side.[32][34] Smith-Dorrien arrived at GHQ (20 August) and formally asked French's permission to keep a special
normal pair of pliers (I’m a cheapskate who doesn’t own section pliers) to wiggle the clip off. If you chose to use a VP, you’ll now have the rubber trapdoor exposed — I found it helpful to wrap that in a cylinder of masking tape. This means that you can hold the area and not worry about damaging the trapdoor. During my first modification, I did push the wire that holds the trapdoor in out at some point… and spent 20 minutes squinting with a pair of tweezers to get it back in. Avoid that. And, before you start, find a way that you can dry your pen so that none of the wet parts of the finish will touch anything. For the VPs, if you find a perfect sized box, it can be balanced on the clicky part and the masking tape cone. For other pens, you may need to take a box, stick some holes in it and have chopsticks hold up the pieces. (Assuming they have closed ends) (bottom left is abalone shell, top right is glitter nail polish) Now for the fun part — your new finish! You have a couple of options: Glitter nail polish (I used Revlon’s discontinued Moon Candy glitter flakes. I went for something with iridescent but not opaque flakes that came in irregular sizes. I’d love suggestions for other options!) Lots of pictures of this finish are in our Decimo review. Abalone shell (like actual raden!) — I suspect you could use any number of other types of shell that contain nacre, but I don’t know how well they flake, so it’s up to you to try. Oysters and certain mussels are apparently the common sources for mother of pearl. I’m a weirdo who ate a bunch of abalones a few months ago and kept the shells, so I used abalone shell. Something else — if you do a bunch of Googling and eBaying, you can buy pre-cut mother of pearl sheets that may be actual MOP (nacre) or mica, depending on what you buy. This tutorial should work with either. (some of the dust from my abalone shell as I flaked it with a dremel… then you get to pick through it with tweezers for the bigger pieces) How to flake abalone (ymmv with other types of shell, but I suspect it’ll be similar) — I found it easiest to work with a dremel and dremel off pieces of the shell, bit by bit, sometimes straight down, sometimes at an angle. Then, when you have a decent pile of abalone-shell dust (most of it will be dust), pick through the pile with tweezers and put them on a piece of black paper (in my case I used a dark grey plastic dinner plate). You want to separate out as much dust as possible, since you don’t want the dust on your pen. If you don’t have a dremel, you can probabbbbly hammer it into small pieces and pick through the fragments. (I haven’t tried it, but it seems like it should work!) EDIT: Make sure you wear a respirator while doing this! Otherwise you’re breathing in a lot of icky dust and abalone powder. And other supplies you’ll want: Micromesh (I used a lot of 2000 grit sandpaper, but having some variety will help you achieve exactly the look you want) Tiny brushes (I stole the brushes out of my mom’s Latisse kits, but any small brushes that don’t shed bristles should be good) Polyurethane and/or Polyacylic (both in gloss finishes) (optional) Acrylic paint A quick note on polyacrylic vs polyurethane — polyacrylic is what I initially used for both pens, it’s easy to work with — washes out of brushes with soap and water and sands and buffs quickly. However, it’s not a very hard finish. This is fine on a matte finish pen, since small dings and scratches don’t stand out. However, if you want a high-gloss, glass-like finish, you have to work with polyurethane. It smells worse, is hard to wash out, harder to sand… but is much harder (even then, it’s not as hard as urushi or many other pen finishes, I’m still working on figuring out what my other options are). Also, polyacrylic dries clear, and polyurethane has an “amber” tone — so if you’re layering over a very blue finish, it could look weird. I found that acrylic paint mixes into polyacrylic fairly well and gives it a nice tint — I used this to hide the blemishes in the base finish of the matte black VP I started with for the abalone-finish pen. This isn’t necessary, but I imagine some cool layering could be done. Once you have everything… (some general instructions) Do a quick layer of sanding on the original finish. I used 800 grit sand paper and just did a quick pass. Apply the first layer of the finish (more on this below) Apply the second layer of the finish Apply the first layer of clear polyacrylic/urethane and let it dry for 6-12 hours minimum. I know the can says it’s dry in 2 hours or something, but it’s probably a lie. Sand lightly Apply another layer of poly Sand lightly — does the finish still feel very bumpy? If so, repeat layering and sanding until it’s reasonably smooth, then: Buff using successively higher grits of micromesh to get a mirror-like shine or be lazy and get lucky with a layer of polyurethane being smooth and glossy And you’re done! How to apply the glitter finish: I used two different “colors” of glitter, one that spanned most of the body (a mostly purple/blue glitter) and a multicolor one that I focused on the middle of the pen, to give it that “gradient” look. I did a layer of the purple glitter first, let it dry, then did the second multicolor layer. Then I let both layers dry and de-gas for a day. I’m not sure if such a long drying period is necessary, but something I read on the internet (and the internet never lies) said that drying nail polish releases gasses, and you want all of that gone before you seal it further. Seems plausible. After those two layers dry, you can start step 4 above. (I think it took me three “top” coats to get the pen more or less smooth) How to apply a “raden” or abalone-flake finish: (Even getting flakes aside, this one is much more involved) I first did two layers of tinted polyacrylic to cover up the wear in the finish. That’s totally optional, but gave me a very even base to work with. Then, I used a small brush and painted on a very small thin patch of tinted (you could use clear) poly, then placed flakes one by one using my damp finger and tweezers. You really want just flakes on a dark surface, ideally roughly sorted by size. If you go for the gradient look, you’ll want the larger flakes toward the middle and the thin layer of poly stops being tacky enough to hold a flake in a couple minutes, so work in small areas. I found that my damp fingertip was easier to get the flake on where I wanted it, then if necessary, tweezers could push the flake around. I finished the entire pen (patch by patch) in about an hour of lots of squinting with a bright table lamp. From here, you can go to step 4 above. (I think it took me 4-6 layers to get it smooth) Tada! You’re done. Let the pen dry for a couple days (unless you’ve actually been spacing out each layer and letting things dry reallly well), reattach your clip (I used a smidge of sac shellac) and enjoy!Supercars and the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport must work together to ensure that there is no repeat of this year’s Bathurst appeal debacle, says former champion Russell Ingall. Will Davison and Jonathon Webb’s victory in the October 9 Great Race has been overshadowed by a post-race time penalty awarded to Jamie Whincup and a subsequent appeal from Triple Eight. The appeal was finally dismissed by the Supercars National Court of Appeal in Melbourne last night, where a three-man judicial panel deemed that Triple Eight did not have the right to appeal after all. Rule B5.1.1 in the Supercars operations manual states that “the right of appeal against a decision of the Stewards, made as a result of a hearing, is available to an “appellant” to The Supercars National Court of Appeal”. As the decision of the stewards was made in-race and not the result of a hearing, the stewards should not have accepted Triple Eight’s notice of intention to appeal and its accompanying $10,000 fee on the Sunday night of the race. The failure for the case to even be heard was another twist in a debacle that had already seen Triple Eight last week denied the chance to change its grounds for appeal from that originally stated on its notice of intention. Bemoaning the messy nature of the process, Ingall believes that Supercars and CAMS must launch a probe into the case in order to make sure that a similar scenario does not arise in future. “The problem is that there’s so many clauses in the rule book that no matter what rules are written, they can be overridden,” Ingall told Speedcafe.com. “I’ve been caught out by that. No matter how good your case is it can be overridden by another rule. “Part of the problem is the racing rules are done by Supercars and administered by CAMS and then you’ve got your CAMS rules. “We have to have more of a unified approach from both parties. It’s not about either body, it’s about the good of the sport. “It’s hard to change anything mid-year, but once we get to Monday after Sydney Olympic Park, there should be a committee assigned to sorting this out. “It needs to be fixed before we get to Adelaide next year.” Supercars CEO James Warburton has been scathing of Triple Eight’s handling of the situation, labelling the decision to appeal as “un-Australian” and threatening “the integrity of the sport”. While critical of the judicial system currently in place, Ingall says that the right for teams to appeal should not be diminished or criticised. “It was harsh and it surprised me that James said that to be honest,” said Ingall of Warburton’s comments. “I think everyone is entitled to a fair hearing no matter what. “That’s not un-Australian, it’s just being fair. That’s why you have a judicial system.” The Supercars Championship continues this weekend with the Castrol Gold Coast 600, where Ingall will complete his co-driving duties at Nissan Motorsport alongside Rick Kelly.Your Bitcoin transactions The Ultimate Bitcoin mixer made truly anonymous. with an advanced technology. Mix coins Advertised sites are not endorsed by the Bitcoin Forum. They may be unsafe, untrustworthy, or illegal in your jurisdiction. Advertise here. iraszl Offline Activity: 252 Merit: 250 Designer Sr. MemberActivity: 252Merit: 250Designer Re: [ANN] [UFO] ▲▲ UFO Coin Community Reborn - Travelling Faster Than Light Speed ▲▲ February 11, 2014, 08:14:51 PM #4 We should do something cool that hits the news. Doge community's donations are cool, but perhaps we can do something else that fits this early stage of UFO development. First idea: Let's send a private / public key wallet to space (stratosphere) with 1M UFOs and a go-pro camera to capture the event. These guys are preparing a package to do such things easily Thanks for including me in credits. I'm mining too with my laptop.We should do something cool that hits the news. Doge community's donations are cool, but perhaps we can do something else that fits this early stage of UFO development.First idea: Let's send a private / public key wallet to space (stratosphere) with 1M UFOs and a go-pro camera to capture the event. These guys are preparing a package to do such things easily http://www.sentintospace.com, but I think we can find other solutions too. Who is in? BoeserKeller Offline Activity: 112 Merit: 10 MemberActivity: 112Merit: 10 Re: [ANN] [UFO] ▲▲ UFO Coin Community Reborn - Travelling Faster Than Light Speed ▲▲ February 11, 2014, 08:40:33 PM Last edit: February 16, 2016, 09:02:30 PM by BoeserKeller #7 quote author=cisahasa link=topic=460522.msg5085363#msg5085363 date=1392150000] you send this to space? did you know ufo ships have super computers to hash our coin? asics will be like puppies when they start hashing! [/quote] Good point. But it's a gift from us, so it's ok if they crack it. [/quote] Well, they will be hurt by the diff retarget pretty fast quote author=iraszl link=topic=460522.msg5085398#msg5085398 date=1392150071]quote author=cisahasa link=topic=460522.msg5085363#msg5085363 date=1392150000]you send this to space?did you know ufo ships have super computers to hash our coin?asics will be like puppies when they start hashing![/quote]Good point. But it's a gift from us, so it's ok if they crack it.[/quote]Well, they will be hurt by the diff retarget pretty fast(CNN) One of the next members of President Donald Trump's administration to enter the Russia investigation spotlight finds himself in a particularly awkward spot: He's the top lawyer at the White House. Don McGahn is expected to be interviewed in the coming weeks in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, along with communications director Hope Hicks and Josh Raffel, who handles press-related inquiries for White House senior adviser Jared Kushner. The 49-year-old former Federal Election commissioner acted as a conduit of information to Trump before the President decided to fire National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and FBI Director James Comey. McGahn also served as the Trump presidential campaign's chief counsel while he was still a partner in private practice at the law firm Jones Day. McGahn's work on both the Trump campaign and at the center of the West Wing makes him one of the few Trump team insiders who may have knowledge about several threads of the Mueller probe. "The White House counsel would be in the position to know about the decisions that relate to the investigation," said Neil Eggleston, a former White House counsel during the Obama administration. The top White House lawyer "would be the person who interfaces with the Justice Department and the person the president would most likely talk to about those issues." In the coming weeks, McGahn will have choices to make, including what he will share with investigators. For now, White House special counsel Ty Cobb, who is overseeing the President's response to the Russia investigation, said McGahn isn't withholding documents from Mueller's team related to his time in the White House. "I have no reason to believe McGahn won't fully cooperate," Cobb said. McGahn and his private attorney for the Mueller investigation, William Burck, didn't respond to requests for comment. "We want the special counsel to be able to say he got everything he asked for, so the American people can trust what he decides," Cobb said. Nor does Cobb see a reason to take Mueller to court over information they'd like to withhold, he said. Confidentiality arguments In past independent counsel investigations, lawyers in the executive branch have tried that strategy. They've attempted to resist disclosing conversations with presidents. A government lawyer's ability to stay silent could involve both executive privilege, a special confidentiality for the President's conversations with his advisers, and attorney-client privilege, which protects lawyers' conversations with their clients. A federal court famously ordered a deputy White House counsel, Bruce Lindsey, to testify before a grand jury about potential criminal wrongdoing in Ken Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton. Lindsey, a lawyer who normally would have attorney-client privilege, represented the office of the presidency and not the President himself, the court found. Decades earlier, the Supreme Court ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes in a ruling related to executive privilege. "The independent counsel wanted Mr. Lindsey's testimony because he was close to the President, would have been in the critical meetings with the President and if the President had confided with or spoken with anybody, it would have been Mr. Lindsey," said Eggleston, who had argued for the White House in the Lindsey case. The Mueller investigation already succeeded once in getting around attorney-client privilege. A court challenge about client confidentiality arose during the investigations into former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump campaign official Rick Gates. Federal prosecutors wanted Manafort's and Gates' lawyer, Melissa Laurenza, to testify about their foreign lobbying registrations. She resisted, then the chief judge of the federal court in Washington agreed that she should have to testify, because Manafort and Gates involved her in the foreign agents registration-related crime they're accused of committing. Laurenza, who worked for Manafort and Gates on filing their lobbying disclosures, is not accused of any wrongdoing. Manafort and Gates have pleaded not guilty. McGahn still has one window where he could assert attorney-client privilege, when he served as a private lawyer to Trump's campaign. Executive privilege Generally, White House staff members most often defer to executive privilege when Congress presses them for certain documents and information. In practice, only the President can assert executive privilege, so it's not a staffer's choice whether to assert it. Investigators in criminal probes also have been able to overcome claims of executive privilege. While the White House has not pressed for executive privilege, several administration officials have refused to answer questions from Congress. Some have cited the President's potential future use of executive privilege. In October, Attorney General Jeff Sessions declined to answer several questions about his private conversations with the President before the Senate. He said at the time that the President might want to assert his executive privilege later. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, didn't force the President to use that confidentiality tool, so Sessions never had to answer. Last week, Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who's the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, asked Kushner for more documents than he had turned over to Congress. Feinstein and Grassley said the White House claimed Kushner's lawyer sought to keep some of that information confidential under a possible use of executive privilege. Kushner's attorney Abbe Lowell, in his response to the Senate and in conversations with CNN after, didn't directly address whether his client has deferred to executive privilege to refrain from turning over documents. "In my communication with the Senate Judiciary Committee, I said take these documents and let's talk about what else is relevant," he told CNN last week. He added that Kushner has been cooperative with committees' requests. He declined to comment further. What McGahn would know McGahn witnessed some of the Trump team's most crucial moments dealing with Flynn and Comey before they were fired. Flynn is under investigation for his lobbying work related to Turkey, according to previous CNN reporting. The FBI has also scrutinized Flynn's dealings with Russia's ambassador during the presidential transition. Neither Flynn nor Trump have been accused of wrongdoing. McGahn spoke with former acting Attorney General Sally Yates about Flynn less than a week after the inauguration. Yates, an Obama appointee whom Trump also fired, said she warned McGahn about Flynn's international work. She said Flynn had lied to the vice president about talks he had on Russian sanctions before Trump took office, according to her May congressional testimony. She also told McGahn that the FBI interviewed Flynn. Mueller later inherited that FBI investigation, which now delves into Russian election meddling, potential collusion with Russians by the Trump campaign and potential obstruction of justice as it reacted to the probe. Flynn lost his White House job in February. The Comey firing similarly put McGahn in a central role. As White House counsel, McGahn objected to a termination letter Trump wanted to send to Comey in May, according to The New York Times. McGahn marked up sections of it and suggested changes. Mueller's office has a copy of the letter, the Times reported in September. It's not clear how much of the letter addressed Trump's frustration with the Russia investigation. McGahn also warned the President that firing Comey wouldn't stop the Russia investigation, and arranged for the President to meet with Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to talk about Comey. Trump fired Comey the next day, using a letter from Rosenstein as the initial justification.Harvest at the Hill, Saturday, October 21, 2017! Rain or Shine! Join us at Manor Hill Farm to enjoy farm-brewed beers from Manor Hill Brewing! Multiple beer stations will be available. Food available from neighboring farms and establishments, including Manor Hill Tavern, Victoria Gastro Pub, Carroll Farm to Table, Scoop & Paddle, La Palapa, and Crepe Shoppe Cafe. There will be a farmers market and live music from local artists - Krunchy Funkenstein and Soul Island Rebels. You'll also be able to tour the production brewery, tour the farm, and learn from the farm staff and brewing team about how our hops are grown and harvested. To go beer and apparel will also be available. Be sure to bring your portable tailgating/camping chairs so you can be comfortable while you enjoy the farm. Ticket prices include commemorative glass & your first Manor Hill beer General Admission 1-5 pm VIP access begins at 12 pm and gets you early entry to the event Event is 21+ ONLY"He [Marty] walked past the 'Hill Valley - A Nice Place to Live' sign. It was riddled with bullet holes. / The Courthouse had changed, too. Someone had turned it into a hotel — and what a hotel! It looked like something straight out of Las Vegas, full of neon and glaring lights. / Marty couldn't believe it when he read the sign: / BIFF TANNEN'S PLEASURE PARADISE / Biff Tannen? Marty thought. The Biff Tannen? / But there was more to the sign, flashing one after another: / HOTEL / RESORT / CASINO / GIRLS / And that wasn't all! Right in the middle of the sign was a huge portrait of Biff, lighting a cigar with a hundred dollar bill. / It was bright! It was garish! It had absolutely no taste! It had to be the same Biff Tannen!" —From Back to the Future Part II by Craig Shaw Gardner (quote, pages 107 and 108) "You're safe and sound now, back on the good old 27th floor." —Lorraine Baines McFly Tannen Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel was a casino and hotel founded and owned by Biff Tannen following his spectacular gambling winning streak, which was actually the result of being given Grays Sports Almanac by his older self in the 1955 of the alternate 1985 universe. It was located in the same spot where the Hill Valley courthouse once was (although it still had some of the original building as part of it, including the non-functioning clock tower, possibly to save some money during construction). It consisted of twenty-eight floors of hotel space,[1] with a casino located on the main floor and a museum dedicated to Biff himself. The Marty McFly of regular 1985 was shocked when he saw the entrance to the museum, and even more horrified when he found out that Biff had married Lorraine in 1973. It appeared to be a very popular place, as Marty saw dozens of motorcycles parked in the casino and hotel's parking lot, and quite a few more on their way there, though at the time there was a bikers' convention taking place.[1] The effects of 1985A were eventually reversed, and the Pleasure Paradise faded into nonexistence. After burn the almanach in 1955 this is disapear. Contents show] Layout Among the other places in the huge hotel/casino, there was a room where a jacuzzi and television were located, where Biff watched A Fistful of Dollars on the same night that Marty McFly traveled to 1985 hoping to be home, but instead found out that he had traveled to "Hell Valley". It had a flat roof where Biff confronted Marty on the night of October 26, 1985, after Marty attacked him in an attempt to run for his life after Tannen was about to shoot him following a conversation about Gray's Sports Almanac, in which Biff kept his older self's advice about shooting a "crazy, wild-eyed scientist or a kid" that would show up asking about the book. Also, Marty's room was on the 27th floor, although he had been kicked out of at least two boarding schools, and probably didn't spend a lot of time there. As of October 1985, the latest boarding school he went to was in Switzerland, as determined by Biff's furious statement to Marty when he found out he had returned. The steps leading up to it had a red carpet down the middle of them, suggesting the luxurious setting. Above the entrance there was a big neon illustration of Biff using a burning $100.00 bill to light a cigar, and at the top of the building, neon lit up the word 'Biff's' in bright blue. Setting The Pleasure Paradise was set in Hill Valley, California, a regular-sized town probably in the northern section of the far-west US state of California. It was located in the Courthouse Square downtown, and was on the same plot of land the courthouse and clock tower were before it was constructed. Although Hill Valley was originally a quiet neighborhood, it quickly became a bustling town that attracted a wide variety of people — mainly because of the casino. In 1979, the high school burnt down, and the library was shut down by 1985, encouraging crime to come to the town. For example, former principal Mr. Strickland was shot at from a car by a group of teenagers, possibly Douglas J. Needles and his gang. However, Strickland had a large shotgun kept inside his house that he used to fire back at them. Overall, the casino/hotel started in a small town, but later was located inside a well-populated urban area. History Rise You see this book? This book tells the future. It tells the outcome of every major sports event till the end of the century...football, baseball, basketball, horse races, boxing... the records in this book is worth millions, and I'm giving it to you." millions —Old Biff Tannen On the crisp afternoon of November 12, 1955, the older version of Biff gave the Grays Sports Almanac to himself, after overhearing a conversation between Dr. Emmett Brown and Marty McFly, in which he discovered the invention of the DeLorean time machine, and later stealing the DeLorean and traveling 60 years into the past. After his conviction of the book's future origin was strong, particularly after the UCLA vs. Washington game, young Biff took the book. A while after that day's encounter, Biff took his older self's advice and bought a safe, where he kept the almanac securely locked up. On his 21st birthday, a trip to the race tracks made him a millionaire, and his lucky winning streak began. In 1979, Biff successfully legalized gambling. Following that, construction on a grand hotel and casino began — thus the Pleasure Paradise was born. Replacing the 94-year-old courthouse, which had a clock tower that had not operated since 1955, Pleasure Paradise probably opened in 1980. Hill Valley was now a center of organized crime and gang warfare although, by 1985, the casino/hotel was immensely popular. Fall "Go ahead kid, jump! Suicide'll be nice and neat." —Biff Tannen After Marty ran away, Biff started shooting at him. Marty was pursued by Biff's bodyguard — his 1955 gang of Match, Skinhead, and 3-D — and later by Biff himself. When he saw the three rush down a metal staircase, he glanced over at the door to the roof, saw that it was just closing, and went onto the roof. There, he encouraged Marty to jump off, then told him that he had killed Marty's father, George McFly, and stated that, if he failed to commit suicide, he would have shot two McFlys with exactly the same gun, also saying he supposed it was some sort of a poetic justice. Full of hate, Marty jumped the 30+ plus stories — or at least in Biff's mind. Much to his surprise, Marty had landed on the DeLorean time machine, and Doc lifted the driver's gullwing door of the car, hitting Biff on the head and knocking him out. Then, at the time of 2:42 a.m., they traveled to 1955, where they retrieved the sports almanac from young Biff in his car after an encounter with a D. Jones Manure Handling company truck. After that, 1985A was nonexistent, and the luxurious casino/hotel became the dull, century-old courthouse once again, and the powerful millionaire known as Biff Tannen changed back into the grumpy, middle-aged auto detailer he was before Doc and Marty's trip to 2015. However, due to a malfunction in the DeLorean's time circuits Doc got sent back to 1885 when the time machine was struck by lightning, and Marty had to rely on his scientist friend's 1955 counterpart if he were ever to enjoy the world free of Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel. Timeline of events Known residents The following is a list of known residents of Pleasure Paradise as of October 27, 1985: Behind the scenes The hotel tower of the Pleasure Paradise was based on an existing casino, the Plaza in Las Vegas. Shots of a 9-foot model of the casino were digitally combined with the Courthouse as filmed on the Universal Studios Backlot, and scenes of the penthouse, stairwell, and rooftop were filmed either on stage or somewhere else. When Marty is watching the documentary on Biff's life at the entrance to the museum, there is a still shot of Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen. In the DVD commentary, Bob Gale stated that it was a still shot of Tannen's early makeup test, and that the look was changed before Back to the Future Part III came out. came out. In Craig Shaw Gardner's novelization, the Pleasure Paradise is referred to on a couple of occasions as 'Pleasure Palace' (pages 129 and 136). Appearances See alsoWe’ll look for expanded video of the visits today by Secretary Kelly and Secretary Tillerson to Mexico and South America. In the interim thanks to DaveNYviii for this segment of a press conference in Guatemala. Woo doggies,…. DHS Secretary General John Kelly drops an absolute truth bomb in a joint press conference earlier today. Speaking with Interior Minister Francisco Rivas the severity of Secretary Kelly’s words are a stunning reflection of the change in approach. Minister Rivas’s jaw was visibly quivering as every frightened synapse went simultaneously into apoplectic shock mode. [Pinch me, I’m in heaven.] Must watch. No, really… MUST WATCH: John Kelly’s message to Guatemalans (and others) Your journey north is going to be brutal. IF you make it you’re going to be returned fast. pic.twitter.com/AN2XSpq4cH — TrumpTracker (@DaveNYviii) February 22, 2017 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Guatemala City (AFP) – US plans to deport millions of Central American migrants and regional security issues dominated US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly’s visit to Guatemala on Wednesday, his Guatemalan counterpart said. Interior Minister Francisco Rivas said he and Kelly discussed those issues after the US official, who arrived late Tuesday, held private talks with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales. Journalists were not permitted to photograph the meeting with Morales, whose office instead provided some images. The officials did not hold a press conference. Rivas said his talks with the Homeland Security chief revolved around migration and “criminal entities that affect both countries,” such as drug cartels and violent gangs active in Central America. The Guatemalan minister said a conference about migration affecting the northern countries in the region — Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — was being arranged. It could take place in Mexico or the United States, he said. US President Donald Trump’s calls to reduce migration and deport some of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States has unsettled Central American countries, from which many of the migrants hail. Kelly issued tough new orders Tuesday for a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigrants in the United States. (read more) …He was a very fierce protector; and he didn’t do it a lot, but sometimes when he growled, the entire continent shook… AdvertisementsArsène Wenger has warned Tottenham Hotspur that they will find it very difficult to remain a competitive force in the Premier League while also adjusting to life at a new stadium and that the settling-in process could take two years. The Frenchman’s comments came on the day Tottenham confirmed they will use Wembley as a temporary home next season as work is completed on a new stadium, estimated to cost £800m, on the current White Hart Lane site, which will increase Spurs’ capacity from 32,000 to 61,000 and is scheduled to open for the 2018-19 season. Before Arsenal’s last visit to White Hart Lane for Sunday’s north London derby, Wenger offered a bleak outlook for their local rivals – who currently sit four places and 14 points ahead of Arsenal and know a 16th consecutive home victory will guarantee they finish above them for the first time since 1995 – drawing on his own club’s experience of moving from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium 11 years ago. Tottenham's new stadium: the changing face of White Hart Lane – in pictures Read more “It will be very difficult [for Tottenham],” he said. “Much more than you imagine. First of all because you face financial restrictions, as we did, although it may be less in future because you have more income. And secondly because you don’t feel at home like you were before and need to recreate a kind of history to feel comfortable and to feel like you play at home. I would say it will take two years [for Spurs to adjust].” Tottenham’s last game at White Hart Lane will be against Manchester United on 14 May and then for the next 12 months they will play their home matches at the national stadium, something which has not proved a happy experience for the club this season. They won only one of the four Champions League and Europa League matches there as well as losing last week’s FA Cup semi-final to Chelsea. Play Video 1:30 Tottenham v Arsenal: is this the end of the St Totteringham's Day streak? – video In a statement to confirm the move to Wembley, Tottenham’s chairman, Daniel Levy, said: “This marks a momentous day in our club’s history as it is the day we formally agreed the demolition of our beloved White Hart Lane. “The Lane means a huge amount to each and every one of us and we needed to gain greater certainty on the delivery of the new stadium before we made the final decision to commence with the decommissioning of our iconic, historic home for some 118 years. We shall ensure that we give the Lane a fitting farewell when we play our last match here on May 14.”The U.S. Navy released footage taken from inside the cockpit of an F/A-18F Super Hornet, assigned to the Fighting Black Lions of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 213, as it takes off from the USS George H.W. Bush in the Arabian Gulf. (U.S. Navy via YouTube) The U.S. Navy released footage taken from inside the cockpit of an F/A-18F Super Hornet, assigned to the Fighting Black Lions of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 213, as it takes off from the USS George H.W. Bush in the Arabian Gulf. (U.S. Navy via YouTube) Senior U.S. officials describe the threat posed by the Islamic State in chilling terms, but they have mounted a decidedly modest military campaign to check its advance through northern Iraq. The radical Islamist organization has attracted more fighters, controls more territory and has access to a larger stream of money than al-Qaeda did before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to U.S. officials and terrorism experts. Its refusal to rein in its brand of rampant violence accounts in part for its break from the better-known terrorist group. “This is serious business,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry told reporters earlier this week. “I think the world is beginning to come to grips with the degree to which this is unacceptable.” So far, though, the Obama administration’s response to the group’s blitzkrieg through northern Iraq has been defined primarily by the limits it has placed on the U.S. military’s intervention. The disconnect between the unnerving assessments of the Islamic State and the apparent lack of urgency in confronting it reflects a mix of political and military constraints. Among them are no clear military strategy for reversing the group’s recent territorial gains, a war-weariness that pervades the Obama administration and the country, and significant uncertainty about the extent to which the Islamic State is prepared to morph from a regional force into a transnational terrorist threat that could target Europe and the United States. The U.S. military’s campaign against the Islamic State has focused on protecting U.S. citizens in Baghdad and Irbil and delivering aid to thousands of Yazidi refugees who had been trapped on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq and appeared Wednesday to be making their way down to safety. But the ongoing U.S. airstrikes are equally notable for what they have not tried to do. U.S. military officials have emphasized that the strikes are not designed to reverse the gains Sunni extremist fighters have made. “We’ve had a very temporary effect,” Lt. Gen. William Mayville, a senior Army officer on the Joint Staff, told reporters this week. The limited nature of the airstrikes has drawn criticism from more hawkish Republicans and some former U.S. military officials who have said that the Obama administration is squandering an opportunity to deliver a crippling blow against the insurgents. “Time is of the essence
0s. The closest deployment to a tornado was on April 29, 1984 near Ardmore, Oklahoma, by Steve Smith and Lou Wicker of the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). It turned out that TOTO had a center of gravity too high for extreme wind, and it fell down as it was sideswiped by the edge of the weak tornado.[2] TOTO was also deployed as a portable weather station to measure thunderstorm gust fronts and non-tornadic mesocyclones—with more success than its tornado mission. TOTO was retired after 1987 because of safety issues and the logistical difficulty of getting such a cumbersome object in front of a tornado.[2] TOTO is currently on display at the National Weather Center (NWC) on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman, Oklahoma.[2] TOTO was the inspiration for an instrument package named "Dorothy" in the 1996 Warner Bros. film, Twister, and for a research project in the TV movie Tornado!.[3][4] See also [ edit ]Introduction Click to enlarge How We Test Our test set-up Click to enlarge How We Score While a 750W power supply is overkill for the average home computer, it's a reasonable capacity to opt for if you're touting more enthusiast level hardware. A rig with a fast Ivy Bridge CPU and a pair of Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 2GBs or AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GBs would be well suited to a 750W model, for example. Thus, while we wouldn't recommend a 750W PSU for every new build, if you have an eye on adding a second powerful GPU to your set-up in the future, it's useful to have this type of capacity.Choosing the right wattage for your PSU isn't the end of the story, however, as there are other factors to consider. Primarily, your power supply needs to be able to supply voltage to your hardware as stably as possible to avoid damaging it, and you want it to run as efficiently as possible too to save you money in the long run. Other things to consider are its noise output and the number and type of connections it has.With these things in mind, we bring you our latest PSU round-up, featuring eight power supplies, each from a different manufacturer, that are rated at or around the 750W mark. There's about an £80 difference between the cheapest and most expensive models, so plenty of price points are covered, and as it's been a while since our last round-up, we're using a new testing methodology too.A PSU's ability to supply stable voltages across its rails, even under heavy load, is its most important asset. It sounds simple, but cheaper and poorly made PSUs often miss the mark, especially under heavier loads. Unstable voltages can cause your hardware to exhibit instabilities or even to become damaged, so the closer they are to what they should be, the better.Intel's desktop PSU design guidelines specify the physical and electrical characteristics that ATX PSUs are required (in theory, at least) to adhere to. It states there can be a maximum of 5 percent variation above or below the nominal voltage on the +12V, +5V and +3.3V rails. These are the rails we test, as they're the most relevant to modern systems. The +12V rail is tested using Stratron 3229 load generators, while the lower voltage ones are tested with on a Stratron 3227.Beginning at 200W of load, we test each PSU in 100W increments recording the output voltages on each rail at every step, thus measuring a PSU's capability to provide stable voltages across various workloads. For the all important +12V rail, we take two measurements. 12V1 is the PSU's +12V connection with the lowest reading for each test setting, while 12V2 refers to the connection with the highest. As voltage output falls under heavier loads, 12V1 is the more crucial of the two.We also use a Zes Zimmer LMG95 power meter to determine how much AC power a PSU draws from the grid to output the appropriate DC power level. From this we calculate efficiency at each step, as well as an overall average efficiency. Efficiency is important not just because wasted energy is bad for your wallet and the environment, but because it's dissipated as heat which can reduce the lifespan and effectiveness of your components. Intel specifies that PSUs must be at least 70 percent efficient under full load, but 80 percent is recommended. We also use our power meter to test leakage levels by leaving the PSU on under no load.The power supplied to each PSU in testing is 230V AC, the same as UK household mains electricity. It should also be noted that at each load interval, we draw 50W of power across each of the +3.3V and +5V rails, using the +12V rail to draw the remainder. This is different to the 80 Plus initiative's test protocols, whereby rails are loaded proportionally based on their individual rated DC output current. However, we're not testing whether each PSU deserves its 80 Plus rating, and our procedure still reflects the marginal role played by the lower voltage rails in today's systems.For each load scenario, we also carry out a ripple test on the +12V line with an EasySync DS1M12 oscilloscope. Ripple refers to the tiny fluctuations in the output voltage of a power supply: an unavoidable result of converting AC to DC. A PSU's ability to suppress ripple is important, as high levels can damage your hardware, specifically the electrolytic capacitors found on motherboards and graphics cards, and reduce your overclocking potential. The maximum ripple permitted by Intel's specifications on the +12V rail is 120mV (peak-to-peak), but PSUs should be able to manage at least half this value to be considered excellent.Finally, we also measure the noise output of each PSU under three different loads (100W, 300W and 500W) with a Brüel & Kjær 2238 decibel meter. This is done by isolating the power supply in a sound-proof box (where noise levels are 17 dB(A)). Measurements are taken from a distance of 10cm after five minutes of operation for the low power tests, and after twenty minutes for the 500W one.The voltage stability tests take pride of place in the scoring box and accounts for 40 percent of each PSU's overall score. The score is worked out as a percentage of the voltage measurements that are within the limits of Intel's specifications. We only recommend that you buy a PSU with 100 percent stability.The Design score factors in the average efficiency across each of the load scenarios (as well as leakage level under no load), the highest amount of ripple exhibited by the PSU and the amount of noise produced at the highest load level. As well as this, it also incorporates the number, type and quality of cables supplied with the unit. Finally, the Value score is simply a combination of the Stability and Design scores and the total rated output (in watts) divided by the price.Batteries remain the biggest issue holding smartphone technology back from progressing at a much faster pace. Most users have come to terms with the current state of smartphone batteries, and they make a choice when they buy a new phone: Either purchase a nice slim phone like the iPhone 6s and charge it twice a day, or buy a giant phablet that’s impossible to use comfortably with one hand. While it may be quite some time before battery longevity sees a significant boost, Huawei just announced remarkable progress where quick charge technology is concerned, which could ultimately be a game-changer once it’s ready for use in commercial products. MUST SEE: Meet the tiny robot that walks on water, cleans pollution, and never needs to be charged On Friday at the Battery Symposium in Japan, Huawei revealed its next-generation quick change technology. The exciting new tech was developed at Watt Lab, a division of the Central Research Institute at Huawei. According to the company, this new technology is capable of charging compatible batteries up to 10 times faster than normal lithium-ion batteries. The technology involves a special charger coupled with a new lithium-ion battery with an energy density above 620 Wh/L, and Huawei has released two demo videos that show off the new tech. In the first video, a researcher removes a small 600 mAh battery from a working smartphone and places it into a special charging cradle. In just two minutes, the battery is charged from nearly empty to 68%. The second video shows a similar scenario but uses a much larger 3,000 mAh battery. In just five minutes, the battery is charged from nearly empty to 48%. For comparison, the iPhone 6s uses a 1,715 mAh battery, which could theoretically be fully charged in under seven minutes using this new technology. So how does it work? “According to Huawei, the company bonded heteroatoms to the molecule of graphite in anode, which could be a catalyst for the capture and transmission of lithium through carbon bonds,” the company said in a press release. “Huawei stated that the heteroatoms increase the charging speed of batteries without decreasing energy density or battery life.” The release continued, “Huawei is confident that this breakthrough in quick charging batteries will lead to a new revolution in electronic devices, especially with regard to mobile phones, electric vehicles, wearable devices, and mobile power supplies. Soon, we will all be able to charge our batteries to full power in the time it takes to grab a coffee!” Unfortunately, there’s no word from Huawei on exactly when this exciting new technology might find its way to consumer products.Image copyright AFP In our series of letters from African journalists, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani considers how to do business in Nigeria. While travelling from Lagos to Abuja in 2011, a Nigerian "big man" who sat beside me on the plane discovered by glaring at my smart phone screen that I worked on Nigeria's Next newspaper and began to complain bitterly. He told me that a series of stories in the publication had led him to instruct "his people" to stop giving adverts to Next. But he had first tried to negotiate with the relevant editor. "I didn't ask him to kill the story," he said. "I simply asked him to'manage' it." Perhaps less provocative headlines, he explained, or a less stinging choice of words. Image copyright adaobitricianwaubani I have listened to foreigners and returnees express horror over some practices regarded as completely natural here Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani However, the editor had informed him that things worked differently at Next than other Nigerian newspapers. For example, a completely different desk from that where a story originated has the final say on headlines and kickers. "That's rubbish," the big man said to me. Patiently, I explained the advantages of that process, how it ensured best practice in journalism. Next's publisher, Dele Olojede, was a Pulitzer-winning journalist who, after over 20 years' experience abroad, returned to Nigeria with the dream of revolutionising the country's news media, where some journalists make their pens available to the highest bidder. Some papers are known to collect payment from individuals or organisations in exchange for publishing stories. Next promised that every editorial decision would be based solely on the judgment of the editors. The big man shook his head in consternation. "You're not a Nigerian," he declared. "You'd better follow your boss and go back to America. Next will never survive if you people continue like this." Next died a few months later, after three years of battling to keep its head above water. A similar fate awaits many of the individuals and organisations currently buying into the "Nigeria Rising" narrative and rushing to invest in what is now Africa's largest economy. That is, if they insist on conducting business here while adhering to alien standards. Unscrupulous minority Again and again, I have listened to foreigners and returnees express horror over some practices regarded as completely natural here. Indeed, many of the practices that alarm them are so natural that few home-grown Nigerians regard them as corrupt or unethical. They have become the norm, rather than the exception performed by an unscrupulous minority. Sooner or later comes the landmark decision: Continue doing things like you did in the UK or US or wherever and see if you can swim against the forceful tide, or start adapting your methods to a peculiar environment. Image copyright AFP Image caption Mobile phone companies gave many Nigerians their first experience of quality customer service A number of multinationals in Nigeria have suffered costly reprimands from the judiciaries in their countries of origin, for engaging in practices that can be crucial to survival in the Nigerian business climate. Could it be time for Nigeria - and other countries of Africa - to define exactly what the term "corruption" means to our people, in our own environment? In 2001, mobile phone technology was launched in Nigeria. Even an announcement to board your flight at the airport sometimes sounded like a summons to the parade ground Foreign telecommunications companies landed and set up shop. For the first time in the country's history of barely-existing land phone services, the average Nigerian would be able to own a telephone. He would no longer travel hours to visit a friend, only to hear that the person had left for a month-long trip just five minutes earlier. He would not have to join an unending queue at a "business centre", where strangers would, when it eventually got to his turn, overhear his plea to a relative in America for a contribution towards papa's prostate gland surgery. The mobile phone companies introduced something else that was uncommon in Nigeria: Quality customer service. Decades of military rule had acculturated Nigerians to harsh and brash communication: Decrees and edicts. At the time, even an announcement to board your flight at the airport sometimes sounded like a summons to the parade ground. Through the trained personnel at their call centres, however, the telecoms companies addressed customers with more dignity and respect than most Nigerians had ever experienced from service providers. 'Never say no' My friend, Obioma, was part of the pioneer customer services team at one of the first mobile phone firms. Image copyright Reuters Image caption Customer service departments are becoming more common as Nigeria gets more online retailers She told me that the company eventually had to go against international standards of relating with customers, and stop their staff from concluding conversations with the usual: "Is there anything else I can do for you?" It turns out that the majority of Nigerians were not used to rejecting a blank cheque. The customers would invite their nearby family and friends to the phone, in case anyone had a problem that might need sorting out Whenever you asked them that question, they automatically assumed that they must request something else - almost like when diners at a buffet feel compelled to keep stuffing their bellies because the tureens are not yet empty. And so, the conversations between customer service staff and Nigerian customers never seemed to end. Each time staff attempted to conclude by once again asking the question, another round of requests began. Sometimes, the customers would invite their nearby family and friends to the phone, in case anyone had a problem that might need sorting out. This particular telecoms company, for its own good and the good of Nigerians who might be desperate for available staff to pay them some attention, then initiated a change to their procedure. Except when dealing with "premium" customers, they began concluding queries with a simple: "Thank you for calling." Imagine if international customer service watchdogs disparaged this company for not maintaining the standards upheld in other environments. Sometimes, but not always, understanding local context is vital. If you would like to comment on Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani's column, please do so below.Photo – Josh Morgan – Rapid City Journal Rapid City, SD – The Allen Americans can advance to the Western Conference Finals with a win today over the Rapid City Rush. Allen took a 3-1 series lead last night with a 7-4 victory. The Americans have won three straight in the series, and have now won three straight postseason road games going back to last series in Tulsa. Greger Hanson had big night last night for the Americans, scoring two goals and adding two assists. Hanson now has 13 points, and is only two behind Spencer Asuchak for the team and ECHL scoring lead. Asuchak scored his 7th of the playoffs last night, and assisted on Greger Hanson’s first goal. The Americans have outshot their opponents in eight of nine playoff games this year (351-221). The only negative stat for the team is their road power play, which is now 0 for 13 in four road playoff games. The positive side of the power play is the home power play which leads the ECHL at 32.0 %. “We really want to close out the series today,” said Americans Captain Jamie Schaafsma. “We need to get off to a good start this afternoon and finish the job. Our guys are playing hard and doing all the little things it takes to get the win.” Riley Gill has started the last three games in the series for Allen, allowing just six goals total in three starts. Joel Rumpel is expected to get the call today for the Americans. Rumpel has not played since Game 1 of the series. Trevor Ludwig had his best game of the series last night, assisting on the game winning goal and playing a solid defensive game in his own end. Trevor finished the night a +3 for Allen. Game time this afternoon in Rapid City is 5:05 pm local time, 6:05 pm Texas time. You can watch the game at Game On Sports Bar and Grill in Allen or purchase the game on ECHL TV http://echl.neulion.com/echl/home Listen to the broadcast with Tommy Daniels on Hot 107.3 FM beginning at 5:35 pm with the pregame show. www.hot1073fm.com #RockYourRedBy Al Jazeerah China has offered to buy Greek government bonds, in a show of support for the country whose debt burden pushed the euro zone into a crisis. The issue of currency manipulation is poised to dominate the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund this week. A change in China’s policy could give it an even greater edge in the global marketplace. Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, made the offer on Saturday at the start of a two-day visit to Greece, his first stop in a European tour. During talks with George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, Wen said China would double its trade ties with Greece over the next five years, underscoring Beijing’s use of economic strength to win friends. “China will undertake a great effort to support euro zone countries and Greece to overcome the crisis,” Wen said. In addition to seeing economic opportunities in Greece, China’s support of a struggling European country may also help deflect international criticism of its trade policies and its refusal to let its yuan currency appreciate sharply. ‘Full market status’ Wen said during the visit that China will address European concerns over its investment rules and copyright violations, but wants the EU to relax remaining trade barriers with Beijing in return. Speaking at Greece’s parliament, he urged the EU to recognise China’s “full market economy status” and relax restrictions on high-tech exports. “I have repeatedly said that China supports a strong euro and will not reduce the number of European bond holdings from its foreign exchange reserves,” he said. Wen sought to ease European concern that overseas companies operating in China face licensing rule restraints that give local competitors an unfair advantage. He said China would “strengthen dialogue” with the EU and was committed to continue “improving investment, confronting issues of intellectual copyright protection, expanding bilateral commerce and upgrading cooperation in technology.” Wen did not specify how much Greek debt China would be willing to buy or which Chinese entities would buy the bonds. Chinese state entities have been generally conservative about investing in foreign financial markets and the Chinese government faces domestic political criticism over losses incurred by these entities during the global financial crisis. China has a lot to gain from getting a foothold into Europe, Vagelis Agapitos, an economist in Athens specialising in investment, said. “They [China] get a bargain in terms of buying into strategic industries, such as the port authorities, the railways and the logistic centre, which is important for the export of Chinese goods,” Agapitos told Al Jazeera. High borrowing cost A senior Greek government official said Wen made clear his offer concerned buying bonds only when the country returned to markets. Greece, which is currently funded through a 110 billion euro ($150 billion) EU/IMF bailout, is only issuing short-term treasury bills for the time being. Since the true scale of its debt burden emerged late last year, investors have shunned its bonds. The yield they demand to hold 10-year Greek debt has shot up to 10 per cent, compared with just 2.3 per cent for similar bonds from the euro zone’s biggest economy Germany, making it too expensive for Greece to seek long-term funding in international markets. It has said it wants to return to markets some time next year to sell longer-term debt. “There is domestic pressure [in Greece] not to sell itself cheaply, but there is also quite significant international pressure regarding the total debt, which is at 120 per cent of the GDP, and rising,” Agapitos said. “This needs to go down in order to avoid debt restructuring which would be disastrous, not only for Greece but also for the European Union as a whole,” he said. China, at loggerheads with the US over the yuan and likely to face similar complaints during this European tour, emphasised its willingness to co-operate with the 27-nation EU on financial issues. “China is prepared, hand in hand with the EU, as passengers in the same boat, to strengthen co-operation … to confront the financial crisis,” Wen said. “I believe that we can undertake a genuine effort to promote the reform of the international financial system and strengthen its supervision,” he said. AdvertisementsA depiction of Marie Antoinette’s execution in 1793. Should the guillotine come back? Courtesy Carolus/Wikimedia Commons A nationwide shortage of a key ingredient used in lethal injections has led some states to experiment with new, untested drug cocktails for executing death row inmates. The practice has raised moral and constitutional questions, and unleashed a wave of litigation. At this point, as a society, we should be asking whether we can stand by and watch as this barbaric practice continues. Are these iffy drug combinations really any better than the guillotine? Bringing back the guillotine may sound crazy, but it’s certainly better than the current alternative. It’s better for prisoners because quickly severing the head is believed to be one of the quickest, least painful ways to die. And it’s better for organ recipients because the bodies of guillotined prisoners could be more quickly harvested for viable parts, unlike organs that may become unusable after lethal injection due to hypoxemia. To be clear, I find capital punishment abhorrent in theory and practice. Even if you believe the death penalty is morally acceptable, evidence of wrongful executions and the large number of inmates having been condemned to death before being exonerated shows its undeniable failings. But until the Supreme Court overturns precedents saying that state-sanctioned executions are not cruel and unusual punishment, shouldn’t we strive to make executions the most humane that they can possibly be? Lethal injection—the current method of execution of the federal government and the 32 states with the death penalty—and the guillotine are both evils, but the guillotine is the lesser evil of the two. In the 2008 Baze v. Rees decision, a divided Supreme Court said lethal injection in particular does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. But writing for the dissent, Justices Ginsburg and Souter expressed grave concerns that the three-drug cocktail administered in Kentucky “would cause a conscious inmate to suffer excruciating pain.” Dr. Jay Chapman, the creator of the three-drug cocktail, supports ditching his 1977 invention due to its reputation for causing slow, painful deaths. “The simplest thing I know of is the guillotine,” he told CNN in 2007. “And I’m not at all opposed to bringing it back. The person’s head is cut off and that’s the end of it.” Other doctors have stuck their necks out by protesting lethal injection on the grounds that administering it requires medical professionals to violate the Hippocratic Oath. The American Medical Association officially discourages physicians from participating in lethal injections. The guillotine sidesteps any Hippocratic hypocrisy. The layman can operate a guillotine just as well as a doctor. As Hanni Hindi wrote in Slate some years ago, “The prisoner facing the guillotine was placed facedown on a large wooden plank, their head secured in a brace and steadied by an executioner’s assistant known as ‘the Photographer,’ who held onto their hair (or, in the case of bald prisoners, their ears). When everything was in place, a 120-pound blade was dropped from 7 feet in the air, immediately severing the prisoner’s head.” It never misses its mark. The movement to bring back the guillotine has gained some limited traction in modern politics. In 1996, Georgia state legislator Doug Teper introduced a bill before the Georgia House of Representatives that would have amended the state’s death penalty code to provide for death by guillotine instead of the electric chair. “The General Assembly finds that while prisoners condemned to death may wish to donate one or more of their organs for transplant, any such desire is thwarted by the fact that electrocution makes all such organs unsuitable for transplant.” Teper’s bill died in the House. But given the swirling controversy over questionable lethal injection ingredients, perhaps the issue is now ready to be placed in the court of public opinion. One familiar position put forth by advocates of lethal injection is that the three-drug cocktail is far less offensive than the guillotine—to witnesses. Some state laws grant victims’ families the right to view executions. Would bringing back the guillotine fail to consider the feelings of those who would have to watch someone get his head severed? In short, no. As Michael Lawrence Goodwin argues, there are two main reasons why victims’ families watch executions: out of a desire to represent a murdered family member at what they consider the ultimate stage of criminal justice, and because of a need for closure. A guillotine execution would not devalue someone’s symbolic presence, and it may actually better facilitate closure for certain witnesses. Goodwin’s analysis shows that for some families, the notion of closure may create a sense of false hope, and watching an execution may actually “revictimize” them. On the other hand, some families who have witnessed an execution have subsequently complained that the executed died too easily—that they “got off light.” In the former cases, no execution method would satisfy the witness. But the guillotine may provide succor in the latter cases. Even if it’s quick and painless in fact, it’d be hard to imagine the guillotine failing to instill a sense of justified wrath. Those who would be up for watching a state-sanctioned beheading should heed the warning of Albert Camus. The author and philosopher once told a biographer the story of his father’s experience witnessing the guillotine in action: “He got up in the dark to go to the place of execution at the other end of town amid a great crowd of people. What he saw that morning he never told anyone. My mother relates merely that he came rushing home, his face distorted, refused to talk, lay down for a moment on the bed, and suddenly began to vomit.” As Camus made clear, capital punishment is always a barbaric practice. If we’re going to continue to allow it in the United States, maybe it makes sense to be confronted by how gruesome it really is.Stylistically, Mike Pence did an excellent job at the vice presidential debate. When he had points he wanted to make, he made them in a clear and straightforward manner. When his opponent repeatedly tried to interrupt him, he remained utterly unruffled. He’s clearly a very skilled salesman. But the substantive problem is that the product Pence really has to sell is a Donald Trump presidency. And that’s a very tough sell indeed. When things turned back to Trump personally, Pence had a variety of tricks that he fell back on. Sometimes, he repeated the same positive points about Trump (he’s a good businessman!). Sometimes, he tried to turn Tim Kaine’s accusations back on him. Sometimes he simply ignored Kaine’s points entirely. And sometimes he just denied reality. Take this riff from Kaine, in which he rattled off a non-exhaustive list of Trump’s top insults during the campaign. KAINE: Donald Trump has called Mexicans rapists and criminals. He has called women dogs, pigs, disgusting. He said a judge was unqualified for a Federal lawsuit because his parents were Mexican. He went after John McCain, a POW, and said he was not a hero because he had been captured. If you want to have a society where people are respected and respect laws, you cannot have someone at the top who demeans every group he talks about. I cannot believe that Gov. Pence would defend the insult-driven campaign that Donald Trump has run. There’s not really a good way for Pence to respond to all these true statements, so he feigned disbelief. “Did you all just hear that ours is an insult-driven campaign?” he asked, before trying to change the subject to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment to make the case that she is the real insult champion. This, of course, is patently absurd. Later, when Kaine brought up Trump’s frequent praise of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, saying they were just “facts” about Trump, Pence simply tried to pretend it wasn’t so, claiming, “Most of what you said is completely false, and the American people know that.” Yet Trump has praised Putin again and again. When Kaine pushed on why Trump has refused to disclose his tax returns despite decades of precedent and Trump’s previous promises that he would, the best Pence could come up with was that, well, he doesn’t legally have to. “Donald Trump has filed over 100 pages of financial disclosure, which is what the law requires,” Pence said. He also reiterated that Trump “said he will” release his returns eventually, though apparently he’s in no rush to do so before the election. At various other points, Pence signaled with his body language (head shakes) or brief interruptions like the simple word “no” that viewers shouldn’t believe the nasty-sounding comments Kaine was attributing to Trump. And when both moderator Elaine Quijano and Kaine quizzed Pence on Trump’s stated desire to get all unauthorized immigrants out of the country, Pence bobbed and weaved, stressing how Trump wanted to deport “criminals,” saying that a “deportation force” already exists, and not really mentioning what would happen to unauthorized immigrants who hadn’t committed crimes. We won’t know for a while whether Pence’s performance was something that swing voters will find to be convincing or effective. (Historically, vice presidential debates have tended not to affect polls.) But substantively, it’s important to remember that that’s what it was — a performance. He was making his best effort to sell the very badly flawed product of Donald Trump.Screengrab via Terminator 2: Judgment Day trailer. It's been almost two years since I technically became a cyborg. My robot parts consist of two rudimentary cybernetic implants—an NFC chip as well as a magnet—in my left hand. "NFC" stands for "Near Field Communication," and basically allows you to transfer data from one device (smartphone, tablet, human hand, etc.) to another. The magnet is, well, a magnet, and it allows me to become a low-rent Magneto. They've become such a part of me that I often casually refer to them as "my implants" in conversation with new people, prompting a lot of embarrassed backpedaling and explaining. Despite normally being the kind of person who can fall asleep while getting tattooed, I was a shameful mess of sweat and swear words as the implant artist sutured the tip of my un-numbed ring finger just above the magnet he had freshly implanted. The wonky gray area of body-modification-licensing means that the legality of the procedure in some states is dubious as is, but using any numbing agents puts these artists straight into "practicing medicine without a license" territory, meaning my finger felt like it had been turned into one of those exploding cartoon cigars. Once the suture was in, the implanter dangled the needle over my finger, and I instinctively winced. But instead of more prodding and stabbing, I saw the needle stop swinging back and forth and start drifting toward my finger. Still delirious from the adrenaline, I didn't register what was happening until the implanter touched his modified ring finger to my own, and I felt a tug deep inside my hand toward the magnet in his. In that moment, the pain had become more than worth what I was gaining. It takes about a week or two for the nerves to regrow around your magnet, meaning you type awkwardly with your part-numb, part-sore finger out like a backward futuristic aristocrat. You can stick to magnetic things right away, but you can't feel electromagnetic fields until you heal up. The first time I felt it, I was typing on an old beefy laptop and started to feel a weird bubbly tingle in my messed-up finger, but only over the X, D, and S keys—where my hard drive was spinning just a few inches under it. I excitedly started trying to find every magnetic field in the apartment, the strongest coming from microwaves and speakers. In the two years since, my "power" has just become another way that I interact with the world. Aside from trying to flirt with cute girls with jokes about being "attracted" to them or being able to easily lift those tiny, obnoxious screws that hold a laptop together, I've been trying to explore the boundaries of what the magnetic sense can do. Sometimes it's just noticing things around you that you wouldn't otherwise—like feeling subways pass under you, or being able to sense if a plug-in adapter is actually working or not. Sometimes it's incredibly useful, like when I've had to reset circuit breakers in dark basements with just enough of a magnetic field around the switches for me to detect which one isn't getting any power. I can also use my powers for benign evil. While I've yet to ruin a credit card or accidentally wipe the hard drive on my computer, I have been able to erase all of my friends' hotel keycards on trips. I can degrade cassettes, too—a friend and I used my finger to mess up some tapes we were trying to make low-fi, crudded-up music on. You'd think there'd be complications with an implant like mine, but reports from others with similar devices indicate that people haven't had issues with getting MRIs or going through airport security. I've flown a lot since getting the magnet, and I still face the same amount of irritation and hassle at the airport. After getting the magnetic implant in October 2013, I was hooked on this type of body modification. The only other implant I'm aware of that's at the same stage in testing, safety, and availability is a series of implantable NFC chips, so that's what I got. Created by Dangerous Things, a company that makes and sells biohacking tools, this little chip is about the size of a Tic Tac and encased in practically unbreakable glass. It uses Near Field Communication technology to do whatever I tell it to—send text messages, activate and deactivate my phone's flashlight, transmit a URL and a sound effect, etc. These tags are surprisingly durable and low-risk outside of the dangers that come with the act of implanting anything, typically infection or rejection (when the skin gets rid of something like a splinter), assuming you're smart and get the work done by a trained professional in a sterile environment. Once it's in and healed, though, there's little risk—the Dangerous Things website mentions that they've received no reports of the chips breaking. After embedding it in my hand, I downloaded a companion app on my Android (Sorry iPhone users, Apple doesn't support any NFC except ApplePay) and have been experimenting with making it do various things, both useful and asinine. The chip initially comes blank, with 888 bytes of memory that you can write things to. The first thing I did with it was use it to distribute copies of the game Deus Ex, as an homage to my cyborg predecessors. For work functions and conferences, I program my business card into it, meaning Android users can tap their phone to my hand to instantly have all my contact information. For security tools, I make it a requirement to unlock my phone and use it as an authentication device to beef up account security. For people less interested in hacking themselves, you can also purchase premade things like doors that require your hand to unlock them and such on Dangerous Things' website. When I'm off the clock, though, I make it do more stupid things like tell dad jokes or work it into games that I've made. As I mentioned, there aren't a ton of other implants like this out there and available yet, but the biohacking community is pushing the envelope and making new ones. And there is a beautiful sentiment behind this movement. Biohacking labs like Grindhouse and Dangerous Things are creating open-source wetware (implants and software developed completely transparently, with schematics and source code available to anyone and everyone), working with both the hacker and body modification communities to make it possible for people without tons of money to have a taste of the future themselves. The implants I've mentioned? None of them cost over $200, and the tools to interact with them are being constantly pushed forward by the open-source community. We already have so much of the dystopic parts of cyberpunk literature—we have automated flying robots that kill people on the other side of the planet and have successfully made children afraid of the sky, for fuck's sake—why not have some fun with the cooler parts of it? Related on Motherboard: Rewiring the Brain to Make New Senses This is why I'm donating my body to the cause. Soon, I'm getting Grindhouse's experimental prototype for the NorthStar implant—a device that will allow me to sense where magnetic north is, on the back of my hand. Obviously this can be a risky endeavor—Grindhouse developer Tim Cannon put the lab's other experimental implant, known as Circadia, into himself, and when he removed it a few months later he found the battery was having issues, which made for the terrifying prospect of having battery acid leaking into his blood. Similarly, a lot of people can get freaked out about larger implants (the boxy Circadia elicited a collective "ew" from most corners of the internet
by Marsha B. Cohen Last week marked the 68th anniversary of the WWII destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9) — the first and only deployment of nuclear weapons in human history. Within moments of the nuclear explosions that destroyed these cities, at least 200,000 people lost their lives. Tens of thousands subsequently died from radiation poisoning within the next two weeks. The effects linger to this day. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has implied that this would the be fate of Israel if Iran was allowed to obtain nuclear weapon-making capabilities, including the ability to enrich high-grade uranium. To prevent this from happening, the economy of Iran must be crippled by sanctions and the fourth largest oil reserves in the world must be barred from global markets, as the oil fields in which they are situated deteriorate. Israel — the only state in the region that actually possesses nuclear weapons and has blocked all efforts to create a Middle East Nuclear Weapon Free Zone — should thus be armed with cutting-edge American weaponry. Finally, the US must not only stand behind its sole reliable Middle East ally, which could strike Iran at will, it should ideally also lead — not merely condone — a military assault against Iranian nuclear facilities. Netanyahu invariably frames the threat posed by Iranian nuclear capability (a term that blurs distinctions between civilian and potential military applications of nuclear technology) as “Auschwitz” rather than “Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, even though the latter might be a more apt analogy. The potential for another Auschwitz is predicated on the image of an Israel that is unable — or unwilling to — defend itself, resulting in six million Jews going “like sheep to the slaughter.” But if Israel and/or the US were to attack Iran instead of the other way around, “Hiroshima and Nagasaki” would be the analogy to apply to Iran. A country dropping bombs on any country that has not attacked first is an act of war, as the US was quick to point out when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor — and this includes so-called “surgical strikes”. In a July 19 letter about US options in Syria, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reminded the Senate Armed Services Committee that “…the decision to use force is not one that any of us takes lightly. It is no less than an act of war” [emphasis added]. If the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during wartime remains morally and militarily questionable, one might think that there would be even less justification for a military strike on Iran, with whom neither Israel nor the US is at war. Of course, there are those who disagree: the US is engaged in a war on terror, Iran has been designated by the US as the chief state sponsor of terrorism since 1984 and so on. Therefore, the US is, or should be, at war with Iran. “All options are on the table” is the operative mantra with regard to the US halting Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon. But if bombs start dropping on Iran, what kind will they be? In fact, the 30,000 lb. Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) that could be employed against Iranian nuclear facilities are nuclear weapons, since they derive their capability of penetrating 200 feet of concrete in the earth from depleted uranium. Furthermore, some Israelis have darkly hinted that, were Israel to confront Iran alone, it would be more likely to reach into its unacknowledged nuclear armoury if that meant the difference between victory and defeat. Given all this, comparing the damage that would be done by bombing Iran with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not farfetched. It also reveals some troubling parallels. In the years prior to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in response to what the US regarded as Japanese expansionism, imposed economic sanctions on Japan in 1937. Just before the US entered the war, an embargo was placed on US exports of oil to Japan, upon which Japan was utterly dependent. In 1945, it was already clear that Japan was preparing to surrender and that the outstanding issue at hand was the status of its emperor. There was neither a military nor political need to use atomic weapons to bring an end to the war. Numerous justifications for dropping atomic bombs on Japan were invoked, but nearly all of them were challenged or discredited within a few years after the war ended. Three are particularly noteworthy today, as we continue to face the prospect of war with Iran. Saving lives: US Secretary of War Henry Stimson justified the decision to use atomic weapons as “the least abhorrent choice” since it would not only would save the lives of up to a million American soldiers who might perish in a ground assault on Japan, it would also spare the lives of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians who were being killed in fire bombings. President Harry Truman also claimed that “thousands of lives would be saved” and “a quarter of a million of the flower of our young manhood was worth a couple of Japanese cities.” But as Andrew Dilks points out, “None of these statements were based on any evidence.” Speaking in Warsaw, Poland on June 12 — two days before the Iranian election that he declared would “change nothing” with regard to Iran’s alleged quest to develop nuclear weaponry — Netanyahu used the opening of an Auschwitz memorial to make his case. “This is a regime that is building nuclear weapons with the expressed purpose to annihilate Israel’s six million Jews,” he said. “We will not allow this to happen. We will never allow another Holocaust.” About the Iranians who would perish after an Israeli attack, Netanyahu said nothing. Justifying expenditures: The total estimated cost of the Manhattan Project, which developed the bombs dropped on Japan, was nearly $2 billion in 1945, the equivalent of slightly more than $30 billion today. Secretary of State James Byrnes pointed out to President Harry Truman, who was up for re-election in 1948, that he could expect to be berated by Republicans for spending such a large amount on weapons that were never used, according to MIT’s John Dower. A recent report by the Congressional Research Service shows that Israel is the single largest recipient of US aid, receiving a cumulative $118 billion, most of it military aid. The Bush administration and the Israeli government had agreed to a 10-year, $30 billion military aid package in 2007, which assured Israel of funding through 2018. During his March 2013 visit to Israel, President Barack Obama, who had been criticized by the US pro-Israel lobby for being less concerned than previous American presidents about Israel’s well being and survival, pledged that the United States would continue to provide Israel with multi-year commitments of military aid subject to the approval of Congress. Not to be outdone, the otherwise tightfisted Congress not only approved the added assistance Obama had promised, it also increased it. An Iran that is not depicted as dangerous would jeopardize the generous military assistance Israel receives. What better way to demonstrate how badly needed those US taxpayer dollars are than to show them in action? Technological research and development: One of the most puzzling questions about the decision to use nuclear weaponry against Japan is why, three days after the utter devastation wreaked on Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. It was unnecessary from a militarily perspective. Perhaps the answer exists in the fact that the Manhattan Project had produced different types of atomic bombs: the destructive power of the “Little Boy”, which fell on Hiroshima, came from uranium; the power of “Fat Man”, which exploded over Nagasaki, came from plutonium. What better way to “scientifically” compare their effectiveness at annihilation than by using both? The award winning Israeli documentary, The Lab, which opens in the US this month, reveals that Israel has used Lebanon and Gaza as a testing ground for advances in weaponry. Jonathan Cook writes, “Attacks such as Operation Cast Lead of winter 2008-09 or last year’s Operation Pillar of Defence, the film argues, serve as little more than laboratory-style experiments to evaluate and refine the effectiveness of new military approaches, both strategies and weaponry.” Israeli military leaders have strongly hinted that in conducting air strikes against Syria, the Israeli Air Force is rehearsing for an attack on Iran, including the use of bunker-buster bombs. The Pentagon, which reportedly has invested $500 million in developing and revamping MOP “bunker busters”, recently spent millions building a replica of Iran’s Fordow nuclear research facility in order to demonstrate to the Israelis that Iranian nuclear facilities can be destroyed when the time is right. Gen. Dempsey arrived in Israel on Monday to meet with Israel’s Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Israel’s political leaders. Members of Congress from both political parties are also visiting — Democrats last week, Republicans this week — on an AIPAC-sponsored “fact-finding” mission. No doubt they will hear yet again from Israeli leaders that the world cannot allow another Auschwitz. The world cannot allow another Hiroshima and Nagasaki either.How did a Baptist, country girl like me, raised in the Bible Belt, become an observant Jew? Many have asked me, "How did a country girl like you, a Baptist raised in the middle of the Oklahoma Bible Belt, become an observant Jew?" Well, it's a very long story. It took ten years from the time my family and I left the Baptist church until we finally converted to Judaism. But here's a glimpse into the story that forever changed my life. Baptists believe that there is only one way to heaven, which is through faith in Jesus. Only those who have true faith and manifest it in their lives will be "saved." I was taught that true faith involved regular church attendance, a public profession of faith in the church, baptism, and of course, clean living. I believed that God loved me and had a special plan for my life. Only those who have true faith and manifest it in their lives will be "saved." I lived my life according to Christian doctrine for the first years of my life. I married a good Christian man and was blessed with three beautiful sons. However, I arrived at a point in my life, at age 37, where I desired to have a closer and more meaningful relationship to God. I was not depressed. I just felt as though I wanted to be more committed to God. I remember, as I lay in bed one night before going to sleep, praying, "God, I really want to know You – whatever the cost. Whatever it takes, please lead me into a deeper and more meaningful relationship with you." Little did I know what was to follow. Within weeks, my husband, a physician in the Air Force, was sent to a Continuing Medical Education Conference in San Antonio, Texas. He was accompanied by Reuvain Rossio, another Air Force physician. Both our families were living in Dayton, Ohio, and we knew each other as former neighbors from San Antonio. During the two years the Rossios had been in Dayton, they had made a dramatic move towards more observant Judaism. It was a topic of excitement for Reuvain and because my husband was always open to topics of religion, a very lively discussion ensued while on the flight back and forth from San Antonio. Reuvain had recently attended a lecture by Rabbi Tovia Singer. He was so impressed by his talk that he purchased a complete set of his tapes, entitled "Let's Get Biblical.” Rabbi Singer's intent was to bring Jews back to their Biblical roots and strengthen their faith in Judaism. Reuvain invited my husband to listen to the tapes. Bob agreed, thinking that not only would he find them interesting, but also a tool by which he could demonstrate the credibility of his own Christian faith and be able to explain to Reuvain why he still accepted Christianity as his own true faith. The tapes were comprehensive and intense. To my husband's surprise and dismay, he believed that the rabbi articulated Christian doctrine much better than many Christian pastors. Rabbi Singer raised many serious questions about the validity of the New Testament scriptures. He discussed, in detail, prophetic Christian scriptures and why Jews do not accept those scriptures. He talked about the Written and Oral Laws of Judaism and why Jews still view both of them as very important. He talked about many other serious concerns that Jews have with Christian doctrine. Bob commented to me that the rabbi had very valid – and troubling – points. My response was "Who cares what he says? I'm sure the Jews have some contriving way to explain away why they don't believe. They have to. Don't you see? They're blinded! They can't see the true messiah!" My husband was steadfast in seeking the truth. I thought that I already had the truth and wondered why my husband was so confused. Yet, after much study and prayer, both by me and my husband, I had to resign myself to the fact that there were problems with Christianity. Called into Question Realizing that my Christian beliefs might be flawed was traumatic for me. Everything I had been taught was suddenly being called into question. My first response was to talk to our pastor and close friends, but sadly, they either didn't have any answers or were afraid to talk about it. Since rejecting Jesus meant an eternal hell of fire and brimstone to them, they didn't want to risk the consequences of considering anything else but Christianity. I eventually had to share the painful news with my parents. The response was hurt and anger. I felt as though I had no one to turn to other than God. I remember standing in front of my upstairs bedroom window and praying, "God, if Jesus is your son, then I don't want to offend you, but if I've been deceived please let me know." After exposing our doubts about Christianity, we were painfully asked to leave the church. My husband was a prominent Sunday school teacher, but after exposing our doubts about Christianity, we were painfully asked to leave the church. Many questions arose such as, What do I teach my children? What do I do about the fact that they are in private Christian schools? How do we fit into any community now? I didn't know where to turn for answers, and on top of all that, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer. I was told I had three years to live, at most. (I've now been cancer free for over 12 years, thank God.) It was a time of deep soul-searching and re-examination of my faith in God. The Air Force transferred us from Ohio to Oklahoma (my home state) for two years, (where I gave birth to twins at age 40), and then to Colorado Springs, Colorado. During that time, we had very little connection with anything remotely Jewish. We learned on our own, but our self-learning left much to be desired. However, while in Colorado Springs, we were introduced to Aish Denver by a rabbi friend. We visited off and on and were impressed with Aish, but found it difficult to make the trips back and forth to shul with young twins and restless boys. At the Crossroads In 2001, my husband retired from the Air Force and we moved to Denver, into the Aish community, in an attempt to study more seriously and consider the possibility of conversion. Conversion was an intimidating possibility for me. Many things appeared quite foreign to me and to leave the "faith of my fathers" was a daunting thought. But as I continued to attend services at Aish, I began to appreciate the true beauty of Judaism. Lori Palatnik and her family moved to Denver approximately one month after we moved there. I began to learn with Lori and while she taught me many things about Judaism, she also became a "sounding board" for all the things that I didn't understand and found challenging. She was a true friend and confidante and reminded me continuously that God loves me for who I am. I found the classes and participation at Aish refreshing and invigorating. Yet, I still remained non-Jewish for several years. There was comfort in the fact that if I didn't really want to commit to something Jewish, I could say, "Well, it's okay. I'm not really Jewish yet." In April 2003, my husband lost his job at a local hospital in Denver. While I am not at liberty to discuss specific details, the fact that he was released the last day of Passover, and it was related to a complaint filed by a patient's drunk grandmother spewing anti-Semitic comments, did not seem a coincidence. Because of the job loss, Bob and I were forced to make a decision about conversion and what was important to us. Bob was offered an excellent opportunity back in Ohio, not far from where we once lived. The salary was literally twice the amount and the housing opportunities were much better there, as well. But the Jewish community was very small. A decision had to be made. "What do you want to do?" Bob asked me. "Do you want to move one more time?" The thought was tempting... double salary, beautiful houses, a pleasant location, and "surely we would make friends, wouldn't we?" I reasoned. Did we really want to continue the pursuit of conversion, or perhaps concede that conversion just wasn't for us? We could go back to eating all the non-kosher food we once enjoyed, not to mention the unlimited restaurants and cuisines. Our kids could play more sports, even on Saturdays and not feel guilty, we could buy a beautiful house at a much lesser price, and life could be much easier for us in many ways. What was to be? I was forced to confront myself with what was really important for me. On the other hand, where would we ever find a shul like Aish Denver? The Meyers, the Palatniks, the Wasoskys -- what shul would ever have a staff like that? And the friends we had made were genuinely precious. Did we really want to leave all that behind to start over, or perhaps, forsake entirely? I was forced to confront myself with what was really important for me. Was eating non-kosher food and going to nice restaurants the most important thing in life? Was living in an extravagant home with a nice salary the ultimate pleasure? Or, was having my kids be sports heroes a worthy goal for which I should invest hours of time and money? These goals were shallow and never had I realized it more than at that moment. The decision was obvious. It was inconceivable for my family to leave the shul, our friends, or the commitment we had made towards learning about Judaism. Just as Lori had taught in her "48 Ways to Wisdom" class, that with much pain comes much pleasure. A New Beginning During the summer of 2004, Bob and I requested a date for our conversion with Rabbi Greenblatt of Memphis. The date was set almost 10 years from the date we had the fateful meeting with the church members, asking us to leave the church. As I prepared for conversion and the upcoming wedding, (as new converts, we would need to get married according to Jewish law) I experienced mixed emotions. I mourned for the relationship between me and my parents and how that would suffer even more. My parents were the ones who had given me life, raised and nurtured me, and now for this, my most important milestone, I could not joyfully share with them. I could not even find the words to tell them that I was converting. I knew the pain was great for them and did not wish to inflict any more than I already had. On the other hand, I knew that conversion was right for me. Without it, I knew I would never be fulfilled in the way I desired. As painful or as different as it might have seemed for family or friends, it was still right for me and I had confidence that I was choosing the right path. So it was with that confidence that I continued my chosen path towards conversion. As I walked down the aisle in shul to remarry my husband, accompanied on one side by Rebbetzen Lori Palatnik and the other by Rebbetzen Chaya Meyer, I felt a tremendous sense of gratitude and joy. I admired both Lori and Chaya so much and felt incredibly honored that they would walk me towards my new chatan, groom. I began to cry, but this time they were tears of intense, indescribable joy. As I gazed at Yedidyah, (formerly Bob), standing at the front of the shul, I could see tears in his eyes. I, too, began to cry, but this time they were tears of intense, indescribable joy. The shul was filled with our friends, standing in our honor, most teary-eyed, as well. We had finally come home to our faith, our love, and our friends. We experienced the pain, and now we are overwhelmed by the pleasure. Was the pain worth it? Yes, a hundred, million times yes! For almost 40 years, I searched for what would bring completeness, what would give me that relationship I yearned for so much with my Creator. For the first time in my life, I feel complete. There is an indescribable sense of wholeness. I feel as though I have finally returned home to a God who is real, who hears my prayers, and loves me with an amazing unconditional love. "God, I really want to know you, whatever the cost. Whatever it takes, please lead me into a deeper and more meaningful relationship with you." Be careful what you pray for. In A Simple Twist of Faith, Leah Schiermeyer recounts her intense journey from Christianity to observant Judaism with honesty, emotion, and humor.Click here to order.A number of Fianna Fáil backbenchers have again called for Brian Cowen to step down as leader of the parliamentary party. The calls come after the publication of a new poll, showing further decline in support for the party. Speaking earlier today, former minister Mary O'Rourke described the poll findings as "awful" and expressed concern the party might be wiped out in the forthcoming general election. According to the Red C poll on the state of the political parties, support for Fianna Fáil has fallen to its lowest ever and putting the party in fourth place behind Sinn Féin. The poll shows support for the party has dropped 3 per cent to just 13 per cent while support for the Taoiseach is at 8 per cent. Speaking on The Pat Kenny show on RTÉ radio earlier today, Ms O'Rourke said the party faced a "virtual wipeout" if the figures stayed at the same level going into an election. "How can you envisage a general election with a leader at that percentage?. I don't think it will stay at that percentage but that's small comfort to us," she said. Ms O'Rourke said she thought Mr Cowen must be reconsidering his position and wondering if it was in his best interests to continue as leader of Fianna Fáil. Other Fianna Fáil backbenchers called on Mr Cowen to resign as party leader before the election, which is due to be held early next year. Speaking on the same programme, former Fianna Fáil whip and minister of state Tom Kitt said while he was convinced the party would regain support and overtake Sinn Féin, he believed a new leader was necessary. "I have been arguing within the party that firstly, we stick to our task of getting the budget through and the four-year plan but I've also argued for a change of leader," said Mr Kitt. "Time is running out but I still think that it would be possible in January with him (Cowen) continuing as Taoiseach but not as leader of Fianna Fáil. It would be unchartered territory but it is constitutionally possible and it could be done.” “What I'm hoping is that we would get a change of leader, (and) that we would be able to connect again with the public, which I think is something we've lost unfortunately,” Mr Kitt added. Cork TD Noel O'Flynn, who has been one of the most vocal critics of Mr Cowen said the poll results reflected the level of anger the public felt towards the party. “People have decided, in my view, that Fianna Fáil are not the party to lead the country after the next election and I think that what you are going to find is that between now and the day the election is called, you'll find that more and more people within the parliamentary party, including ministers, will announce their retirement.,” he said. “The busiest department now in Dail Eireann is the one-stop shop where people are going in to make an appointment and find out about their entitlements and pensions,” Mr O’Flynn added. Another one of Mr Cowen fiercest critics, Dublin North TD Michael Kennedy said the Taoiseach had failed to connect with the public and should therefore be replaced. “His difficulty is that he has not unfortunately connected with the public and the public no longer see him as credible. In the future interests of Fianna Fáil we do need a new leader once the budgetary issues have been passed and are out of the way,” he said. Tipperary South TD Mattie McGrath meanwhile said the party under the leadership of Bertie Ahern and then Brian Cowen, had become too arrogant. “The people just don't trust Fianna Fáil any more. We didn't engage with them openly and honestly when we got into the economic crisis. The public should have been consulted. They are angry now and the only chance they are going to get is when the election comes,” he said. “We're just too long in Government. We got arrogant and disconnected and we wouldn't listen,” Mr McGrath concluded.Like most televised music and awards shows, Kanye West's recent appearance on Saturday Night Live's 40th Anniversary Special produced a slew of polarized rants across the social media sphere. Much like candy corn, country music, and thunderstorms, people tend to fervently hate or passionately love West -- with very few opinions falling somewhere in between. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise, as West has spent his fair share of time in the limelight for controversial stunts (recall the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards with Taylor Swift, or his unscripted political tirade on the NBC's 2005 Concert for Hurricane Relief). In interviews, he's dubbed himself "a creative genius," "the voice of the generation," and nothing less than "the best rapper" out there. As I scrolled through Twitter following his SNL performance, I saw a reoccurring theme in the tweets of those who love to hate West, criticizing him for being "cocky," "arrogant," and downright narcissistic. This got me thinking about the way we perceive confidence and self-love in a society full of young people that lack both so greatly. And then it hit me: While Kanye West might not be the hero our generation wants, he is without a doubt the hero our generation needs. Along with how to artfully toe the line between confident and cocky, here are five other lessons that we can all learn from Mr. West: 1. Dare to be different Growing into fame, Kanye West was and still remains unapologetically different from the other rappers of his time. His ability to stand out, however, goes beyond his story-like lyrics or high-end sense of style. While today's celebrities and artists are constantly encouraged to remain grounded and selfless, West recognizes his own abilities and challenges others to do the same. "People always tell you, 'be humble, be humble,'" said West to the crowd at a 2011 performance in Los Angeles' Staples Center. "When was the last time someone told you to be amazing? Be great! Be awesome!" Whether you're a fan of him or not, West makes a valid point about our society's tendency to downplay our talents, achievements, and strengths in an effort to appear humble. While there's nothing wrong with a little modesty, there's a lot to be said for taking a Kanye-esque approach to living and simply embracing what you're good at. After all, what's wrong with that? 2. Handle criticism like a champ Whether you're a student, employee, artist, athlete, or a human being in general, we're all plagued by criticism at some point in our lives -- if not daily. However, what's far more important than the harsh words you face from others is the way in which you respond to it. As someone who's received more than his fair share of hate, West has taught himself to handle criticism like a champ. "Criticism can bother you, but you should be more bothered if there's no criticism," said West in a 2008 radio interview. "That means you're too safe." In other words, it's all about flipping your perspective and the way you perceive the criticism that surrounds you. Would you rather spend your entire life playing things safe, or take creative risks that stir controversy and emotion? I think we all know what Kanye would do. 3. Be original What sets Kanye apart from other modern-day artists is his ability to constantly keep his fans on their toes in anticipation of his next move. After all, rumors of a release for his upcoming, still untitled album have been swirling since fall 2014 despite the fact that he's yet to confirm a date. And this isn't the first time Kanye has taken an unconventional approach to releasing and promoting an album. In 2013, the music video for his track "New Slaves" was projected onto the side of buildings in over 66 locations internationally, all in an effort to build hype for the release of Yeezus. "I'm a creative genius, and there's no other way to word it," said West in a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone. 4. Learning never stops Just because your formal education ends or you finally turn 18 doesn't mean you're done learning for the rest of your life. In fact, some of the best lessons can come from mistakes that we learn on the job, in the real world, or as adults. "If you learn from your mistakes, then I'm a fucking genius," said West in a 2007 interview with Rolling Stone. Even as an adult who's been around the block a few times, Kanye admits that he's still learning lessons every day. However, his carefree attitude and ability to focus on the future and his goals keeps him from getting caught up in the mistakes of the past. Not to mention, he's constantly surrounding himself with other greats of the music and entertainment industry -- this is evident through his collaborations with artists like Jay-Z, John Legend, Frank Ocean, and Lupe Fiasco. He shows us that by surrounding yourself with the best in the business (whatever your business may be), you're setting yourself up for success. 5. Carpe diem If there's one mantra that truly captures everything it means to live like Kanye, then it's carpe diem or "seize the day." Whether he's spending 12-hour days in the studio, responding to harsh criticism, promoting an upcoming album or fearlessly speaking his mind, fans and haters alike can't deny that he's making the most of every minute. "If you have the opportunity to play the game of life, you need to appreciate every moment," said West in his 2005 Grammy acceptance speech. "A lot of people don't appreciate the moment until it's passed." When you picture the ideal role model for the modern-day youth, Kanye West probably isn't the first person that comes to mind. However, there's a lot our generation can learn about channeling confidence and self-love from the artist who's never been afraid to put himself first. Next time you're faced with harsh criticism, a creative block, or a mistake from the past, ask yourself: what would Yeezus do?IHEU Releases 2015 Freedom of Thought Report Focusing on Anti-Atheist Discrimination In line with the celebration of Human Rights Day last Thursday, December 10, the International Humanist and Ethical Union or IHEU published its lengthy Freedom of Thought Report for 2015. The IHEU is a U.N.-accredited NGO that promotes the welfare and growth of humanist, atheist, rationalist, freethought and similar groups around the world. The report which is published annually ranks countries based on the state of anti-atheist or non-religious discrimination and persecution around the world. The report also details the plight and current social and legal challenges faced by atheists, humanists and freethinkers in each country. Countries ranked are eventually classified into five categories: “Free and Equal” being the best and most supportive countries for the non-religious, “Mostly Satisfactory”, “Systemic Discrimination”, “Severe Discrimination,” and “Grave Violations” where the non-religious individuals suffer the most. A lot of atheists will be dismayed that only a few countries are considered to be “free and equal.” The top countries include Belgium, The Netherlands, and Estonia. Even the United States which takes pride in being the “land of the free” was only classified as “mostly satisfactory”. Additionally, the U.K. ranks lower at “systematic discrimination”. Freedom of Thought -anti athiest On the other hand, among the worst countries for atheists, humanists and freethinkers include Sudan, Iraq and Nigeria. In these countries, atheist are gravely discriminated and even persecuted. The worst living conditions for atheists or non-religious are experienced by those living in Northeast and Central Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. With the exception of Taiwan and Japan, all Asian countries are poorly ranked and are classified for having severe discrimination and grave violations against atheists. In countries where the worst forms of discrimination are prevalent, atheists and apostates are often killed judicially or extra-judicially. There are also cases of children being taken away by the state from their atheist parents. The report also mentioned key government leaders like Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak who suggested that secularism or humanism is essentially a form of deviance. Saudi Arabia also gets the spotlight for creating a law that considers atheists as terrorists. The report also mentioned hate campaigns as the most popular form of discrimination all across the world. In the more “free” or liberal countries like the U.K. and U.S., anti-atheist discrimination takes another form. Instead of punitive measures against atheists, governments and organizations commit discrimination by providing privileges or preference to individuals who belong to a particular religion. Most states are also guilty of not doing anything or for inaction to the discriminative acts or policies of groups or organizations like churches and educational institutions. But the 2015 report isn’t entirely negative. There’s hope since according to the report, certain improvements were recorded this year like the abolishment of the “blasphemy” laws in Norway and Iceland. Freedom of Thought 2015 Report Reveals Global Increase in Persecution of Humanists: IHEU's new report, which t… https://t.co/xETsaq3mw8 — Flavio58 (@Flavio58) December 10, 2015 And in response to the report, American Humanist Association executive director Roy Speckhardt said that “The sobering findings of this report should move our elected leaders to stand up for religious freedom in the U.S. and around the world.” Resources Follow the Conversation on TwitterThe president continues to fight, whether it's Don't Ask, Don't Tell or whether it is making sure, across the board that you cannot discriminate. Look [at] the executive orders he's put in place: Any hospital that gets federal funding, which is almost all of them, they can't deny a partner from being able to have access to their partner who's ill or making the call on whether or not they -- you know -- it's just -- this is evolving. And by the way, my measure, David, and I take a look at when things really begin to change, is when the social culture changes. I think "Will and Grace" probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far. And I think -- people fear that which is different. Now they're beginning to understand.Rue La La is having a sale on a bunch of Brooks Brothers stock. Included is a Brooks Brothers navy suit, which you see above. It’s not labeled as such in the description, but I’m pretty sure this is part of the Golden Fleece line – their premium line – which is usually made with more handwork and higher-end materials. It’s also made with a full canvas, which you can see labeled in one of the close up photos of the jacket’s interior. The retail on these is $1,900, but available on Rue La La for $499. The cut here is the Fitzgerald, which is the slimmer of their two traditional models (the other being the Madison). I tried on the Fitzgerald about six years ago, and thought it was a pretty nice fit without being skinny. You may want to stop by a local Brooks Brothers to try one on if you’d like to be sure. Rue La La also accepts returns.The convening during the week of the all-island civic forum and recent talk of the possibility of the reintroduction of a “hard border” in the aftermath of Brexit reminded me of the observations of the Kilkenny writer Hubert Butler. In his book Grandmother and Wolf Tone, published in 1990, the year before he died, Butler suggested that, in time, the Border “might become meaningless and drop off painlessly like a strip of plaster from a wound that had healed, or else survive in some modified form as a definition which distinguishes but does not divide”. In recent years, the extent to which the Border has been described as “soft” or “invisible” seemed to be a vindication of Butler’s comments, but the Brexit referendum result has called them into question. Superficial The unanimity surrounding the chorus “no return to a hard border” articulated in the last few months appears superficial. Outside Downing Street a few weeks ago, Martin McGuinness and Arlene Foster shared the “no hard border” script as they nodded sagely to each other – a rare occurrence – despite the fact that their parties took different sides in the Brexit referendum. But last week, a High Court judge in Belfast seemed more equivocal; in rejecting a legal challenge to the outcome of the Brexit referendum, he asserted it “remains to be seen” the impact it will have on the Border. It also remains to be seen what impact it will have on the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which includes the assertions that “it would be wrong to make any change in the status of Northern Ireland save with the consent of a majority of its people”. And that recognition will be given to the right “of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both governments and would not be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland”. Legitimate concerns This issue of choice about status was framed in relation to the options of remaining part of the UK or Irish unification but, arguably, it is relevant to
ed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowa, Anthony Ramos and Lin-Manuel Miranda (Joan Marcus) "Hopefully this guy is as good," says the theater patron sitting in seat K101 at the Richard Rogers Theatre. I am several rows behind, eagerly awaiting one of the final preview performances of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop retelling of one of our nation's founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton. The Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist of In The Heights is also the show's star and at the epicenter of a viral storm extending far beyond Shubert Alley that has dubbed Hamilton the best thing to hit Broadway since A Chorus Line. And he's also very good at Twitter: Today in rehearsal I whirled around in search of the book writer for a moment before I remembered I AM the book writer. FCK. — Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) December 5, 2014 But I'm not here to see Lin-Manuel Miranda. Producers announced in early July that Javier Muñoz would be Miranda's alternate, playing one performance per week. Muñoz was in the company of In The Heights, where he understudied Miranda before taking over the lead role. I'm curious to see how Hamilton holds up without Broadway's new "It Boy" center stage. Lin-Manuel Miranda, left, and Javier Muñoz, right (Twitter) And apparently so is Miranda, who breezes in a few minutes before the show begins and snags a seat. It's a scorching July afternoon and a sprouting teenager, towering over six feet tall and dressed in a sweat-drenched long-sleeve shirt and tie, approaches Miranda for a selfie, for which the star gracefully obliges. Nearby heads begin to turn and a ripple of recognition and whispers wash over the audience as the house lights dim. "People are interested in" Miranda, says Daniel Posener, Head of Business Affairs and Associate Producer at National Artists Management Company, who has been deeply involved in a number of heavy-hitter Broadway endeavors including Finding Neverland, Pippin, Chicago and more. "He is young and he's stuck with the theater. He's committed to theater and I think that excites the creative community. Others have taken risks but there hasn't been anyone that's had this kind of wow factor. Is Hamilton great entertainment as well? I think so. The staging is spectacular." Daveed Diggs (Joan Marcus) Posener thinks a seven-show week for Miranda is smart, both in terms of maintaining his energy level for performances as well as managing the maelstrom of media attention that will likely follow him through the Tony Awards as well as the coveted Pulitzer Prize for Drama. As far Miranda's onstage draw? "I don't think people think he's the star nor do I think it will affect the show or box office," suggests Posener. "The show is the star, therefore he is the star as the creator, but not as the performer." While the general masses may not be flocking specifically to see Miranda onstage as they did in 1978 to see the high-flying adored Patti LuPone in Evita or in 2003 for Idina Menzel's gravity-defying performance in Wicked, many theater fans want to experience the synergy and impact of the creator/performer combination. "Hamilton is fantastic, but seeing Lin-Manuel on stage and knowing that he is responsible for everything being spoken and sung—as well as his overall contribution to the art form of musical theater (which in my opinion has transformed it in many ways)— is extremely moving," says regional theater director Scott Calcagno. "Witnessing the artist as both creator and performer is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for theatergoers." Leslie Odom Jr. (Joan Marcus) "A lot happens in 'the deal' behind closed doors," says casting director/partner Duncan Stewart of Stewart/Whitley Casting, whose credits include the current Broadway production of On The Town as well as the upcoming West Side Story for Carnegie Hall's 125th anniversary season. Stewart is referencing the myriad of decisions between producers, general management, artists and their agents in regards to how principal roles are covered. In Hamilton's second act, "The Room Where It Happens" depicts complex negotiations between Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison as the country defines its financial system and Hamilton barters the capital's location from its short-lived stint in Philadelphia to Washington D.C. In the room where Hamilton the musical was starting to take shape, something else was happening: Javier Muñoz was becoming a pivotal force in Miranda's creative process. "It's a unique working relationship," says Muñoz, who has been friends with Miranda in and out of the theater for years. "This kind of dynamic—where he is relying on me to tell the story while being the creator—requires a lot of trust and humility. A lot goes unspoken. I understand what he needs and what he's getting at." Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones as the Schuyler sisters (Joan Marcus) Stewart says it is more costly for producers to go the alternate route versus covering the role with an understudy who is already in the ensemble, but sometimes the role demands it. Whichever decision is made, it is crucial to the success of a long-running show. "It's such a weird and slight distinction," Muñoz says of his title as alternate, "but it's vital for an audience's perception of what they are about to see." He is also the stand-by, meaning that Muñoz is contractually obligated to be at the theatre eight shows per week in case of an emergency. But the stand-by is rarely standing by. Muñoz has been utilizing every moment at the theatre to run through the show in the wings, his dressing room, or the understudy holding room—wherever he can find the space to fully embody America's 18th century bad boy. And it's paid off. Hamilton wowed critics during its original run at The Public Theater, and with good reason. Miranda's book, music and lyrics (inspired by Ron Chernow's biography Alexander Hamilton) have encapsulated the imperfect journey of our founding fathers, putting a West Indies immigrant at its center. Hamilton was a force to be reckoned with. Strategic on the battlefield and in the courts, he also created the first Bank of the United States and authored many of the Federalist Papers, a collection of essays aimed at ratifying the Constitution. Muñoz thanks the creative team, including director Thomas Kail, music director Alex Lacamoire, and choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, for allowing him to create his own leading man. "We are two different people, there's a great distinction," says Muñoz. "[Lin-Manuel] has a scrappy, feral energy—even in real life you don't know what will happen to him. That freestyle energy is something I have to work at to portray." Muñoz's approach is, perhaps, more internal, as he asked himself, "What is really driving this man? It is the root of where he came from: The Caribbean. Poverty. The death of his father. It was either 'give up or use it.' My version of the character is a loose cannon. My favorite thing about playing Hamilton is that he's completely imperfect. At every moment he is making questionable decisions—and the challenge is to play that honestly." For the boy originally from East New York, Muñoz's journey back to Broadway is long overdue. He is a powerhouse to be reckoned with in Hamilton's title role. From Hamilton's early impetuousness and strong-willed confrontations with George Washington (Christopher Jackson) to career-spanning riffs with Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs), James Madison (Okieriete Onaodowan) and Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom, Jr.), Muñoz fits perfectly in the pocket of Miranda's vernacular—a jagged, contemporary throwdown of hip hop, musical theater, and pop. He also portrays a conveys a heartfelt vulnerability in his relationships with the women in his life, particularly his wife, Eliza (Phillipa Soo), in spite of a public sex scandal that tainted Hamilton's latter career. It is these deftly crafted imperfections—portrayed with an ever-shifting combination of muscularity, arrogance, passion, and endearment—that make Muñoz's performance so riveting. Hamilton paid homage to A Chorus Line earlier this spring, where it premiered at The Public Theater 40 years ago. "There were a lot of things that were new about A Chorus Line, but let me focus on just one," teased artistic director Oskar Eustis after the company sang a rousing version of "What I Did For Love." The cast of Hamilton (Joan Marcus) "Let's for a moment, take the spotlight off the star of the show, and let's turn the spotlight on the people who are making the show work, who actually build it, who devote their lives to it," said Eustis of A Chorus Line. "Let's ask them their story who they are how they got here. That's the real show. And they changed the nature of the American musical theater. Hamilton is taking the story of the founding of this country told by the people who actually make up this country. Who are the strength who built this country and who are this country's future." It was an epic proclamation.There are jaded New York theater-goers who believe Broadway has disintegrated into a commercially driven hit machine. They may roll their eyes at Hamilton's $30 million advance sale or opening night fireworks.To those I say, put that aside and go see it to restore your faith in the art form. It is not a show for a wandering mind and glazed eyes.Hamilton demands that you engage. Does Hamilton shine without its star? Not only does it shine, it's a constellation. Matthew Wexler is a contributor at Gothamist. He also edits Passport Magazine's The Broadway Blog. Follow him on Twitter at @roodeloo.Continue Reading Below Advertisement Lois reveals that the factory where Superman just put out a giant chemical fire -- shocker -- isn't as safe as it looks. Turns out they haven't updated their security measures since the Eisenhower administration, and they generally don't give a flying fuck about the environment. DC Comics "The executives also pee into the town's water supply." Superman uses his X-ray vision to confirm that, yep, the place is a shithole. However, the workers at the plant beg him not to expose the conditions of the factory, since it's the only major job provider for the town. DC Comics "Look, it's this or going back to stripping, and I left that life behind." Continue Reading Below Advertisement After carefully thinking about it for, like, half a panel, Superman decides that it's a fair trade if the surrounding area becomes a chemical wasteland in a decade, as long as the factory will still be able to employ and murder its workers at some later, unspecified date. Because again, this is the same factory he just saved the workers from burning to death inside of about 10 minutes ago.NFL.com's Ian Rapoport informed us a year ago that the St. Louis Rams were "insanely excited" about second-round wide receiver Brian Quick, whom position coach Ray Sherman compared to Terrell Owens. The Rams even had a higher draft grade on Quick than they had on No. 13 overall pick Michael Floyd. Although Quick essentially was redshirted after struggling to master the playbook, he was expected to ascend to the starting lineup this offseason. That has yet to happen because Quick has an Austin Pettis problem. Quick is "doing a lot better" and has "stepped up this year," offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer said over the weekend, via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Even with the improvements, Quick is stuck in the fourth receiver role after Pettis' MVP performance in offseason practices. "Quite honestly, (Pettis) is probably having the best camp of all the skill players," Schottenheimer said via the Rams' official website. "He's a tireless worker, very competitive, can play all the spots which helps and he's having a tremendous spring." The Rams will enter training camp with Pettis and Chris Givens as the starting outside wide receivers and first-rounder Tavon Austin in the slot. We wouldn't count out Quick just yet, though. While Pettis' role grew down the stretch last season, his yards-per-reception average of 8.7 is damning. The Rams will have to weigh Pettis' reliability against Quick's considerable edge in play-making ability. Follow Chris Wesseling on Twitter @ChrisWesseling.Essentially they were doing this to all of us... a waste to us all, while the country is reeling from the broken state the Smirking Bush* left the country. 2. What progress has there been? Well, you can look it up if you want a complete list, but a few notable ones come to mind: We have ended one unfunded unnecessary war that cost our country over $800 BILLION dollars and untold deaths and injuries on both sides and hopefully on our way to ending the war in Afghanistan, too. President Obama has ended the rape of our students by the banks by limiting the amount the banks can collect in a year. The US auto industry was saved, despite the obstructionist party's candidate saying it should go bankrupt. President Obama has put in place the Affordable Care Act that has already phased in children who were previously uncovered, and just this month, saw to it that health insurers provided free mammograms, women's cancer screenings, and birth control. We have seen 25 months of positive job growth despite the party of obstructionists not passing one single jobs bill. Osama bin Laden is now dead. While he was planning this, the obstructionists were instead busy declaring the President to be a non-citizen Muslim Nazi. You can go see what else the President has been up to at 3. No I do not agree with you that "more people were doing better before the recent conflict". I am presuming that by "the conflict" you mean the second great Depression or as everyone likes to call it "the largest Recession since the Great Depression". The country was already in a tailspin in 2007. The banks were failing right and left. People were losing their jobs and their houses. People were going into bankruptcy because they couldn't afford medical care. It took us 8 years of the Bush years and two unfunded wars, unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy, an unfunded Medicare prescription plan and deregulation of environmental programs to get us into "the conflict", and it will take more than one Presidential term to get us out of it. And oh, the obstructionism has got to stop. We all need to help each other where we can. Having the Rmoney gang write themselves big tax cuts and repeal the ACA is NOT what we need. If you think it is, then you need to go join another forum. 1. Not sure which party you are talking about, but I'm frustrated and angered by the way the Grand Obstructionist Party has said NO to anything for the past three years, and disgusted that they actually stated they were doing this to get rid of the President.Essentially they were doing this to all of us... a waste to us all, while the country is reeling from the broken state the Smirking Bush left the country.2. What progress has there been?Well, you can look it up if you want a complete list, but a few notable ones come to mind:We have ended one unfunded unnecessary war that cost our country over $800 BILLION dollars and untold deaths and injuries on both sides and hopefully on our way to ending the war in Afghanistan, too.President Obama has ended the rape of our students by the banks by limiting the amount the banks can collect in a year.The US auto industry was saved, despite the obstructionist party's candidate saying it should go bankrupt.President Obama has put in place the Affordable Care Act that has already phased in children who were previously uncovered, and just this month, saw to it that health insurers provided free mammograms, women's cancer screenings, and birth control.We have seen 25 months of positive job growth despite the party of obstructionists not passing one single jobs bill.Osama bin Laden is now dead. While he was planning this, the obstructionists were instead busy declaring the President to be a non-citizen Muslim Nazi.You can go see what else the President has been up to at http://www.whitehouse.gov...if you want to see what the "other side" has done, that's filed under........nothing.3. No I do not agree with you that "more people were doing better before the recent conflict".I am presuming that by "the conflict" you mean the second great Depression or as everyone likes to call it "the largest Recession since the Great Depression". The country was already in a tailspin in 2007. The banks were failing right and left.People were losing their jobs and their houses. People were going into bankruptcy because they couldn't afford medical care.It took us 8 years of the Bush** years and two unfunded wars, unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy, an unfunded Medicare prescription plan and deregulation of environmental programs to get us into "the conflict", and it will take more than one Presidential term to get us out of it. And oh, the obstructionism has got to stop. We all need to help each other where we can.Having the Rmoney gang write themselves big tax cuts and repeal the ACA is NOT what we need.If you think it is, then you need to go join another forum.Even as Apple's first- and second-generation iPhone and iPod touch gain "vintage" status, intrepid programming group "whited00r" is working to bring many of iOS's latest features, like Control Center, to the geriatric devices. The group is responsible for production of the eponymous "whited00r" firmware, a heavily-modified version of Apple's iOS 3.1.3 that mimics the look-and-feel of newer iOS versions on devices that Apple no longer officially supports. Whited00r's firmware is targeted at Apple's first-generation iPhone, the iPhone 3G, and the first- and second-generation iPod touch.Whited00r 7, the cabal's most recent release, is designed to emulate many of iOS 7's standout features. Control Center makes an appearance, as does a new iOS 7-style camera app and multitasking view.The firmware's push notification feature has been updated to mimic Apple's latest "windowshade" design, and iOS's legacy Voice Control feature has been brought back. Most of iOS 7's other visual tweaks, like flatter icons and new menu designs, have also been backported in whited00r 7. Users who find a specific item performs poorly on their device can enable and disable individual features with a special settings menu.Installing whited00r on a supported device is a relatively straightforward three-step process. After jailbreaking their device with the popular Redsn0w utility, users load whited00r's custom firmware using iTunes, and restarting the device completes the installation.Whited00r first appeared in 2010 as a project to backport new iOS 4 features to devices running iOS 3, and has maintained a small but devoted following since that time. According to download statistics from open source code hosting service Sourceforge, the whited00r 7 firmware has been downloaded tens of thousands of times since its release.After a winter break, series seven resumes on Saturday 30 March, BBC1. Showrunner steven Moffat told RT what to expect: “We’re in the air, we’re under the water, we’re on a fantastic alien planet, we’re back in time, we’re forward in time — and the Doctor’s greatest secret is in jeopardy.” Advertisement THE CLARA ENIGMA At christmas, the Doctor set off to track down Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman), the strange woman who’s now died twice. The first episode, written by Moffat, will either clarify the Clara enigma or — more likely — add to it! Celia Imrie guest-stars. JESSICA RAINE Besides starring in An Adventure in Space and Time, the Call the Midwife star is in a regular episode with Dougray Scott. She tells RT it was “a magical experience… all mind machines and strobe lighting”. INSIDE THE TARDIS New to Who is Neil Cross, creator of BBC1 hit Luther. One of two episodes he’s writing is intriguingly titled Journey to the Centre of the Tardis. Will we at last see a bathroom, or even the Time Lord’s bedroom? DIANA RIGG The acting dame and her daughter Rachael Stirling are guest-starring in an episode by Mark Gatiss. It’s the first time they’ve acted together on screen. THE CYBERMEN ARE BACK Fantasy author Neil Gaiman turns his attention to the Cybermen, hoping to recapture the fear factor that gripped him as a child — “The Tomb of the Cybermen [1967] terrified me,” he tweeted. Tamzin Outhwaite and Warwick Davis guest-star. MORE CLASSIC ENEMIES Advertisement The trailer shown after the Christmas special, The Snowmen, teased us with a roster of new monsters, but could another old foe be getting a long-awaited revival in 2013? and surely we haven’t heard the last of the great intelligence, the 1960s adversary re-established at christmas with the voice of Ian Mckellen…While we were all sleeping, the Calgary Flames climbed into second place in the Pacific Division. You probably missed it, but the Flames have won nine in a row — yes really — to tie a franchise record that’s stood since they last played in a different city, as they cement themselves as real players in the postseason. This is beautiful pic.twitter.com/2iSnoChznf — Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) March 12, 2017 If it feels like you were blindsided by this sudden turn of events, no worries. The Flames crept up on us too, and the rest of the Pacific, it seems. Since the start of their run on Feb. 21, Calgary has jumped both the up-and-coming Oilers and the ever-present Ducks for the division’s second-place slot. A big reason for their turnaround from fringe playoff team to solid bet has been, without a doubt, the play of Brian Elliott. In his eight games during this stretch, he has posted a.947 save percentage with two shutouts, including Saturday’s 3-0 victory over the Jets. Incredibly, Elliott’s shutout on March 9 against Montreal was his first of the season. Considering how cold he was to start the year, maybe it’s not that surprising. He’s finally starting to show just why Calgary acquired him last offseason. It’s highly unlikely this pace keeps up all the way to the postseason, but Calgary’s putting itself in a real solid position to give us a Battle of Alberta series in the first round. A Flames vs. Oilers series, guys. Just think on that for a second and bask in how glorious that’d be. Thank you, Calgary. Scores Bruins 2, Flyers 1 Predators 3, Sharks 1 Sabres 5, Blue Jackets 3 Lightning 3, Panthers 2 Senators 4, Avalanche 2 Flames 3, Jets 0 Maple Leafs 3, Hurricanes 2 (OT) Coyotes 5, Devils 4 Blues 4, Islanders 3 Penguins 3, Canucks 0 Kings 4, Capitals 2 Four things we learned 1. The Flyers’ playoff hopes likely died in the worst possible way As we get down to the nitty-gritty, tense final moments of this season, points are at an all-time premium. Philadelphia, for instance, is one team in a must-win situation. On Saturday, however, its dreams for a postseason berth were likely dashed by the Bruins thanks to Drew Stafford’s tiebreaking goal with 5.6 seconds left in regulation: If looks could kill, Steve Mason. Instead of a much-needed point in a chance for two in overtime, Brandon Manning deflected the puck past Mason in an own goal that absolutely sums up the Flyers 2016-17 season. 2. The Sabres and Blue Jackets had a pair of incredible games What a playoff series this would make, if only Buffalo were in a better position. The Sabres and the Blue Jackets played in a home-and-home series to start the weekend, and what games they were. On Friday, Boone Jenner gave the Blue Jackets the last-minute victory in a back-and-forth 4-3 win. Then on Saturday, Buffalo returned the favor with Evander Kane’s power play tally with two-and-a-half minutes to go. Quite the impressive win for the Sabres, as they scored five straight in the 5-3 victory. 3. Montreal’s been dethroned in the Atlantic Thanks to Ottawa’s 4-2 win over Colorado, the Senators are now the Atlantic’s top team. For the first time since the second week of the season, the Canadiens are no longer at the top of the Atlantic: Thanks to tonight's #Sens win over Colorado, the #Habs are out of 1st place in the Atlantic Division for the first time in 142 days — Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) March 12, 2017 All those points banked by Montreal at the start of the year? Gone. 4. New Jersey can’t stop losing by one goal Though the Devils are truly well out of the playoff race, they’re currently in a big-time funk. New Jersey’s lost its last 10 games, and seven of them have been by a one-goal difference. It’s heartbreaking to lose that many games in a row, but even more so to be that close and lose out by one goal. Saturday, the Devils were bested by the Coyotes in a game that looked to be well out of their hands after Arizona opened up with three straight goals in the first period. A comeback was denied, however, when Taylor Hall was stopped by Mike Smith on a late third period penalty shot. Impact Moment Toronto keeps the honor of being the Eastern Conference’s final wild card spot for one more day thanks to an Islanders loss and this overtime goal from Morgan Rielly: Stat of the NightImage credit: Derek Ham/ Barbeque Lovers We've seen a DIY solar cooker built from old CDs, and we've seen plenty of commercially available solar ovens too. We've even seen one solar-powered grill. But we haven't seen many solar cooking options that can store heat for longer cooking times or hotter temperatures. Until now.Derek Ham writes over at Barbeque Lovers about a solar-powered grill project he has been working on that uses latent heat storage to both extend cooking times, create hotter temperatures, and reduce the problem of intermittent sun. Based on technology developed by MIT professor David Wilson, the concept is expected to generate cooking temperatures of 450F, and offer up to 25 hours of cooking time. If successful, this grill could both alleviate the well-known environmental impact of traditional charcoal grilling, and also offer a cleaner, greener and more socially sustainable cooking option in the developing world: This study is very timely because although the students are creating a new grill for American backyards, the business plan is designed to allow the grills to be deployed in developing countries as an alternative source for cooking. Wilson originally came up for the idea during his time spent in Nigeria. While there he noticed a large set of problems linked to practice of cooking with firewood. Of course this design is unlikely to excite the purists who are addicted to the taste of hickory. But then with the American design expected to feature a hybrid solar/propane heating system, and with wood chips for propane grilling commonly available, there should be ways to get a little smoke in your food without the need to burn up the planet. The students are currently conducting an online survey to gauge the grilling habits of potential customers. More on Solar Cooking DIY Solar Cooker Built from Old CDs Solar Cookers International Solar Ovens A Solar-Powered GrillBBC’s Gay Anchorman Blames LGBT Drug Use on Lack of 'Discipline' Six months after the BBC promoted news “presenter” — British for anchor — Evan Davis to host of the U.K. television network’s flagship current affairs program, Newsnight, he's talking about his sexuality and the dangers facing gays. In an interview with Attitude magazine, Davis also discussed politics and Russell Brand’s call for a British revolution. But the remarks making headlines involve his statements that gays and lesbians are more likely to engage in destructive behavior because they don’t have the “discipline” of straight people who raise children. “I suspect that some of the things that discipline straight men and women, and stop them partying too hard or succumbing to drugs, are conventions of family or children, and also the limitations of money when you have children, Davis said. “Gay people don’t necessarily face that constraint or disciplining factor, so it’s just easier for gay people to succumb. The gay community has less discipline, because it doesn’t have kids to go home to, and slightly more disposable income, and then add to that that when these things catch on they tend to have a momentum.” Speaking in general terms — and ignoring the number of gay couples who adopt or raise their own children — the 52-year-old broadcaster compared gay drug use to a spreading disease: “Once gay people start taking drugs, they’ll take more drugs because it’s socially infectious and one person will take them, then another. I just think it’s something gay people have to watch out for.” While open about his sexuality, Davis revealed that in his teenage years, he was “tortured” by the discovery of his attraction to men. "What I would like 16-year-olds sitting in school to think is that it’s not a very big deal,” he says. Davis also discussed his October 2014 interview with Russell Brand, in which he locked horns with the British comedian over his call for a revolution. The Independent reported the outspoken and unashamedly opinionated Brand described Davis as having “an insidious questioning style” and being “a bit rude.” Davis said Brand and other independents “know all the things that go wrong with this system, but they haven’t got the foresight to know all the things that could go wrong with the counter-system that they’re building in their head.” That fiery exchange in which each man talked over the other has since gone viral.With the successful first developmental flight - GSLV Mk-III D1, carrying the high through put satellite GSAT-19, India has achieved self-reliance in launching 4 ton class satellite to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). With the current fleet of operational launch vehicles namely PSLV and GSLV, India can meet the requirements of launching communication satellites up to 2.2 tons to GTO. With the introduction of GSLV Mk-III, the payload capability has been doubled which will meet the national requirement of launching communication satellites. GSLV Mk-III is a three stage vehicle designed for catering the need of carrying heavier communication satellite to GTO. The vehicle lift off mass is 640 ton with overall height of 43.498 m and core diameter of 4 m. The vehicle has two Solid Strap-on motors - S200, a core liquid booster stage - L110, and a cryogenic upper stage - C25. To accommodate heavier payloads, 5 m diameter Ogive Payload Fairing is employed. S200 strap on motor is a 3.2 m diameter solid motor. It is made up of 3 motor segments and has a flex nozzle control system. To reduce the disturbance moment due to differential thrust between the two S200 strap on motors in flight, the two motors are processed as a pair during the motor segments casting. L110 liquid Stage, works on two clustered Vikas engines which are being used in PSLV & GSLV. It has 110 tons of propellant loading and each of the twin engines produces 80 tons of thrust. The upper stage in GSLV MK-III vehicle is cryogenic stage with 28 tonnes of propellant loading and designated as C25. The C25 Stage is powered with a 20 ton thrust (nominal) engine working on Gas Generator (GG) cycle. C25 stage is a high performance cryo stage carrying a propellant combination of liquid Hydrogen stored at 20 K and liquid Oxygen stored at 77 K. C25 Engine & stage were developed and validated through a series of 200 tests which included qualification tests through a step by step process of component level test, engine level test for a duration of 800 s and stage level test for a duration of 640s equal to its flight time. Unlike the Cryogenic Upper Stage (CUS) of GSLV, which was based on the Russian engine design, C25 is entirely indigenous starting from configuration, design, development and qualification strategies. The entire test programme of integrated C25 Engine & stage were done in fast track mode and completed in a short time frame of two years using limited number of hardware and optimal sequencing of tests. During the maiden flight of GSLV Mk-III on June, 5 2017 the vehicle carried the GSAT-19 satellite onboard, weighing 3,136 kg, to the targeted GTO of 170km by 36,000km. The vehicle lifted off from the launch pad upon the simultaneous ignition of both S200 motors. L110 core stage ignited during S200 thrusting phase itself at 112.66 s after lift off to augment the thrust of the vehicle and continued to function beyond the separation of two solid strap-ons which occurred at 140.84s from lift off. After nearly 206 s of firing, L110 stage separated followed by the ignition of C25 cryogenic stage. C25 stage operated for around 625 s duration and once the required orbital conditions were achieved, the cryogenic stage shut off the engine. Then the GSAT-19 satellite was injected into GTO. The performance of the two paired S200 motors were as predicted during flight and the differential thrust between the motors was benign. L110 stage performed exactly as per prediction & the performance of the twin clustered Vikas engines was identical. It is to be noted that even though GSLV Mk-III D1was the second flight as far as the S200 and L110 are concerned, for the newly developed C25 stage this was the maiden flight. The performance of the C25 stage in this maiden flight was as per prediction, which establishes the capability of ISRO to predict the flight performance in advance. The experimental flight of GSLV Mk-III (LVM3-X) was undertaken on December 18, 2014 with S200 and L110 stages to demonstrate the atmospheric regime of the flight and unique features in GSLV Mk-III, compared to other launch vehicles, including the differential thrust between the two S200 solid strap-ons. Based on the flight data analysis of LVM3-X mission, suitable improvements have been incorporated in GSLV Mk-III vehicle configuration, mainly on aerodynamic shaping, which included Ogive shaped Payload Fairings, Slanted Nose Cones for S200, aero shaping of cowlings & shrouds and closed Inter-Tank Structure for C25 stage. This has helped in improving the vehicle robustness, with better aerodynamic margins and reduced overall acoustic levels. Modification in S200 motor Head End Segment grain configuration was also done to reduce the dynamic pressure during flight. All these changes were qualified through ground tests as well as detailed characterisation tests and were incorporated in GSLV MK-III D1 vehicle. With the successful completion of the first development flight, ISRO now gears up for the second development flight - GSLV Mk-III D2 with augmented payload capability so that the first operational flight of GSLV MK-III will carry around 4000 kg payload to GTO. The strategies/technologies for achieving the above capabilities are identified and ISRO is working towards perfecting these technologies before implementation in the flight. Success of the first development flight of GSLV Mk III on June 05, 2017 is indeed a rare feat.Amazon has held out its Amazon Prime membership, which offers free shipping on many items, as a form of digital equality, given that all customers pay the same $99 annual fee. But with its upgrade to same-day delivery service, a clear disparity is emerging. An analysis by Bloomberg found that in many major cities, Prime members in predominantly poor and black neighborhoods can’t get the same-day treatment. In cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Washington, “black citizens are about half as likely to live in neighborhoods with access to Amazon same-day delivery as white residents,” the Bloomberg analysis found. New York’s borough of the Bronx, for instance, doesn’t get the service. And in Boston, the predominantly black Roxbury neighborhood is the only place in the metro area where same-day service is unavailable. It’s not the first time major tech companies have been accused of "redlining," or excluding poor neighborhoods from receiving a service available elsewhere. When Google began offering its Google Fiber service a few years ago, it faced similar criticism. By rolling out the super-high-speed service only in neighborhoods with a critical mass of market demand (Google used the cute-sounding term “fiberhoods” to describe such places), the company was effectively excluding poor neighborhoods, or so the argument went. But Google Fiber is now clearly serving poor people, too. The company later announced plans to bring high-speed fiber Internet access to a number of housing projects. Still, such examples might be considered retail-level symptoms of wider technological inequality, in which people with resources are best able to reap the benefits of digital technologies while those without access fall farther behind. Amazon, for its part, has responded to the Bloomberg report by saying that when a zip code within a city is excluded, it’s typically because the area has too few Prime members to justify sending in the vans—but that if more neighbors join, service will fill in. It may be the case that it costs more to deliver in those areas. But losing money on its services has never stopped Amazon before. (Read more: “The U.S. Government’s Internet Lifeline for the Poor Isn’t Much of One”)Parliament Passes Snooper's Charter, Opens Up Citizens To Whole New Levels Of Domestic Surviellance from the surfing-the-internet-with-The-Man dept Despite loudly, and repeatedly, raised concerns from activists and members of Parliament, the UK's Snooper's Charter (a.k.a., Investigatory Powers bill [PDF]) has been passed by both parliamentary houses and only needs the formality of the royal signature to make it official. These are the fantastic new things UK citizens have to look forward to with this expansion of government surveillance power. The list of new powers doesn't end with these. UK intelligence agencies are also given permission to perform "electronic
program and they are supporting us in a similar fun and upbeat way." Merry Mode is available in D.C. Thursday through Sunday, Dec. 17 at these times: 3 p.m. to midnight on Thursday, Dec. 14 3 p.m. to midnight on Friday, Dec. 15 Noon to midnight on Saturday, Dec. 16 Noon to 10 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 17 According to Richie, the entire cost of the fare will be donated to Martha's Table while drivers still receive full payment including tips.Now police in Britain are investigating 'attacks on children' in the 1970s MailOnline was told he is preying on children and passed details to police A notorious British paedophile accused of molesting boys as young as eight in the Philippines may face extradition over child sex offences in the UK in the 1970s. Douglas Slade, 73 – a founder of the reviled child sex advocacy group Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) – is on police bail after being repeatedly arrested for abusing boys from an elementary school opposite his home in Angeles City in the Philippines. Wealthy Slade, who has boasted of bribing prosecutors and victims' families, boasted of paying his way out of trouble in the corrupt, poverty-racked Southeast Asian country which is a magnet for paedophiles and sex tourists, our investigation in December found. Now, Mail Online has discovered that Slade faces possible extradition to the UK as detectives in Bristol investigate him for historical child sex offences linked to a nationwide paedophile network before he left Britain for the Philippines in 1985. It comes as an alleged former victim of Slade contacted MailOnline to describe how he was molested at the age of 14. Vile: Douglas Slade was warned he faced 40 years in jail over child abuse but boasted that he would pay to get case dropped. An alleged victim has told MailOnline he was introduced to Slade by former racing car driver Christopher Skeaping, who was jailed in 2009 for sex attacks on a boy aged 12 in the late 1980s Extradition: Mail Online has discovered that Slade faces possible extradition to the UK as detectives in Bristol investigate him for historical child sex offences linked to a nationwide paedophile network, PIE, before he left Britain for the Philippines in 1985 Peeping Tom: Douglas Slade has built a house with a view directly into the primary school opposite and neighbours claim he is paying children £2 for'sex acts' Slade, who lived in the Knowle West district of Bristol in the late 1970s and early 1980s, is suspected of abusing numerous underage boys passed between PIE members who tracked down youths for illegal sex. He is currently under investigation by Bristol CID as part of its Operation Bluestone inquiry into historical sex abuse cases, according to correspondence seen by MailOnline. The cases date to the 1960s and 1970s and include one case in Ireland. Separately, a former victim allegedly abused by Slade and other PIE members, who is not part of the current UK investigation, has contacted MailOnline to describe how he was molested by Slade and then passed between paedophiles from 1979 when he was 14. Now 50, Neil (not his real name) said he was introduced to Slade by another prominent PIE member, former racing car driver Christopher Skeaping, who was jailed in 2009 for sex attacks on a boy aged 12 in the late 1980s. Skeaping lured boys to his West London home where, it is claimed, he introduced Neil to Slade who invited him on a number of occasions to his home in Bristol before passing him on to other paedophiles, including an elderly jeweller and a nightclub owner in the city. At that time, Slade lived in Bristol between stints working as a recruitment agent for construction companies in Dubai, travelling to countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to find young men to work on building projects. Before moving to the country, Slade would go on holiday to the Philippines with other paedophiles to pick up young boys for sex, the victim claimed, while one of the boys he lured to his Bristol home was only 12, said Neil. Neil told Mail Online: 'When I read your article about Slade in the Philippines, I found it abhorrent to think that all these years on this person is still getting away with the molestation of children. 'I can understand how children in a poor country like the Philippines fall victim to Slade. I was a poor kid from London and at first I just felt someone was being nice to me for a change. I only realised later how wrong and corrupt it was. Predator: Paedophile Douglas Slade was confronted by MailOnline about the charges he faced but claimed he was being set up and claimed'someone wants me out of the country'. Now he could face extradition under an investigation by Bristol detectives Douglas Slade and former racing car driver Christopher Skeaping, right, who was jailed in 2009 for sex attacks on a boy aged 12 in the late 1980s, were exposed as members of PIE by the Sunday People in 1975 Hiding: Douglas Slade, 73, has been accused by neighbours of paying young boys for'sex acts', and is said to spend time on his balcony gazing into the primary school opposite, where he also donates money despite facing repeated accusations of molesting children Campaigner: Father Shay Cullen is fighting to have Douglas Slade brought to trial over previous allegations that have now been dropped after Slade boasted of paying his way out of court. Father Cullen trains child welfare volunteers at the Preda Foundation in Subic Bay, the Philippines 'There is a moral compass adults should have and they should not take away the innocence of a child in terms of their sexuality. Adults are there to protect children not to use them for their own gratification.' Neil came from a poor home near Skeaping's house in West London and described how Skeaping and fellow PIE founder Slade allegedly groomed him and other young boys for sex. 'I was introduced to Chris Skeaping by a school friend,' he said. 'His house in Hounslow was like a youth club. There were always lads of my age there. You could run wild. He didn't mind. I started going round there because it was a place to hang out. 'Skeaping drove a huge BMW 1100 and had big American cars. For kids of 13, 14 and 15, those are exciting things. Douglas Slade turned up at his home one day. I was a very quiet child and he just picked up on me and I ended up going to Bristol several times. 'Apart from the sexual side of it, Slade was actually very nice to me. He made me feel special. He was doing nice things for me and it all seemed quite a good thing. I suppose if that's what grooming is, I was being groomed.' It was on his third visit to Bristol that his relationship with Slade took a sinister turn. 'He started introducing me to people and I was used (sexually) by these people,' said Neil, naming an elderly jeweller and a nightclub and joke shop owner from the city. Bribe: Douglas Slade has been faced with charges before but boasted that he would pay to have them dropped. He is currently on bail for child abuse and under investigation for possessing child porn, police say No shame: When confronted by MailOnline Douglas Slade said 'There have been five cases (against me) in four years. They've all been dismissed. Somebody is trying to f*ing get rid of me' Justice: Douglas Slade's case is being monitored in the Philippines by Catholic missionary and anti-paedophile campaigner Father Shay Cullen, who runs the Preda Foundation (above) to help the victims of child sex abuse and trafficking Neil now plans to go to police with his testimony. 'I was affected by what happened to me for some years, but I got over it by being positive and coming to terms with it,' he said. 'Other victims might not be able to cope with what happened. 'If there is anything I can do to prevent this continuing, that is what I want to do. It is outrageous that these things are continuing to happen when they shouldn't.' Slade was exposed as a paedophilia advocate along with Skeaping in 1975 and was caught by a national newspaper telling fellow deviants: 'If you want to have sex with children don't bottle it up – do it.' A spokesman for Avon and Somerset police declined to give details about the investigation or to say if he expected an application to be made for Slade's extradition from the Philippines, saying: 'We are unable to comment at this time.' [Slade] started introducing me to people and I was used (sexually) by these people, Alleged victim of Douglas Slade An extradition treaty between Britain and the Philippines which can be applied retrospectively has been agreed and is currently in the process of being ratified in Manila, depriving criminals of a well-used bolthole in the Far East. Slade's case is being monitored in the Philippines by Catholic missionary and anti-paedophile campaigner Father Shay Cullen who runs the Preda Foundation to help the victims of child sex abuse and trafficking. Father Cullen helped bring Slade to court in 1995 when he faced up to 40 years in jail for abusing boys at his previous home in Angeles City before charges were dropped. Slade was caught boasting on camera at that time how prosecutors and families could be bribed. Neighbours told Mail Online this month that boys as young as eight were still going regularly going into Slade's home since his release on bail for molesting and taking nude pictures of boys from the school opposite his home. Standing guard: The entrance to Douglas Slade's imposing house in Angeles City is watched by a domestic staff member but the 73-year-old is said to invite young boys in and offer them money 'The boys sit on his doorstep after school,' said Angelica Alcantara, 17. 'He comes out and picks the ones he wants and they go inside. He pays them to pose naked for pictures and to do other things for him. Afterwards he gives them 150 pesos (£2) and sends them home.' Slade has been able to bribe his way out of trouble in the past because he is very rich. He has a long history. Father Shay Cullen Defiant Slade shouted 'You're an evil b***d' at a Mail Online reporter from his balcony overlooking Amsic Elementary School when confronted a fortnight ago over his numerous arrests and claims he abuses pupils as young as eight for £2 a time. Lawyers for the Preda Foundation, which has successfully pursued foreign paedophiles to their home countries in the past, are already preparing to take action against Slade on behalf of his victims in the Philippines if he returns to the UK. 'The children's parents have signed papers to say they will be represented by Preda in any action to find justice and compensation for the victims of Slade,' said Father Shay at his foundation's headquarters in Subic Bay where he has run a mission for nearly 40 years. 'Slade has been able to bribe his way out of trouble in the past because he is very rich,' he said. 'He has a long history.' Slade, originally from Aylesbury, is wealthy through his food distribution business, Home Base, which provides meat to restaurants in the Philippines.We, members of the Syrian American community, wholeheartedly support Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s courageous fact-finding trip to Syria in January. With this trip Rep. Gabbard demonstrated her strong commitment and determination to bringing about an end to all forms of support by the United States Government and its allies to the extremists and terrorists who have been destroying Syria and other countries of the Middle East during the past several years. Rep. Gabbard’s trip to Syria was only a logical next step toward gathering the necessary first hand information in support of her similarly courageous bi-partisan bill, the Stop Arming Terrorists Act. We consider her trip a significant step toward ending the U.S. government’s illegal policy of forced regime change in other countries, including Syria, with the help of extremist and terrorist groups. We urge all other members of Congress to follow Rep. Gabbard’s steps in order to directly see for themselves what is really happening in Syria, instead of relying on dubious information and fake news that is being fabricated by all those who are bent on overthrowing the Syrian government. Those people are blatantly ignoring the wishes of the majority of the Syrian people and closing their eyes to the humanitarian catastrophe it has created. As they have done so after every fact-finding trip to Syria by concerned citizens of a number of countries, including those from the U.S., Australia and Britain, the same pro-regime-change people in the U.S. are once again repeating the same worn out and baseless argument that such fact finding trips to Syria, especially the one made by a member of U.S. Congress, “legitimizes” Assad government. They further argue that Rep. Gabbard’s “Stop Arming Terrorists Act” will result in sacrificing the “moderate” opposition to Assad under the cover of fighting terrorism. But neither of these arguments bears any relationship with reality. As to the claim of “legitimization” of Assad government, it should be understood that the legitimacy of any government, Syrian government included, is derived from the support of its own citizens, not from a trip by a member of Congress of another country. Without taking sides about merits and demerits of the Assad government, we have to acknowledge that report after report by impartial observers has shown that the Assad government, and the Syrian Arab Army, has the support of the majority of Syrian people. These repeated reports were further confirmed by the last presidential election of June of 2014 in Syria, carried out in the presence of international observers, in which 73.4 percent of legitimate voters participated and 88 percent of them voted for President Assad. Moreover, the legitimacy of Assad government is officially recognized by the international community and the United Nations — a fact that nobody can deny. It is, therefore, upon the deniers of these facts to back up their claims to the contrary. As to the claim of distinction between the so-called “moderate” opposition and the terrorist organizations, one does not have to look far to disprove it. First, it should be noted that these armed fighters are not the same people who were peacefully marching on the streets of Syria five years ago. In fact the peaceful opposition movement has been silenced and hijacked by the violent acts of extremist and terrorist groups like al-Nusra, Jebhat Fateh al-Sham, ISIS, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, and the like. The so-called “moderate” fighters have been fighting shoulder to shoulder in the past five years, and have refused to separate themselves from these terrorist groups, even when U.S. government asked them to for the sake of establishing a ceasefire. And their leaders have conceded that their members have joined these terrorist groups in droves and have turned the weapons they have received from the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Qatar, over to these terrorists. Even the U.S. government has conceded that a significant part of the arms delivered to these “moderate” groups has ended up in the hands of the terrorists. Moreover, the numerous testimonies of liberated citizens in Aleppo have clearly shown that the so-called “moderates” have been committing the same crimes against innocent people, as did the terrorists. Such arguments are aimed at putting obstacles on the path of a peaceful, diplomatic resolution of the Syrian crisis. They are aimed at making a forced regime change in Syria a precondition for achieving a political resolution. And this can only be achieved through continued arming of terrorists in order to bring the Syrian government down before any negotiations can start. It is in light of these facts that we consider Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s fact-finding trip and her Stop Arming Terrorists Act as a courageous move toward bringing a just peace to Syria. The Syrian people will be able to freely exercise their political and national rights only when these external terrorist attacks on their country have stopped. We will be more than happy to do everything we can to help Congresswoman Gabbard in her courageous efforts to bring a just peace to Syria and the whole Middle East by putting an end to all forms of support for terrorists, especially by the United States and its allies. Salah Zakkour Co-signed by fellow Syrians and Syrian Americans: Rami Muamar • Micheile Muamar • Immanuel Kaplo • Hannah Youssef • Nabil Kaplo • Bairt Alkass • Malk Kouki • Ghazoah Hanna • Zane Alabdine Zakkour • Fahed Zakkour • Nahla Zakkour • Saleh Zakkour • Khaled Baram • Afif Ghalwanji • Nadeem Habbal • Simon Khoury • Shawqia Adboudan •Mamoun Alabbassi • Amen Tomeh • Rana Kouki • Mario Tomeh • Georgio Tomeh • Emanuel Wasouf • Tigram Hanonick • Lena Obied • Jamil Ibrahim • Talal Bitar • Mike Matook • Basal Rahal • Silva BarsoumCLOSE Colts face a challenge in Titans rookie quarterback Marcus Mariota. Colts offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton,middle, talks with QB Andrew Luck as head coach Chuck Pagano,left, listens. Indianapolis Colts play the San Francisco 49ers Sunday afternoon at Candlestick Park in San Francisco CA. (Photo: Matt Kryger / The Star) Pep Hamilton is on a quest for answers. His Indianapolis Colts offense is falling woefully short of expectations, and it's his job as the offensive coordinator to fix that. "We have not done our job," Hamilton said of the offense. "I have not put our guys in position to be successful and to put our guys in position to produce." After sorting through the carnage of the first two games of the season – the Colts rank dead last in points per game (10.5) – Hamilton on Thursday offered his take on the challenges he's facing. The offensive penalties, it seems, have significantly impacted Hamilton's play calling. The Colts are tied for the league lead with seven offensive holding penalties, leaving them in numerous long down-and-distance situations. Hamilton said he has to be more adept at helping the Colts dig out of those deep holes. "I have to do a better job of, first off, doing whatever I can to keep us out of the extreme passing situations," Hamilton said. "We've had more first-and-20s, second-and-20s, a lot of long-yardage situations. Those situations are tough on any offensive unit, not just the offensive line. I have to find ways to make sure we're more efficient and more productive on first and second down." Asked whether he can do anything schemewise to mitigate the poor offensive line play, Hamilton took that on his shoulders, too. "In some cases (the holding) is just technique and fundamentals," Hamilton said. "At the same time – I'll give you an example – in the Buffalo game, that's a tough block for Khaled (Holmes) to have to block back on one of the better (defensive tackles) in the National Football League (Kyle Williams). So, I put him in a tough position. "That goes back to awareness of those situations. Now that we have more data and more film to study with regard to who we're facing this Sunday, I think we'll have a better idea of exactly what to expect. You never know what you're going to get on gameday. But there shouldn't be as many unknowns." CLOSE Colts coach talks about Sunday's matchup against the TItans in Nashville. Regarding the idea of using a quicker tempo to help bring the offense out of its funk – quarterback Andrew Luck has had past success in the no-huddle offense – Hamilton said it's not been easy to use the tactic consistently. "We've gone no-huddle early and often throughout our first two games," he said. "But when you have a positive play and then it's followed up by a self-inflicted negative, you're going to have some long-yardage situations. It slows down the offense and makes it more of a challenge to get first downs."NEW YORK – After drifting most of the day, stocks plunged after the Federal Reserve announced it will sell $400 billion of its shorter-term securities to buy longer-term holdings. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 283.82 points, or 2.5%, to close at 11,124.80. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 35.33, or 2.9%, to 1,166.76. The Nasdaq composite index fell 52.05, or 2%, to 2,538.19. The Fed said it would buy $400 billion in 6-year to 30-year Treasuries by June 2012 and sell the same amount of Treasuries maturing in 3 years or less. The move is designed to lower long-term interest rates — like rates on consumer loans. Twenty-three stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. Chairman Ben S. Bernanke expanded use of unconventional monetary tools for a second straight meeting after job gains stalled and the government lowered its estimate of second- quarter growth. Investors are also concerned about European debt. Greek finance ministers said Wednesday that the country will have to enact more austerity measures before international lenders will release rescue funds. Investors have taken some encouragement in recent days from signs that Greece is making progress in its talks with its three creditors, the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but that optimism seemed to have run its course by Wednesday. Before handing over the next installment of Greece's bailout loan — which it relies on to pay its bills — the creditors are trying to verify that Athens is making the reforms and budget cuts it promised. If the 8 billion euro ($11 billion) doesn't come by mid-October, Greece will run out of money and likely default, which would send shockwaves throughout the eurozone. Concerns that could happen have rattled stock markets in recent weeks, particularly dragging down the shares of banks believed to hold substantial amounts of Greek debt. The euro, which was hard hit last week by the mounting uncertainty over Greece, has held its own this week with hopes the country will get the next batch of bailout cash. It was trading 0.8% lower Wednesday at $1.3585. While Europe's debt crisis has spooked markets, investors have also fretted about a faltering global economic recovery. The IMF lowered its forecast for global growth on Tuesday to 4% for this year and next.If you are planning to invest in Panasonic air conditioning units, prior to shelling out your hard earned money, it is important to find out whether or not the AC unit you are buying is compliant with the minimum energy performance standards. In fact, any vendor that sells an AC that does not comply with the MEPS is illegally operating his business. If the AC system is MEPS compliant, you can be assured that you will have to pay a reasonable amount as energy bill. This is because energy efficient air conditioning systems will eat up less electricity to cool or heat the rooms. Air conditioning usage regulations for new residential properties The new homes that are being built in Australia will have to comply with the so called “6 star thermal performance energy efficient standard”. If the thermal performance is optimum, the energy that is required to heat or cool an area will be much less. Apart from that every effort is made by the local government in tandem with the South Australian government so that these new homes that are being constructed adhere to the “Building Code of Australia”. As per statistical data and survey conducted, it was recorded in the year 2014 that if a homeowner that has an AC installed and uses up as much as 5kW of energy will eventually incur an extra expense of $1000 annually. This is in sharp contrast to a homewoner that does not have an AC installed. This will cause the homeower with the air conditioning unit to shell out approximately $350 extra as network costs. This observation was recorded by the Australian Energy Market Commission. A shocking revelation! The Energy White Paper 2012 of the Australian government indicates that if an individual buys an air conditioning unit, it can attract an expense of approximately $1500 if he is installing a 2kW air conditioner but the energy that will be used up by that very unit to cover up cost for electricity is approximately $7000. As such, in the event the air conditioner energy is reduced, the cost of electricity that will be used up and that which will be supplied for running the AC unit will also be less also taking into account the greenhouse as emissions. Improving efficiency of air conditioning units According to the experts and the professionals that are operating in this industry, one of the best ways to improve efficiency of these appliances is by regularly maintaining these heating and cooling devices. It is best to schedule a maintenance date for the air conditioning units in the house from time to time so that the appliances can be checked for wear and tear, defects, and damages. Properly maintained appliances work at their optimum level, which in turn helps in using the AC units in an energy efficient manner. Most importantly, emphasising on energy efficiency has a very big advantage and that will be evident when you will have to shell out less as electricity bills every month.Mexico has become the first country in North America to accept blood donations from homosexual and bisexual men. A new government ruling (NOM-253-SSA1-2012) states that the utilization of blood for therapeutic purposes will no longer be based on “criteria or requirements for donor selection [involving] the stigmatization of certain groups of people, but on the practice of risk.” In essence, donors will be screened on their sexual history rather than their sexual preferences. Thus, gay and bisexual men who test negative for HIV and hepatitis and who exhibit safe sexual practices are now able to donate blood if they also can demonstrate that they do not inject drugs or serve as workers in the sex industry. The previous NOM requirements explicitly excluded people who could donate blood based on sexual preferences or orientation or even social status, according to Mexico’s National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Conapred), which also points out that despite this progress, there is still a degree of discrimination in the wording in the new NOM ruling. Specifically, subsection 6.10.6.1, Point J, excludes people on a temporary basis from donating blood “[who have] been hospitalized for more than 72 consecutive hours in penal or mental illness. The organization maintains that this subsection stigmatizes prison populations and people with mental disabilities. The U.S. and Canada retain the policy of not accepting blood donations from gay and bisexual men.Why Technology Cannot Fix Nigeria - Part 1 A recent event at the London School of Economics sparked the question whether technology can help Nigeria improve its policymaking and corporate governance issues. The talk failed to address the systemic issues that lie at the foundation of why technology cannot fix Nigeria’s problems. Indeed, technology needs to be understood as a catalyst for change, not a wand that can fix broken things. Living Up to the Promise? Facebook, Twitter, Google, Baidu and Alibaba have all harnessed the power of technology making our world more interconnected. However, despite its positive feats, technology can easily deepen existing fractures and inequalities within society. As an example, there are some tech companies that fail to pay appropriate corporation tax and fail to disclose how they handle consumer data. It is also important to note that Africa has less than 30% internet penetration, still lagging way behind the world average. Moreover, levels of access to technology still replicate the physical disparity between the rich and poor, urban and rural, male and female. This is not meant to criticise Nigeria, but provide positive and actionable solutions as to how and why it can improve and utilise technology to galvanise its labour force to achieve the type of industrial, social and economic revolutions seen in other countries worldwide such as China, India and Thailand. Nigeria is not just a country full of promise, but it has the potential to become Africa’s leading nation and a beacon of social and industrial progressivism and economic success. However, having potential is meaningless without introspection, accountability and action, all of which are necessary to help Nigeria move in the right direction. Every country reaches enlightenment in its own time, but time is relative, and if Nigeria does not find a way to get right foundation and then leveraging technology, it will not live up to its promises and the hopes of its people and the international community. Thereby, Nigeria must live up to all expectations. Why Technology Cannot Fix Nigeria As mentioned above, technology will not fix Nigeria’s troubles. Despite its vast amount of resources and funds, Nigeria has not fully mastered the benefits of technology to scale up and further continue its evolution. The seven most systemic reasons as to why technology cannot fix the country’s issues are as follows: 1. Nigeria has not established a consistent and reliable source of electricity; 2. Nigeria has not yet provisioned a quality, well maintained and reliable infrastructure; 3. Nigeria has not taken steps to provide accessible and low-cost access healthcare; 4. Nigeria has not understood the importance of the provision of education for all; 5. Nigeria has not put measures in place to have effective government officials who are truly accountable and reliable; 6. Nigeria has not achieved a unified identity or vision of what it wants to be as a country; 7. Nigeria has not put in place measures to support the improvement of social conditions with a significant portion of the population still living in extreme poverty. Most advocates for Nigeria’s economic and social development will mention that many countries in the world have not met the criteria above. Although this may be true, Nigeria is struggling with all of them. In a recent article, Yomi Kazeem notes that “on average, Nigerians pay six bribes per year, or one every two months. NBS estimates the total amount of bribes paid to public officials amount to $4.6bn in purchasing power parity terms—the equivalent of 39% of the country’s federal and state budgets for education last year.” Moreover, a study by PwC says that “by 2030, the size of Africa’s biggest economy should triple in real terms come what may. Yet, if Nigeria manages to reduce corruption to levels comparable to Malaysia (itself hardly above suspicion: its prime minister recently had to explain how almost $700m had made it into his bank account), its economy could be 37% bigger than it is right now.” Yet, within some circles, there is so much talk about what technology can do for Nigeria and yet there is a lack of wanting to address the key issues and challenges that the country faces. It is almost as if by ignoring the fundamental questions, these problems will naturally take care of themselves. It is the elephant in the room that many either do not want to speak of, or believe does not hinder the country’s development at all. How can there be talk of blockchain or cryptocurrency in Nigeria? Or even mobile payment systems, when at best they will only further the disparity between the rich and poor and the urban and the rural. Even if technology is implemented in Nigeria only a minority of the population can access it, thus how is it truly helping to fix the country? The Wheel Is Broken What is important and necessary is scalable technology, which can transform the country and help it modernise even quicker. With a population of 1almost 196 million, Nigeria continues to stand out in the World Bank’s 2017 Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals, which shows that 35 million more Nigerians were living in extreme poverty in 2013 compared to 1990. Among the ten most populous countries for which data is available, only Nigeria recorded an increase in the number of citizens living in extreme poverty over the period of the study. The Atlas defines “extreme poverty” as living on less than $1.90 a day. It appears that there is a delusion or a misconception about the use case of technology and its impact. In the same way a building must have solid foundations, so must a country before it can begin to leverage technology to improve or scale. Conclusion Many critics will say that there are start-ups in Nigeria and businesses that are leveraging digital to scale and add value to the lives of their citizens. However, one can imagine the scale and growth that could be achieved if even three of the seven factors above were addressed. Technology is a tool, but it cannot fix a country that has built its foundations on sand. Nigeria should quickly address and improve its core foundations, then focus on education, entrepreneurship, innovation, policy and technology to not only cement its position as the leading industrialised country in Africa but also as a global driver of global growth and economic prosperity.I'm struggling to find the words to describe how excited I am to announce this news today, especially in light of recent events and happenings in the NA CS:GO scene. During our CS:GO team's transitional period from one org to a place of being "sponsorless", to now, I had the opportunity to discuss bringing the team to a variety of other organizations and brands. In this process, I spent time doing my due diligence (as I encourage everyone to do when it comes to making important decisions), and found that many of the brands in the scene were not a fit for us, our personalities, and, sometimes more importantly, my experience in the world outside of esports/CS:GO. Many organizations are founded by former players with a passion for the scene (and this is a great characteristic, an entrepreneurial spirit), but it quickly becomes evident that these owners have little to no actual business experience, no real vision, no mind for strategy. They struggle to accomplish the things they had once planned, they make wild and unreasonable promises, they set expectations too high, fail to meet them, and with little to no experience to fall back on, things rapidly go south. I wasn't comfortable signing with an organization like that. Some of the organizations I had spoken to weren't run this way, and initially appeared to be a potential fit for us. But some of those same orgs disappeared at the FIRST sign of possible adversity for our team (when Koosta left, specifically). Why would we want to sign with a fair-weather org like that? The more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea of someone else controlling our destiny, our path to success. For a while I had toyed with the idea of going out on my own, building a brand, and signing a team that way-- the only real way that would afford me the control to "do things the right way" (or more appropriately, I suppose, "do things the way I believe is right, that I preach is right"). Now felt like the timing couldn't be better... so combine all that and we arrive at this announcement. Selfless has secured funding and brought on board an investor to help build the organization. We will remain focused on North American esports, selfless play, and running things the right way. And I couldn't be more excited for this opportunity.Repudiations from American patriots to jihadist Khizr Muazzam Khan 1. Dishonest, corrupted mainstream media & DNC collusion. The shamelessly dishonest, corrupted mainstream media (MSNBC, ABC, CNN, Washington Post, Politico, all colluded with Democratic National Committee, as exposed by Wikileaks emails trove) and the Democrats, via their proxy Democratic National Committee (DNC), conveniently forget the fact that it was Lyin’ Crooked Hillary who voted for the Iraq War (and directly responsible for regime changes in Egypt, Libya, and now Syria as part of the Arab Spring which was actually ran by the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood) that claimed Khizr Khan’s son’s life, not Donald Trump. Of course, they also conveniently forget the fact that it was Muslim savages that killed him, and now savages Paki Khans blame Donald Trump for wanting to keep America & non-Muslims safe from Muslim savages. Their antics can easily be the Darwin Award winner for most tasteless & harem joke! 2. Donald Trump’s setting the record straight. Captain Khan, killed 12 years ago, was a hero, but this is about RADICAL ISLAMIC TERROR and the weakness of our “leaders” to eradicate it! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2016 I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq war, not me! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2016 – JULY 30, 2016 – SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT Trump Campaign Releases Full Transcript of Khizr Khan Answer Ahead of Mr. Trump’s ABC This Week Sunday Interview With George Stephanopoulos; Trump Calls Captain Humayun Khan A “Hero,” Urges Vigilance In Defeating Radical Islamic Terrorism And Criticizes Hillary Clinton’s Central Role In Destabilizing The Middle East (New York, NY) July 30th, 2016– The Trump for President campaign today released the full transcript of Donald J. Trump’s response to a pre-taped ABC This Week question from George Stephanopoulos referencing criticism from Khizr Khan. As shown in the full transcript, Mr. Trump doesn’t compare his sacrifices to anybody else’s, and in fact praises Mr. Khan and wishes him well. Mr. Trump also released a statement Saturday praising Mr. Khan’s son, Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed serving in Iraq: “Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. The real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorists who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country to do us further harm. Given the state of the world today, we have to know everything about those looking to enter our country, and given the state of chaos in some of these countries, that is impossible. While I feel deeply for the loss of his son, Mr. Khan who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things. If I become President, I will make America safe again. “Further, Hillary Clinton should be held accountable for her central role in destabilizing the Middle East. She voted to send the United States to war against Iraq, helped lead the disastrous withdrawal of American troops years later that created the vacuum allowing the rise of ISIS, and has never met a regime change she didn’t like (which have all been disasters) – not to mention her invasion of Libya and her abandonment of American personnel in Benghazi. The loss of these lives in Libya is directly traceable to Clinton, but their families’ testimonials were rejected by the media. Clinton’s actions have been reckless and have directly led to the loss of American lives. And her extreme immigration policies, as also laid out by American victims in Cleveland, will cause the preventable deaths of countless more — while putting all residents, from all places, at greater risk of terrorism. As Bernie
, 33, has eight 20-goal seasons and has had a rating of plus-11 or higher each of the past four seasons. He has missed one game in the past six seasons. Pavelski helped San Jose reach its first Stanley Cup Final in 2015-16, scoring 23 points (14 goals, nine assists) in 24 playoff games. "Best in the business for the front of the net," Lindsay said. "Always presenting that stick for targets and for deflections. You're going to take a lot of cross-checks, a lot of slashes, but if you're willing to do that and you've got that kind of hand-eye coordination, you're going to end up scoring goals." Video: Joe Pavelski lands at No. 7 on the Top 20 Wings list 8. Patrik Laine, Winnipeg Jets Laine, who turned 19 on April 19, finished second among NHL rookies in goals (36) and points (64) in 73 games and led the Jets in goals in 2016-17. He finished second in Calder voting behind Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews, who led rookies in goals (40) and points (69), and scored the seventh-most goals in a season by an 18-year-old in League history. He also had three hat tricks, five game-winning goals, 14 power-play points (nine goals), a plus-7 rating and a shooting percentage of 17.6. He led NHL rookies with an average of 0.88 points per game and was second among rookie forwards with an average of 17:54 of ice time per game (Mikko Rantanen, Colorado Avalanche: 18:03). "He uses that long reach and that long stick to get maximum whip, and that whip on that stick is what puts the power in the shot for Laine," Lindsay said. "Don't underestimate how good of a skater he is. He's big, but he has long, powerful strides." Video: Patrik Laine ranked as No. 8 on the Top 20 Wings list 9. Artemi Panarin, Columbus Blue Jackets Traded from the Blackhawks on June 23, Panarin was second on Chicago in goals (31) and points (74) last season behind Kane, and was named to the NHL Second All-Star Team. The 25-year-old won the Calder in 2015-16, leading rookies in goals (30), assists (47), points (77) and game-winning goals (seven), and finishing tied with Anthony Duclair of the Arizona Coyotes and Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart of the Buffalo Sabres for the lead in power-play goals (eight). His 151 points the past two seasons were tied for seventh in the League. 10. Johnny Gaudreau, Calgary Flames Gaudreau had 18 goals and led the Flames with 43 assists and 61 points last season. He also had 16 power-play points (four goals, 12 assists) and three game-winning goals. In 2015-16, he led Calgary in goals (30), assists (48) and points (78, tied for sixth in the League). "[Wayne] Gretzky was probably the best ever of knowing where the puck was going to be and knowing where everyone else was on the ice," Lindsay said. "Johnny Gaudreau has that ability." The 24-year-old has at least 61 points each of his first three NHL seasons and has made the NHL All-Star Game in each. Gaudreau has 204 points (73 goals, 131 assists) in 232 NHL games and won the Lady Byng Trophy as the most gentlemanly player in the League last season, when he was assessed two minor penalties in 72 games. Video: Johnny Gaudreau is named No. 10 on Top 20 Wings list 11. Blake Wheeler, Winnipeg Jets Wheeler has been one of the most underrated and consistent forwards in the League since 2013-14. He has 282 points (106 goals, 176 assists) the past four seasons, 12th in the League, and has had at least 26 goals and 35 assists in four straight seasons. Wheeler had 74 points (26 goals, 48 assists) last season and 78 (26 goals, 52 assists) in 2015-16. In each of the past five seasons, Wheeler, 30, has finished in the top three in goals, assists and points on the Jets. He has missed five games over the past six seasons. Wheeler has been a key contributor on special teams, with 109 power-play points and 17 shorthanded points in his nine NHL seasons. Video: Blake Wheeler takes No. 11 on the Top 20 Wings list 12. Phil Kessel, Pittsburgh Penguins Kessel has thrived in Pittsburgh since being traded from the Toronto Maple Leafs on July 1, 2015. He had 70 points (23 goals, 47 assists) last season, ranking third on the Penguins. Kessel also was third in 2015-16, when he had 59 points (26 goals, 33 assists). He led Pittsburgh with 22 points (10 goals, 12 assists) in the playoffs in 2016 and had 23 (eight goals, 15 assists) in 2017, helping Pittsburgh win back-to-back Stanley Cup championships. Kessel, who turns 30 on Oct. 2, has scored at least 20 goals in nine straight seasons after he had 11 and 19 his first two seasons in the League. He has scored at least 30 goals five times, doing so in four straight seasons (2008-09 through 2011-12). He has 649 points (296 goals, 353 assists) in 832 NHL games, including 202 on the power play (78 goals, 124 assists), and hasn't missed a game in the past seven seasons. "That trade to Pittsburgh, I think [it's] the best thing that ever could've happened to Phil Kessel and for the Penguins," Lindsay said. "The Penguins don't win back-to-back Stanley Cups without this guy." Video: Phil Kessel lands at No. 12 on the Top 20 Wings list 13. Max Pacioretty, Montreal Canadiens Pacioretty has flown under the radar as one of two NHL players to score at least 30 goals each of the past four seasons (Ovechkin has 12 straight 30-goal seasons). He's been Montreal's leader or co-leader in goals each of the past five seasons and has led them in points each of the past six. Pacioretty, 28, scored 35 goals, including seven game-winners, and tied his NHL career high with 67 points last season. Of his 209 NHL goals, 41 (19.6 percent) are game-winners. "He can score goals in tight, but he has the kind of wrist shot that he can score from long distances as well," Lindsay said. "When you watch Max Pacioretty play, he plays in straight lines, north-south hockey, and that's what a winger's all about. … He is definitely the prototypical power forward." Video: Max Pacioretty lands at No. 13 on the Top Wings list 14. Filip Forsberg, Nashville Predators Forsberg, 23, burst onto the scene as a rookie in 2014-15, when he had 63 points (26 goals, 37 assists) and finished fourth in Calder voting. He followed that with 64 points (33 goals, 31 assists) in 2015-16 and had 58 points (31 goals, 27 assists) last season. Forsberg was tied for second in the League with nine game-winning goals and tied for fifth with three shorthanded goals. He had back-to-back hat tricks on Feb. 21 and 23 during a stretch when he scored 10 goals in five games. Forsberg's nine goals and 16 points led the Predators during the playoffs last season, when he helped them advance to their first Stanley Cup Final. Video: Filip Forsberg takes No. 14 on the Top 20 Wings list 15. David Pastrnak, Boston Bruins In 75 games last season, Pastrnak had 34 goals and 70 points, each an NHL career high that ranked second on the Bruins (Marchand had 39 goals and 85 points). Pastrnak, 21, more than doubled his goal, assist and point totals from 2015-16, when he had 26 points (15 goals, 11 assists) in 51 games. He began the season with at least one goal in three straight games and had a five-game goal streak from Oct. 26-Nov. 8. He finished the season with six game-winning goals, including two in overtime. 16. Cam Atkinson, Columbus Blue Jackets Atkinson, 28, increased his goal total for the fifth straight season in 2016-17, scoring an NHL career-high 35 in 82 games. His point total increased for the second straight season (from 53 in 2015-16 to 62), and he had an NHL career-high 27 assists. Atkinson had 21 power-play points (10 goals, 11 assists) and three shorthanded goals in 18:05 of average ice time. He had a nine-game point streak from Dec. 5-23 (seven goals, seven assists) and helped Columbus finish with the most wins (50) and points (106) in its history. 17. Jeff Skinner, Carolina Hurricanes Skinner won the Calder in 2010-11, scoring 63 points (31 goals, 32 assists) in 82 games, and has been a consistent scorer ever since with at least 20 goals in five of six full NHL seasons, including an NHL career-high 37 last season. Of his 180 NHL goals, 41 (22.8 percent) have come on the power play and 26 (14.4 percent) have been game-winners. Skinner, 25, has led the Hurricanes in points each of the past two seasons and in goals three of the past four. Video: Jeff Skinner comes in at No. 17 on the Top Wings list 18. Wayne Simmonds, Philadelphia Flyers Simmonds has become one of the best all-around players in the League. In each of the past four seasons, he's scored at least 28 goals and 50 points, and had at least 13 power-play goals. Last season, he had 54 points (31 goals, 23 assists), 25 power-play points (16 goals, fourth in League, and nine assists), four game-winning goals, two shorthanded goals and 122 penalty minutes. Simmonds, who turns 29 on Aug. 26, uses his size (6-foot-2, 185 pounds) to get to the net and create scoring chances for his teammates. He made his first NHL All-Star Game last season and was voted MVP after scoring the game-winning goal for the Metropolitan Division. "This guy is tough," Lindsay said. "He'll go to the front of the net, he'll pummel you on the forecheck, and he loves to get in there tight. He's dynamic on the power play." Video: Wayne Simmonds named No. 18 on the Top 20 Wings list 19. T.J. Oshie, Washington Capitals Oshie has scored at least 51 points each of the past four seasons, including 107 points (59 goals, 48 assists) in two seasons with the Capitals. He scored an NHL career-high 33 goals last season, tying Ovechkin for the Capitals lead. Oshie made the most of his 143 shots on goal, scoring on a League-high 23.1 percent of them. The 30-year-old was plus-28 last season, the seventh time in nine NHL seasons he's finished plus-10 or better. Oshie is third in the NHL with 39 shootout goals since 2008-09, and his 54.9 shooting percentage in the tiebreaker ranks fourth in that time among players who have taken at least 10 shots. 20. Taylor Hall, New Jersey Devils Hall scored 20 goals, led the Devils with 33 assists and tied for the lead with 53 points last season, his first in New Jersey. He also had four game-winning goals. He's scored at least 20 goals in five of his seven NHL seasons and has had at least 50 points five times. In 2013-14, Hall set NHL career highs with 53 assists and 80 points, leading the Edmonton Oilers in each category, and tied his NHL career high with 27 goals. The 25-year-old has made the NHL All-Star Game each of the past two seasons and has 381 points (152 goals, 229 assists) in 453 NHL games.washingtonpost.com Staff Writer Thursday, October 28, 2004; 9:45 AM Hollywood has a new star this morning. But you won't find this star on the Walk of Fame. Instead, you'll have to head 3,000 miles east to Wall Street, where the much-anticipated IPO from DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. is having its debut. Spun off from the mega-studio DreamWorks SKG of Hollywood power brokers Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, the IPO might give a boost to publicly traded tech firms in general and is yet another validation for the already-obvious success of computer-animated films. DreamWorks Animation's hit parade includes its "Shrek" film franchise and the newly released "Shark Tales," which finished the past weekend at No. 2 in box office sales. The company is getting a warm reception from Wall Street, with its 29 million shares pricing last night at $28 each, higher than the expected range of $23 to $25, raising about $812 million. Shares will trade under the "DWA" ticker symbol. "The sale is the biggest initial public offering to emerge from Hollywood since MGM went public seven years ago and raised $180 million," the New York Times noted. The Associated Press said "analysts forecast strong performance for the company in the near term. The IPO also benefited from its proximity to the opening of 'The Incredibles,' the latest computer-animated film from its chief rival, Pixar Animation Studios." DreamWorks Animation "also faces considerable competition from Pixar and other companies, including The Walt Disney Co. and Twentieth Century Fox, which are making computer-animated features." Pixar, of course, is run by Apple CEO Steve Jobs... The New York Times: DreamWorks Animation Raises $812M (Registration required) The Associated Press via washingtonpost.com: Dreamworks Animation Seeks Splashy Debut The Los Angeles Times gave a preview of how DreamWorks Animation shares are expected to perform today: "Investors who couldn't get in on the initial offering may scramble to buy shares once they trade on the open market. In the near term, DreamWorks Animation looks to put up numbers that will please investors. Next week, it is expected to reap big sales from the release of the 'Shrek 2' DVD. The DVD of 'Shark Tale' will hit stores early next year." The Hollywood Reporter noted: "Expectations for the stock's performance had observers invoking the name of Google, which saw its stock more than double within a few weeks of trading despite a good deal of skepticism on Wall Street. The buzz around DreamWorks has been fueled by several factors, including the success of 'Shark Tale' and investors' desire to get in on the ground floor of a high-profile IPO toward the close of a dreary year overall for media investors." The Los Angeles Times: DreamWorks IPO Draws $812 Million (Registration required) The Hollywood Reporter: DreamWorks Drawing Up IPO DreamWorks owners, including Katzenberg, Geffen, Spielberg and "Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Microsoft itself, are the biggest winners and stand to make millions. Shares held by Katzenberg, Geffen and Spielberg were worth $190 million each at the IPO price. Allen's stake is worth $1 billion," USA Today reported. The Wall Street Journal noted that "Mr. Katzenberg and Mr. Geffen will retain voting control of the company after the offering. While the founders aren't selling any of their shares yet, billionaire Paul Allen, an early backer of the business, is raising more than $60 million by selling part of his stake in the offering." More from USA Today: "Perhaps the biggest stroke of genius, or luck, is the timing of the IPO, says Tom Taulli of IPO tracker CurrentOfferings.com. 'They timed it perfectly,' he says. For starters, the company priced the IPO just as the stock market is coming off back-to-back surges, a rare event recently. Shares of the No. 1 rival in computer-animated entertainment, Pixar, are up 15% despite a weak market. That Wall Street success rubs off on this IPO, says Linda Killian, portfolio manager at Renaissance Capital. She adds DreamWorks plans two movies a year, double the one Pixar puts out," USA Today reported. USA Today: DreamWorks Animation Sets IPO At $28 The Wall Street Journal: DreamWorks Sets IPO at $28 Each Ahead of Debut (Subscription required) "What, me worry?" says Pixar Chief Steve Jobs... Other media outlets also noted that the success of the DreamWorks Animation IPO has a lot to do with rival Pixar's strengths. "Analysts and investors said that there was huge investor interest in the shares, not just because of 'Shrek 2' and 'Shark Tale' but because of the huge success of Pixar, the leading computer graphics animation company," the New York Times said, going on to quote Brad Ruderman of Ruderman Capital in Beverly Hills, who told the newspaper: "One thing is certain, that Pixar has proven its doubters wrong. People said there was no consistency to their business, but those who bet against it have failed miserably. This is riding the coattails of that."Every year, it seems the end of Apple’s year, the final impression that it leaves on the tech world, is its fall event. The fall event shows how Apple adapts to changes in its business. It used to be the music Event, where it would show off the new iPods. Seems kind of quaint now, doesn’t it? “How cute, a whole event dedicated to a single-use device to play your music.” Advertisement A few years ago, in addition to the music event, Apple moved its annual iPhone announcement from June to September. The music event became Here are the new iPads, and whatever else Apple feels like announcing. Tim Cook’s expression of thanks for the efforts of Apple’s employees from a stage in October tells me that Apple won’t be releasing major product updates for another 10–12 months. If I’m going to buy something, I’ll have all the information I need. A single anchor point In his Mac OS X Yosemite review, Ars Technica’s John Siracusa mentioned the concept of a single anchor point. While direct interaction with the file system may still be where usability goes to die, history has shown that all it takes is one good anchor point to make things at least a bit more comprehensible. In the past, this anchor point was usually the desktop—the one place people knew how to reliably find. More recently, Dropbox has filled this role for millions of people. I’ve talked a good game about my iOS usage, and that is largely still true. I continue to march my digital life towards iOS. It’s not possible for me to go exclusively onto iOS yet, however. To be honest, that day is probably years away. I need a single anchor point; not so much for storage (I’m a heavy cloud user) but as a a digital centerpiece. Why I still need a non-iOS device I need a desktop-class operating system for three main reasons: I play World of Warcraft, use my computer as part of my musical life, and I have a large digital media library. But I can do 99 percent of my freelance writing business on iOS. World of Warcraft is my main leisure activity. I don’t spend all of my free time during the week playing the game, but my gaming probably falls in line with the average person’s TV usage, and I can’t play WoW on a tablet. Well, the Surface 3 would probably run it, but the Surface 3 for me is more laptop than tablet. Plus, I’d need the $1,549 model. Logic Pro X is is my main recording platform. There are a lot of recording choices for the iPad (I’m a fan of Auria). I like the drummer module in Logic Pro X, and I have a 24″ monitor which makes dealing with multiple tracks easy. Lastly, I have a 1TB drive sitting on my desk that is solely for storing my ripped media library that I run Plex on. While Dropbox can let me store 1TB of data, there’s no way in hell I’m uploading a terabyte of movies to Dropbox. So, I still need a Mac. My changing mobile needs When I bought my MacBook Pro in 2011 it was absolutely the right choice. I was living a nomadic lifestyle where I would spend half the week in different houses. (Divorces are weird that way.) I needed a laptop for school. iOS wasn’t yet at the point where I could even think about going solo on it. Fast forward three years, and the picture has changed. My laptop has gone from a constant companion to rarely leaving my desk. Apps like Pages and Byword let me write away from my desk. About a year ago I decided my next Mac would likely not be a laptop. This was driven by my decreased mobile needs and an increased need for USB ports. My audio inputs for recording require a hardwired USB port and I can’t use a hub for them. How Apple’s announcements affect my buying If it wasn’t real obvious, Apple Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller spending all of 7 seconds this week on a lukewarm iPad mini update means that Apple considers the iPhone 6 Plus to be the successor to the iPad. The iPad Air 2 is interesting but my iPad 3 still gets the job done. I will likely upgrade it when an iOS update doesn’t support it. I’m still bullish on extensions radically changing how I use iOS, and I was encouraged to see Pages for iOS now support third party storage services. That said, this year I think there will be a lot of wait and see on how developers actually implement the new APIs. More reason to wait and see what next year brings. I’m probably going to buy either the $699 Mac mini, or the mid-range iMac. The Mac mini being dual core is a drag, but the chief question will still be: How well does it play WoW? If it plays it decently, I’ll get the mini. If not, I’ll get the iMac. I have a nice monitor already so, I don’t really need the iMac, except for the better video card and the quad core processor.Here’s what he takes on every trip: Pillow substitute “I always carry a sweatshirt or a scrunchable lightweight down jacket, in case the plane is cold. But just as useful if I need a pillow in an airport, if I have to curl up on a floor or a bench. Actual neck pillows are too bulky and take up too much space.” Moleskine notebooks “I bring three or four. Any writing I do, I do quickly by hand first. And then as a function of inputting it onto the laptop, I edit as I copy it in. That process works for me.” Gi “I practice jujitsu; that’s how I stay in shape. It’s mentally good for me and I try to train literally everywhere I go. I bring a couple of [the uniforms called] gi, actually, because one has to give serious consideration, always, I have found, to laundry cycles in hotels. I’m very aware that you need to get it in by 9 or 10 if you want it back the same day and one can’t always do that. I’m a worst-case scenario planner, so chances are I’ll bring three gi just in case the laundry cycle is not what I would like.” Books “I bring at least one physical book, I find that comforting. Often a book set in the country that I’m headed towards. A work of fiction, preferably. The perfect book to read before you go to Vietnam is Graham Greene’s ‘The Quiet American.’ Fiction seems to capture the place in a way that’s more tangible. It just works for me better than a travel guide.” Hidden knife “If it’s a place with heavy street crime, I have this sneaky credit card that turns into a knife. It’s not something you’d want to get into a serious fight with, but it might be a rude surprise should someone grab you from behind as you enter your hotel room.”DUDEBRO™ — MY SHIT IS FUCKED UP SO I GOT TO SHOOT/SLICE YOU II: IT’S STRAIGHT-UP DAWG TIMEFACT SHEETPlatform: PCGenre: Action/ShooterPlayers: TBARating: M for MachoRelease: TBADeveloper: Grimoire Assembly Forge™URL: http://www.dudebro2.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealDudebro (hashtag: #DawgTime)Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DudebroMSIFUSIGTS.SY2 Price: FreeIn a world where brodiocity is under attack, legendary war veteran John Dudebro™ and his fiery sidekick Habemus Chicken will rise for the greater good, and a few pints of beer.Tasked by General Dawgless Lee to track down Armando Pesquali, arms dealer of unspecified ethnicity, the duo will embark on a brotastic adventure, facing deadly opponents such as Commander Limpwrist’s SkullPro army and the mysterious Dude Squad.Developed by Grimoire Assembly Forge™, a collective composed primarily of NeoGAF forum members, Dudebro™ II both parodies and pays homage to the game industry as a whole.FEATURES:• Old school 2D sidescrolling shooting/slicing action, running in full HD (1080p) at 60 frames per second.• Advanced physics, powered by Farseer™ Physics, and shader effects.• The vocal talents of Jon St. John, starring as the titular character John Dudebro™.• Crazy weapons and upgrades allow players to unlock previously inaccessible routes and find new secrets or gear.• Players can explore multiple locations, and warp back to previously completed areas at will.• Dudebro can carry more than two weapons at the same time. And a knife.• No regenerating health - Dudebro’s Brodiocity Meter refills by behaving like a bro (killing enemies, rescuing ladies, and so on).• The game parodies the industry’s focus on testosterone-filled AAA action titles.• The game is developed with XNA Game Studio, and will be released on PC at a date yet to be announced.Americans frequently rail against the soaring costs of prescription drugs and demand that drug costs somehow be reined in. Just last week, members of the Senate Special Committee on Aging berated several top executives of the Valeant Pharmaceutical company for driving up the prices of two blood pressure and heart drugs, Nitropress and Isuprel, by 212 percent and 525 percent, respectively. Related: Obama Administration Will Press Medicare Doctors to Use Cheaper Drugs The outgoing CEO, Michael Pearson, admitted that the company had been “too aggressive” in acquiring the drugs and jacking up their prices and that, in hindsight, “I regret pursuing” those types of transactions. The Obama administration recently unveiled a pilot project that could save Medicare and consumers billions of dollars in costly cancer drugs by encouraging oncologists to use high quality but less costly alternative drugs. The goal would be to eliminate existing financial incentives for doctors and other specialists to prescribe newer, more costly drugs when less expensive drugs would be just as good. But as the Obama administration has quickly learned, powerful political, industry and medical profession interests are arrayed against the proposed rule change drafted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the fate of the plan is very much up in the air. Huffington Post reported late last week that influential Republicans and Democrats in the House have drafted letters to Acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt raising objections to the proposed rule change and urging that it either be temporarily shelved or pulled altogether. Related: Ignoring Warnings, Drug Companies Hike Prices By 10 Percent “CMS’s proposed Medicare drug experiment would unnecessarily disrupt care for the sickest seniors who depend on Medicare, including those with cancer, macular degeneration, rheumatoid arthritis, neurological disorders and primary immunodeficiency disease,” the GOP letter states in demanding that the proposal be rescinded. House Budget Committee Chair Tom Price of Georgia, Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois and Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. of Louisiana were among those signing the letter. House Democrats including Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts subsequently sent a letter to the administration expressing “concerns” about the administration’s attempt to lower drug prices, but it stopped short of calling for the withdrawal of the proposed rule, which was published in the Federal Register March 11, and awaits final action. “We support the Administration’s goal to reform the health care delivery system by rewarding high value patient care and innovative approaches to meet this goal,” the Democrats said. “However, we have concerns about the proposed payment model and its potential for unintended effects on beneficiaries and the physician community. We have important questions that CMS should resolve before finalizing the parameters of this demonstration.” At present, Medicare Part B pays doctors and hospital outpatient departments the average sales price of a drug, plus a 6 percent add-on. While doctors typically base their choice of drugs on which ones they feel are most effective for treatment, their fees and add-on charges are considerably higher when they choose the most expensive drugs. Related: Extreme Rise in Some Drug Prices Reaches a Tipping Point Under one approach being explored by the administration, physicians would be reimbursed by Medicare for a drug’s average sale price plus 2.5 percent, as well as a flat daily payment of $16.80. A second approach would link reimbursements to a drug’s effectiveness for different uses. The goal is to force physicians to think twice about prescribing newer and costlier drugs and at least consider prescribing a less expensive alternative. “What this does is evens out the difference between the less expensive drugs and more expensive drugs,” according to a Department of Health and Human Services official Not surprisingly, however, the CMS proposal is getting strong push back from the medical profession and patient advocates who fear that the proposed overhaul might force doctors to allow price concerns to cloud their judgement in treating patients – especially in the treatment of cancer victims with new and much costlier drugs. “It is inappropriate for CMS to manipulate choice of treatment for cancer patients using heavy-handed reimbursement techniques,” Dr. Allen Lichter, chief executive officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, a professional group, told The Wall Street Journal. Related: New Tech Tools Beat the High Cost of Prescription Drugs Moreover, PhRMA, the leading lobbyist for the major U.S. pharmaceutical companies, views the proposal as a threat to their profits in bringing out new, advanced drugs to replace existing ones. Allyson Funk, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), said recently, "Proposing sweeping changes to Medicare Part B drug reimbursement without thoughtful consideration and stakeholder input is not the right approach and puts Medicare patients who rely on these medicines at risk." The proposed rule change has strong backing from some patient advocate groups, but until now, House and Senate Democrats have had little to say about it. But Big PhRMA and the medical community has been making considerable headway on Capitol Hill, according to Huffington Post, and House Democratic leaders felt compelled to circulate a letter of their own to keep their members from signing onto the much stronger GOP letter. “Members are outlining their concerns, but this letter is in furtherance of getting an effective rule in place under the current timeline, Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, told Ryan Grim and Jeffrey Young, authors of the Huffington Post article. “This in no way is an effort to slow down or undermine the administration’s efforts.” Hammill confirmed his comments in an email to The Fiscal Times on Friday. Related: Drug Company Profits Soar as Taxpayers Foot the Bill The administration for now, at least, appears to be pressing ahead with its proposal, although Republican lawmakers including Price and Boustany, who are both physicians, appear determined to block it. “The policies in the proposed Part B model were developed with no input from outside experts and those with real-world experience,” Price and Boustany said in their letter. However, the administration disagrees. “Americans from all walks of life have felt the impact of the high cost of prescription drugs, and it continues to be a prime driver of spending across the health care system,” Benjamin Wakana, a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson, said on Friday. “The administration's Part B proposal seeks to deliver better value for consumers and Medicare, while ensuring that doctors and patients continue to have access to life-saving drugs. That's why the proposal enjoys support from a diverse set of voices - from AARP to the American Academy of Family Physicians to the former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under George W. Bush.”What will it take for comic books to move from cult niche to universal entertainment? Marvel has a plan — and it involves deviating from their standard cult niche characters. Last month, at a special event in Hollywood—one that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige opened to fans, rather than the usual officials-only press conference—Marvel announced two new films in development: Captain Marvel and Black Panther. The former has a female lead, the latter a black male lead. The announcement by Feige, who landed on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list in 2012, was only the latest example of Marvel highlighting more diverse characters. In the last year alone, the comics giant has launched 13 new comics series with female leads (Captain Marvel; Ms. Marvel; Black Widow; Elektra; Storm; She-Hulk; Thor; Angela; Spider-Woman; Silk; Gamora; Spider-Gwen; and Squirrel Girl); it announced a new ABC television series with a female lead, Marvel’s Agent Carter, that will premiere in January; it launched a Women of Marvel podcast in June; and its social media team created a Women of Marvel Instagram account that showcases female characters and female Marvel employees. The growing audience — according to Facebook data, women already comprise almost half of the fans of comics and their characters — is proving profitable. The renewed focus on diversity, along with the rise in digital sales of comics, has bolstered the comics industry at large to some $870 million in sales in 2013, according to Comichron. Meanwhile, Marvel’s parent company Disney (DIS) saw record revenues of $12.4 billion last quarter, thanks largely to merchandise from Frozen, a movie with two female lead characters. “Women have been reading comics for a lot longer than people even talk about,” says Sana Amanat, an editor at Marvel who works on a range of titles including Hawkeye and Elektra. “But I think that female readership went away for a few years, and now they’re coming back, and they’re also being a lot more vocal.” Marvel is listening. And fans are listening, quite literally, to the podcast and to the panels, which happen at conventions like the New York Comic Con and San Diego Comic Con, where people line up hours beforehand for a seat. “The panels started really as an expansion on the fact that there are a lot more women working in comics now, and it came from the higher-ups wanting to have more diverse voices working at Marvel,” says Amanat. The podcast began this year as a monthly feature, but was popular enough that it is now weekly. It was Amanat who re-imagined Ms. Marvel. The original Ms. Marvel character, Carol Danvers, first appeared in the 1970s, but in 2012 Marvel updated her name to Captain Marvel. “My senior editor wanted to make a push for a character and a book that he could give to his daughter,” says Amanat. “From there, it expanded into changing her entire look. Carol Danvers went from wearing, essentially, a bathing-suit and thigh high boots to full uniform—now she looks like she’s a fighter pilot, and we focus more on her skills as a fighter pilot than her feminine wiles.” This year, Amanat and Marvel re-created Ms. Marvel as a new, separate character: a Muslim-American teenager. That comic series launched in February and was a hit; the paperback collection of the first five issues, which came out in October, was a New York Times bestseller and is still rated no. 1 in all graphic novels on Amazon. The launch of the new Ms. Marvel character, Amanat says, has inspired people across the company: “A few years ago, you couldn’t have a female-led comic series on newsstands and have it last. We were canceling those titles because they weren’t selling. And now we have a Muslim-American female character and not only is it selling, it’s a bestseller. That’s a big sign of how far we’ve come. And it has spurred this whole dialogue about the importance of having minority characters in comics, and even about what it means to American.” Black Panther, typically cited as the first black superhero in comics, will make his film debut in 2016 in the third Captain America movie. Marvel announced that the character will also get his own movie, set for 2017 release. The actor Chadwick Boseman, who played Jackie Robinson in the movie 42, will play the character, named T’Challa, who, as the backstory goes, is the king of a fictional African nation, Wakanda. In addition to print comics and films, Marvel is also addressing female and black audiences on television. Last year, it inked a landmark deal with Netflix (NFLX) to have five shows air exclusively on the streaming service. The first of them will be Daredevil, a blind lawyer already familiar to audiences from the 2003 Ben Affleck film. The second show in line will focus on a lesser known character: Jessica Jones, star of the comic Alias, who has the powers of super-strength and flight. Another of the five shows will focus on black muscle-man Luke Cage, who debuted in the 1970s. That list of new and forthcoming projects is an exhaustive one, but it means more fodder for fans to get excited about. Marvel’s social media manager Adri Cowan knows it. “I think we have something like 27 different social media pages right now,” she says. “I’ve been focused on introducing the female characters to some of our
, Cost, Gross and Revenue 7.3.4 Contact Information 7.4 Harbor Freight Tools. 7.4.1 Company Profile 7.4.2 Product Picture and Specifications 7.4.2.1 Type I 7.4.2.2 Type II 7.4.2.3 Type III 7.4.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue 7.4.4 Contact Information 7.5 Worker 7.5.1 Company Profile 7.5.2 Product Picture and Specifications 7.5.2.1 Type I 7.5.2.2 Type II 7.5.2.3 Type III 7.5.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue 7.5.4 Contact Information 7.6 Solo 7.6.1 Company Profile 7.6.2 Product Picture and Specifications 7.6.2.1 Type I 7.6.2.2 Type II 7.6.2.3 Type III 7.6.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue 7.6.4 Contact Information 7.7 QUICKIE MFG 7.7.1 Company Profile 7.7.2 Product Picture and Specifications 7.7.2.1 Type I 7.7.2.2 Type II 7.7.2.3 Type III 7.7.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue 7.7.4 Contact Information 7.8 Milwaukee Dustless Brush 7.8.1 Company Profile 7.8.2 Product Picture and Specifications 7.8.2.1 Type I 7.8.2.2 Type II 7.8.2.3 Type III 7.8.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue 7.8.4 Contact Information 7.9 Anderson Products 7.9.1 Company Profile 7.9.2 Product Picture and Specifications 7.9.2.1 Type I 7.9.2.2 Type II 7.9.2.3 Type III 7.9.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue 7.9.4 Contact Information 7.10 FindingKing 7.10.1 Company Profile 7.10.2 Product Picture and Specifications 7.10.2.1 Type I 7.10.2.2 Type II 7.10.2.3 Type III 7.10.3 Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Gross and Revenue 7.10.4 Contact Information 8 Price and Gross Margin Analysis 8.1 Analysis of Price 8.2 Gross Margin Analysis 8.3 Price Comparison by Regions 8.4 Price Analysis of Different Bench Brush Product Types 8.5 Market Share Analysis of Different Bench Brush Price Levels 8.6 Gross Margin Analysis of Different Bench Brush Applications 9 Marketing Trader or Distributor Analysis of Bench Brush 9.1 Marketing Channels Status of Bench Brush 9.2 Traders or Distributors of Bench Brush with Contact Information 9.3 Ex-work Price, Channel Price and End Buyer Price Analysis of Bench Brush 9.4 USA Import, Export and Trade Analysis of Bench Brush 10 Development Trend of Bench Brush Industry 2016-2021 10.1 Capacity and Production Overview of Bench Brush 2016-2021 10.2 Production Market Share by Product Types of Bench Brush 2016-2021 10.3 Sales and Sales Revenue Overview of Bench Brush 2016-2021 10.4 USA Sales of Bench Brush by Applications 2016-2021 10.5 Import, Export and Consumption of Bench Brush 2016-2021 10.6 Cost, Price, Revenue and Gross Margin of Bench Brush 2016-2021 11 Industry Chain Suppliers of Bench Brush with Contact Information 11.1 Major Raw Materials Suppliers of Bench Brush with Contact Information 11.2 Manufacturing Equipment Suppliers of Bench Brush with Contact Information 11.3 Major Players of Bench Brush with Contact Information 11.4 Key Consumers of Bench Brush with Contact Information 11.5 Supply Chain Relationship Analysis of Bench Brush 12 New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis of Bench Brush 12.1 New Project SWOT Analysis of Bench Brush 12.2 New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis of Bench Brush 13 Conclusion of the USA Bench Brush Industry 2016 Market Research Report List of Tables and Figures Figure Picture of Bench Brush Table Product Specifications of Bench Brush Table Classification of Bench Brush Figure USA Sales Market Share of Bench Brush by Product Types in 2015 Table Applications of Bench Brush Figure USA Sales Market Share of Bench Brush by Applications in 2015 Figure Industry Chain Structure of Bench Brush Table USA Industry Overview of Bench Brush Table Industry Policy of Bench Brush Table Industry News List of Bench Brush Table Bill of Materials (BOM) of Bench Brush Table Bill of Materials (BOM) Price of Bench Brush Table Labor Cost of Bench Brush Table Depreciation Cost of Bench Brush Table Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Bench Brush in 2015 Figure Manufacturing Process Analysis of Bench Brush Table USA Price Analysis of Bench Brush 2011-2016 (USD/Unit) Table USA Cost Analysis of Bench Brush 2011-2016 (USD/Unit) Table USA Gross Analysis of Bench Brush 2011-2016 Table Capacity (Unit) and Commercial Production Date of USA Bench Brush Key Manufacturers in 2015 Table Manufacturing Plants Distribution of USA Key Bench Brush Manufacturers in 2015 Table R&D Status and Technology Source of USA Bench Brush Key Manufacturers in 2015 Table Raw Materials Sources Analysis of USA and USA Bench Brush Key Manufacturers in 2015 Table USA Production of Bench Brush by Regions 2011-2016 (Unit) Table USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Regions 2011-2016 Figure USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Regions in 2014 Figure USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Regions in 2015 Table USA Production of Bench Brush by Types in 2011-2016 (Unit) Table USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Type in 2011-2016 Figure USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Type in 2014 Figure USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Type in 2015 Table USA Sales of Bench Brush by Applications 2011-2016 (Unit) Table USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Applications 2011-2016 Figure USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Applications in 2014 Figure USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Applications in 2015 Table Price Comparison of USA Bench Brush Key Manufacturers in 2015 (USD/Unit) Table USA Capacity, Production, Import Export Sales Price, Cost and Revenue (M USD) of Bench Brush 2011-2016 Table USA Consumption Volume of Bench Brush by Regions 2011-2016 (Unit) Table USA Consumption Volume Market Share of Bench Brush by Regions 2011-2016 Figure USA Consumption Volume Market Share of Bench Brush by Regions in 2014 Figure USA Consumption Volume Market Share of Bench Brush by Regions in 2015 Table USA Consumption Value of Bench Brush by Regions 2011-2016 (M USD) Table USA Consumption Value Market Share of Bench Brush by Regions 2011-2016 Figure USA Consumption Value Market Share of Bench Brush by Regions in 2014 Figure USA Consumption Value Market Share of Bench Brush by Regions in 2015 Table Consumption Price of Bench Brush by Regions 2011-2016 (USD/Unit) Table USA and Major Manufacturers Capacity of Bench Brush 2011-2016 (Unit) Table USA Capacity Market Share of Major Bench Brush Manufacturers 2011-2016 Table USA and Major Manufacturers Production of Bench Brush 2011-2016 (Unit) Table USA Production Market Share of Major Bench Brush Manufacturers 2011-2016 Table USA and Major Manufacturers Sales of Bench Brush 2011-2016 (Unit) Table USA Sales Market Share of Major Bench Brush Manufacturers 2011-2016 Table USA and Major Manufacturers Sales Revenue of Bench Brush 2011-2016 (M USD) Table USA Sales Revenue Market Share of Major Bench Brush Manufacturers 2011-2016 Figure USA Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of Bench Brush 2011-2016 Figure USA Capacity Utilization Rate of Bench Brush 2011-2016 Figure USA Sales Revenue (M USD) and Growth Rate of Bench Brush 2011-2016 Figure USA Production Market Share of Major Bench Brush Manufacturers in 2014 Figure USA Production Market Share of Major Bench Brush Manufacturers in 2015 Figure USA Sales Market Share of Major Bench Brush Manufacturers in 2014 Figure USA Sales Market Share of Major Bench Brush Manufacturers in 2015 Figure USA Sales (Unit) and Growth Rate of Bench Brush 2011-2016 Table USA Supply, Consumption and Gap of Bench Brush 2011-2016 (Unit) Table USA Import, Export and Consumption of Bench Brush 2011-2016 (Unit) Table Price of USA Bench Brush Major Manufacturers 2011-2016 (USD/Unit) Table Gross Margin of USA Bench Brush Major Manufacturers 2011-2016 Table USA and Major Manufacturers Revenue of Bench Brush 2011-2016 (M USD) Table USA Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of Bench Brush 2011-2016 Table VIKAN Company Profile (Contact Information Plant Location Capacity Revenue etc) Figure Bench Brush Picture and Specifications of VIKAN Table Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Gross (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of VIKAN 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of VIKAN 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Production (Unit) and USA Market Share of VIKAN 2011-2016 Table VIKAN Bench Brush SWOT Analysis Table TOUGH GUY Company Profile (Contact Information Plant Location Capacity Revenue etc) Figure Bench Brush Picture and Specifications of TOUGH GUY Table Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Gross (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of TOUGH GUY 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of TOUGH GUY 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Production (Unit) and USA Market Share of TOUGH GUY 2011-2016 Table TOUGH GUY Bench Brush SWOT Analysis Table WEILER Company Profile (Contact Information Plant Location Capacity Revenue etc) Figure Bench Brush Picture and Specifications of WEILER Table Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Gross (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of WEILER 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of WEILER 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Production (Unit) and USA Market Share of WEILER 2011-2016 Table WEILER Bench Brush SWOT Analysis Table Harbor Freight Tools. Company Profile (Contact Information Plant Location Capacity Revenue etc) Figure Bench Brush Picture and Specifications of Harbor Freight Tools. Table Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Gross (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of Harbor Freight Tools. 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of Harbor Freight Tools. 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Production (Unit) and USA Market Share of Harbor Freight Tools. 2011-2016 Table Harbor Freight Tools. Bench Brush SWOT Analysis Table Worker Company Profile (Contact Information Plant Location Capacity Revenue etc) Figure Bench Brush Picture and Specifications of Worker Table Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Gross (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of Worker 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of Worker 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Production (Unit) and USA Market Share of Worker 2011-2016 Table Worker Bench Brush SWOT Analysis Table Solo Company Profile (Contact Information Plant Location Capacity Revenue etc) Figure Bench Brush Picture and Specifications of Solo Table Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Gross (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of Solo 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of Solo 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Production (Unit) and USA Market Share of Solo 2011-2016 Table Solo Bench Brush SWOT Analysis Table QUICKIE MFG Company Profile (Contact Information Plant Location Capacity Revenue etc) Figure Bench Brush Picture and Specifications of QUICKIE MFG Table Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Gross (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of QUICKIE MFG 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of QUICKIE MFG 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Production (Unit) and USA Market Share of QUICKIE MFG 2011-2016 Table QUICKIE MFG Bench Brush SWOT Analysis Table Milwaukee Dustless Brush Company Profile (Contact Information Plant Location Capacity Revenue etc) Figure Bench Brush Picture and Specifications of Milwaukee Dustless Brush Table Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Gross (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of Milwaukee Dustless Brush 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of Milwaukee Dustless Brush 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Production (Unit) and USA Market Share of Milwaukee Dustless Brush 2011-2016 Table Milwaukee Dustless Brush Bench Brush SWOT Analysis Table Anderson Products Company Profile (Contact Information Plant Location Capacity Revenue etc) Figure Bench Brush Picture and Specifications of Anderson Products Table Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Gross (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of Anderson Products 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of Anderson Products 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Production (Unit) and USA Market Share of Anderson Products 2011-2016 Table Anderson Products Bench Brush SWOT Analysis Table FindingKing Company Profile (Contact Information Plant Location Capacity Revenue etc) Figure Bench Brush Picture and Specifications of FindingKing Table Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Gross (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of FindingKing 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of FindingKing 2011-2016 Figure Bench Brush Production (Unit) and USA Market Share of FindingKing 2011-2016 Table FindingKing Bench Brush SWOT Analysis Table Bench Brush Price by Regions 2011-2016 Table Bench Brush Price by Product Types 2011-2016 Table Bench Brush Price by Companies 2011-2016 Table Bench Brush Gross Margin by Companies 2011-2016 Table Price Comparison of Bench Brush by Regions 2011-2016 (USD/Unit) Table Price of Different Bench Brush Product Types (USD/Unit) Table Market Share of Different Bench Brush Price Level Table Gross Margin of Different Bench Brush Applications Table Marketing Channels Status of Bench Brush Table Traders or Distributors of Bench Brush with Contact Information Table Ex-work Price, Channel Price and End Buyer Price of Bench Brush (USD/Unit) in 2015 Table USA Import, Export, and Trade of Bench Brush (Unit) Figure USA Capacity (Unit), Production (Unit) and Growth Rate of Bench Brush 2016-2021 Figure USA Capacity Utilization Rate of Bench Brush 2016-2021 Table USA Bench Brush Production by Type 2016-2021 (Unit) Table USA Bench Brush Production Market Share by Type 2016-2021 Figure USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Type in 2021 Figure USA Sales (Unit) and Growth Rate of Bench Brush 2016-2021 Figure USA Sales Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate of Bench Brush 2016-2021 Figure USA Sales of Bench Brush by Applications 2016-2021 (Unit) Table USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Applications 2016-2021 Figure USA Production Market Share of Bench Brush by Applications in 2021 Table USA Production, Import, Export and Consumption of Bench Brush 2016-2021 (Unit) Table USA Production (Unit), Price (USD/Unit), Cost (USD/Unit), Revenue (M USD) and Gross Margin of Bench Brush 2016-2021 Table Major Raw Materials Suppliers of Bench Brush with Contact Information Table Manufacturing Equipment Suppliers of Bench Brush with Contact Information Table Major Players of Bench Brush with Contact Information Table Key Consumers of Bench Brush with Contact Information Table Supply Chain Relationship Analysis of Bench Brush Table New Project SWOT Analysis of Bench Brush Table New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis of Bench Brush Table Part of Interviewees Record List Menu 2 Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam.In a piece for today's New York Post, I wrote about how the Oscars seemed completely fixated on the evils of not just racism, but rape. Especially child rape. The Academy Award for Best Film was about child rape (Spotlight), the Best Actress winner starred in a movie about abduction and rape (Room), and Vice President Joe Biden showed up and spoke about campus rape (as if it's more prevalent than off-campus rape, which it's not). Then rape survivors were featured on stage, and Lady Gaga sang about rape for a documentary about rape. And when ABC cut to commercials, often it was to advertise its own new show, The Family, which is about a child kidnapped and held captive for 10 years. Maybe there was no rape involved. Maybe it was just a wholesome stranger abduction. The thing is, since no one is for rape, you have to wonder why the entertainment industry is so invested in showing us how against rape it is. Nancy McDermott, author of the forthcoming book, The Problem with Parenting, turned a lightbulb on for me with this thought: With the #OscarsSoWhite issue hanging over them, “the only way the Academy could get back any moral authority was to fixate on child abuse.” Her analysis reminded me of a wonderful essay by Fred Clark that talked, in part, about the flood of letters to the editor a newspaper received following an article on a kitten burning: Those letters and comments were uniformly and universally opposed to kitten-burning. Opinion on that question was unanimous and vehement. But here was the weird part: Most of the commenters and letter-writers didn’t seem to notice that they were expressing a unanimous and noncontroversial sentiment....[T]hey seemed to think they were exhibiting courage by taking a bold position on a matter of great controversy. When our whole society is at odds about everything else—immigrants, the economy, education—perhaps the one thing we can all agree on (even while congratulating ourselves for being so evolved) is that we hate rape, especially the rape of children. This shared revulsion could be the glue still holding us together. The problem with this particular glue is that we have poured it all over everything, to the point where it sticks to almost every aspect of our lives. It's not just all over the Oscars, and TV, and the news. It's part of our everyday lives. When we consider giving our kids even an ounce of unsupervised time, we can't get the door open because it, too, is glued shut with fear. As I wrote in The Post: When the entire entertainment world starts to look like “Law & Order SVU,” all of us — but especially parents — become terrified. And that has a direct impact on how we raise our kids. As you might have noticed, most kids don’t walk to school anymore. Safe Routes to Schools puts the figure at 13 percent. And most kids don’t play in the park after school either, unless they’re doing organized, supervised sports. The Child and Nature Network says only 6 percent of kids age 9 to 13 are playing outside on their own each week. Of course, technology plays its part in keeping kids inside, but another part of the reason is parental fear. Recent studies of parents’ top five fears found kidnapping was No. 1 and “Stranger Danger” No. 4. Obviously we all want our kids to be safe. Obviously, this is not a pro-rape blog post. It is a post that insists we look at the damage done by fixating on child abduction and rape. Why do people call 911 the second they spot a child outside? Because in everything they watch, see, and hear, an unsupervised child is about to be kidnapped. When we overestimate danger, we are compelled to overprotect kids. The results are empty parks, empty streets, empty playgrounds, and lots more time spent staring at screens.A man points towards a sign outside the venue of the ‘beef festival’ in Aizawl on Monday Hailakandi, June 12: The controversy over the Centre's ban on the sale and purchase of cattle for slaughter in markets has spread to Mizoram, the third state in the Northeast to protest after Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. A social media group - Zolife, which has over 9,000 members on Facebook - organised a "beef festival" in Aizawl today as Union home minister Rajnath Singh arrived in Mizoram's capital to review the security situation along the India-Myanmar border. Nearly 3,000 people, including women, braved incessant rain to participate in the festival, which was organised as a symbolic protest against the Centre's ban under the Prevention of Cruelty Towards Animals Act. A survey by the National Sample Survey Organisation two years ago had revealed that the northeastern states, except Tripura, are among the top beef consumers in India. Twenty-three per cent people in Mizoram eat beef on a regular basis. The beef issue is being taken seriously by various political parties because Assembly elections will be held in Mizoram and Meghalaya next year. The participants at today's beef festival raised slogans against the Centre and its beef ban ordinance. Some of them said beef is one of the traditional food items of the Mizo people. The festival follows another such event organised at Tura in Meghalaya on Saturday. During a news conference in Aizawl this evening, Rajnath Singh said there is no restriction on the food habits of people under the law. State BJP chief J.V. Hluna said there is no problem in eating beef in Mizoram. At today's meeting, Singh asked the four northeastern states that share borders with Myanmar to bring the 240 villages situated within 10km of the porous border under active policing in order to check the movement of militants, drugs and arms. Singh asked the chief ministers of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh to open police stations and police posts near the border to prevent cross-border crimes. Nearly 2.5 lakh people live within the 10km stretch of the India-Myanmar border. "India's border with Myanmar is unique in many ways. It has a visa-free movement regime for the people living within 16km on either side of the border. They can stay upto 72 hours with effective and valid permits issued by the designated authorities....This regime has been in place keeping in view the traditional social relations among the border people. But it is misused by militants and criminals who smuggle weapons, narcotics, contraband goods and fake Indian currency notes. With the fast-improving security situation in this region, militants are denied hideouts here and some of them have relocated across the border. Taking advantage of the free-movement regime, occasionally they enter India, commit crimes and escape to their hideouts," Singh said.Barton Gellman, the crazy good investigative reporter who broke the NSA story for us a few months back, has a major scoop with Greg Miller and researcher Julie Tate breaking down the Black Budget, a $52.6 billion portion of the federal government that goes to the CIA, NSA, and other secret intelligence agencies. They got the budget from Edward Snowden, who, you'll recall, was also the whistleblower responsible for the NSA story. Since 2007, we've known how much the total Black Budget is (before that, with some years excepted, we didn't even know that), but not how much is spent on specific things. Now we know that too. You can read a PDF of the budget's basics here, and read Gellman and Miller's story here. Wilson Andrews and Todd Lindeman at the graphics team did an awesome interactive breaking down the budget here. But if you're in a rush, here are the basics of what we know now that we didn't yesterday. We spend more, across the whole Black Budget, on providing warnings of impending big events than on fighting terrorism or WMDs: The most commonly spoken language in the intelligence community is Spanish, followed by Arabic. Farsi, not so much: The CIA, NSA and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) receive more than 68 percent of the black budget. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Program’s (NGP) budget has grown over 100 percent since 2004. The CIA's our best-funded intelligence-related agency: Though its funding fell in FY2013: The overwhelming majority of CIA spending is on collecting intelligence: National Reconnaissance Office (and other reconnaissance) spending, meanwhile, has been stagnant for a while: And its spending is also mainly on collections: Our cryptography programs have also seen stagnant spending since 2010, after a big jump from 2007 to 2010: Which goes to more diverse functions: The Community Management Account, which is led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, saw funding go way up as the DNI office was phased in, but has seen it fall since 2011: It spends mainly on management activities: As the above shows, each agency has a unique breakdown of expenses that reflect the priorities of its mission: Update: Our awesome colleagues on the graphics team have made their visualizations embeddable, so those are added above, for a total of 13 charts.The US House of Representatives on Friday approved a measure that could result in punitive measures against European companies that boycott Israel. The measure, which was already approved by the U.S. Senate last month, is part of the large bill called the Trade Act of 2015 that is set to arrive at President Barack Obama’s desk in the near future. Under the bill’s Trade Promotion Authority, the president would be granted wide leeway to reach a trade deal with the European Union. Congress would get the chance to vote on the deal, but not on its various provisions. The bill would essentially prevent the U.S. from engaging in free trade with a European trade partner (either the EU itself or a European corporation) so long as it is involved in the boycotting of Israel, potentially barring such entities from submitting bids for government contracts in the U.S. Moreover, a company that is traded in the U.S. stock exchange (or other American capital markets) would need to state whether it has engaged in anti-Israeli activity in Europe. By: Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.orgThe Playstation 4 console’s internals have been ripped apart, and inside reveals several hidden components including a secondary low power processor and 2Gb of DDR3 SDRAM. There has been much speculation that the Playstation 4 does indeed include a secondary processor, but now we’re able to see it in the flesh. The 2Gb of memory (note, this is not gigabytes, but gigabits, which are 8 times smaller. In effect, this means that the PS4 has 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM ram. The secondary processor known as the “SCEI CXD90025G” exact uses aren’t known right now, but we have a few good guesses in mind. The PS4’s secondary processor is a lower power ARM solution, that is likely used in a variety of tasks including background downloading and also downloading / standby type of tasks. It’s also possible that it will be handling DRM (Digital Rights Management) by using the Microsoft Playready DRM (click for the official MS website) solution. There is also some speculation that the extra resources of the PS4’s secondary processor can be used for other things. including the 15 minute gameplay loop (which is possibly 720P and with H.264 compression). It’s also possible that it will be used to reduce access time on the hard disk. Because the Playstation 4 was designed to minimize time for game updates and the resuming of gameplay (if the system is turned off), the secondary processor & memory are likely there to help with saving the current state of your progress to make things much snappier upon your return. Another likely use is that it will help be the systems south bridge. For example, drivers and interactions with the Playstation Network. Of course, the low power ARM core secondary processor of the PS4 and the DDR3 memory aren’t going to provide any additional gameplay benefits – they won’t help process graphics for example. But what they will do is free up resources from the CPU and provide a low energy alternative to the AMD Jaguar SoC which serves as the main processor for Sony’s machine. The Playstation 4’s Jaguar is comprised of two modules of four cores (giving eight CPU cores total), running at 1.6GHZ. The SoC design also includes the systems GPU – a heavily modified AMD Radeon GCN architecture processor. This SoC along with the PS4’s 8GB (notice the upper case B, signifying it’s gigabytes or 8192MB RAM) of GDDR5 are will will take care of running the games. Despite the fact the parts aren’t too power hungry, it’s still going to such up more juice from the socket than what is needed to say update your game in the background. x http://youtu.be/wDgicSBu-As And finally a little pause for thought – Sony’s previous console, the PS3 had 256MB of memory for main system and an additional 256MB for video. Isn’t it kinda crazy how 256MB of memory is now being used in this generations secondary processor? How times change! Credit for the picture of the PS4 internals goes to http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/PlayStation+4+Teardown/19493?Get the biggest politics stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Panicking Labour big beasts have issued a desperate plea to supporters to back Remain in the EU referendum. Deputy Leader Tom Watson admitted two out of five Labour voters did not even know whether the party's official position for June 23 was In our Out. A host of senior frontbenchers pledged to "redouble" efforts to rally supporters in the run-up to the crunch poll. Labour voters are seen as key to the outcome – and the party has been dogged by complaints Jeremy Corbyn is not committed to the campaign. Mr Watson, Shadow Business Secretary Angela Eagle, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Owen Smith and former Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper today urged supporters to vote to stay in the 28-nation bloc. Mr Watson feared the Tory civil war, which he branded a “psycho-drama”, was overshadowing the debate. “The polls seem to say that about 40% of Labour supporters don't yet know our position. That's frustrating for us,” warned Mr Corbyn's No 2. “We are hoping to wedge some space into this campaign so that we can talk about Labour's distinct message.” (Image: Getty) Labour was “about as united as it possibly can be” on Europe, he said, adding that quitting the EU would “be the end” of David Cameron. Shadow Business Secretary Angela Eagle angrily denied the quartet were asking supporters to vote with the Tory Prime Minister and Chancellor leading the fight to Remain, and who they have spent six years attacking. She said: “We're not asking our supporters to vote with David Cameron and George Osborne. (Image: Matt Frost/ITV/REX/Shutterstock) “We're saying to our supporters that the consequences of the UK coming out of Europe would be felt the most in their public services, in their right to work and in their own communities.” Speaking at a press conference in central London, she added: “This isn't a referendum about what the Government is doing. This is a choice about the future direction that our country takes.” The quartet singled out Boris Johnson for criticism, painting him as a figure on the “hard right” of the Tory Party. Six Labour activists wore blond wigs and Boris masks as they handed out copies of a spoof Tory Brexit Budget. The four senior Labour MPs claimed Brexit would see Mr Johnson and fellow Tory Outers Michael Gove and Priti Patel seize control of the Government, paving the way for a fresh assault on welfare and public services to plug a Brexit-created financial black hole. (Image: PA) Welfare spokesman Mr Smith warned they would “go after disabled people and further cuts to in-work support for low-paid workers” as they “double down” on austerity. He said: “Look at who's in charge of the Brexit campaign. These are people who are even more gung-ho about cutting workers' rights and imposing the sort of austerity we have been talking about,” said “You're tempted to say, 'You ain't seen nothing yet'.” Former Labour leader Ed Miliband also waded into the debate, saying in a speech: "We need to stay in the EU not for David Cameron, but for you and your family and to make it possible for us to build the fairer society we believe in." (Image: Getty) Backbencher John Mann r evealed he would vote to Leave, highlighting the pressure high immigration places on Labour heartlands. But MP Khalid Mahmood switched sides and defected from the Leave campaign, pledging his allegiance to Remain.Scott Morgan StopTheDrugWar Via NORML, check out this new data from an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll. Majorities of respondents in the three countries (Britain 56%, Canada 68%, United States 74%) welcome the concept of using alternative penalties—such as fines, probation or community service—rather than prison for non-violent offenders. At least seven-in-ten Britons (70%), Americans (74%) and Canadians (78%) believe personal marijuana use should be dealt with through alternative penalties. …And yet I keep hearing people justifying Obama’s medical marijuana crackdown on the grounds that voters will be impressed by his toughness. How much more evidence do we need that huge majorities support less punitive marijuana policies? It’s time to bury the antiquated, idiotic myth that the public supports tough drug laws. It’s false and it’s been false for a very long time.“Christmas isn’t something we skip. It’s something we endure. As a family.” For whatever reason, American Dad! has taken the opportunity for Christmas episodes to deliver some of the most powerful, poignant chapters from their library. Just like The Simpsons treats their yearly Halloween installments with a certain reverence, American Dad’sholiday episodes have too gained a certain lofty reputation. I still think “Rapture’s Delight” might be the series’ best episode and I know a lot of fans still hold that as the benchmark for Christmas outings moving forward. I was particularly excited for this season’s Christmas episode, however, because the plot involving Santa hunting for ancient, special relics is flat-out bonkers and a great continuation from “For Whom the Sleigh Boll Tolls.” Additionally, it looked like, according to the press image, Minstrel Krampus (aka Grandpa Smith, aka Grampus) would also be returning. “Ninety North, Zero West” does not disappoint. It might not be the series’ finest holiday entry of all time, but it’s certainly the strongest in recent years. It also just happens to be one of the season’s top episodes of so far. (P.S. It’s crazy that we’re already at the seventh episode of the season. Remember when Fox would air new episodes so sporadically that it could be months until we got a handful of new episodes? Tell your grandkids of that dark time.) You can tell that you’re going to be in good hands here when the episode’s opening conversation addresses all of the canonical Big Event Christmas episodes that the show has experienced. The Smiths’ plans this holiday season are even directly related to the chaos that so typically rains down upon them each December. They’re opting to just ignore the holidays this Christmas, going into cryo-sleep until the 26th. They even take it as far as setting up a decoy family in their home to keep the vengeful North Pole dwellers at bay. That is until they realize that Steve is out in the unrelenting hellscape that is Christmas, and they need to find him before they’ve got another disastrous holiday on their hands. It might have been the residual “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” that was getting to me, but having Jim Rash as a disgraced (stretched out) elf named Puddin’ is a piece of casting that I can fully get behind. Networks: your impulse is going to be to get Jim Parsons voicing your elf scamps, but Rash is where it’s at. He’s a perfect addition to help the Smiths track down the child-napping Santa—that is until the episode wonderfully pulls the rug out from under the idea. Instead the rather clever decision is made to consult Krampus and use his Christmas Magic to get to the North Pole. It’s another example of the series using its existing Christmas mythology as a way to solve their problems that’s just too much fun for fans
."in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" and later Motivation and Personality, needs a makeover, say some researchers. Maslow's hierarchy says humans will fulfill basic needs before moving on to higher level ones. If you're unemployed and losing your house because fuzzy 'jobs saved or created' statistics have no real value to you, for example, global warming will not be your biggest concern. food and water and sleep were at the base while philosophical ideas, like remaking Maslow's hierarchy of needs, would be at the top after literally nothing else is left to do. The higher up the pyramid your needs are satisfied, the closer you get to self-actualization. Physiological issues are most important, followed by security, then social, esteem and finally self-actualizing needs. But Maslow's pyramid isn't supported by empirical research, says Steven Neuberg, an Arizona State University evolutionary psychologist and coauthor of a paper that seeks to remake Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - the pyramid - and incorporate much-maligned evolutionary psychology aspects. Credit: University of Tasmania. "Within the psychological sciences, the pyramid was increasingly viewed as quaint and old fashioned, and badly in need of updating," says Neuberg. "It was based on some great ideas, several of which are worth preserving, but it missed out on some very basic facts about human nature, facts which weren't well understood in Maslow's time, but were established by later research and theory at the interface of psychology, biology and anthropology." The new hierarchy of needs, presumably it would not be Maslow any more. Credit: Doug Kenrick, Arizona State University artists and poets are consciously thinking about increasing their reproductive success when they feel the inspiration to paint or write. Like science, artists do it for the chicks. "You could argue that a peacock's display is as beautiful as anything any human artist has ever produced," says Douglas Kenrick, another ASU professor of psychology. "Yet it has a clear biological function – to attract a mate. We suspect that self actualization is also simply an expression of the more evolutionarily fundamental need to reproduce." Humans are apparently baser than we thought and our fundamental driving process is to raise the children we gain by having sex to an age at which they can reproduce as well. So parenting gets the top spot on the revamped pyramid. Douglas T. Kenrick, Vladas Griskevicius, Steven L. Neuberg, Mark Schaller, ' Renovating the Pyramid of Needs Contemporary Extensions Built Upon Ancient Foundations', Perspectives on Psychological Science, Christopher Peterson, Nansook Park, ' What Happened to Self-Actualization? Commentary on Kenrick et al.' (2010) Perspectives on Psychological Science, vol. 5 no. 3 Despite being one of psychology's most memorable concepts and a genuinely good idea, Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, immortalizedIn Maslow's pyramid,So is research important or not? If Maslow's hierarchy was not supported by empirical research, how will hypotheses in evolutionary psychology be better? We'll see. The authors of the new pyramid believe status and mating are fundamental, which is in defiance of... well, everything... and they get rid of self-actualization entirely and replace it with being a good parent.They concede that self-actualization is interesting but, let's face it, if evolutionary psychology is going to get any respect, it has to be at the top. Basically, they remake everything so it is evolutionary psychology. Art, for example, previously an idea near the top of the pyramid, is not just art now but rather a way to get laid. Evolutionary psychologists love their sex. Translation of those new top three: sex.I am not inferring here. They come right out and claim thatThey are helped in that they know just enough biology to be wrong but not enough to know they are wrong.So why isn't sex at the top then?They call these changes architectural extensions but they are a dramatic overthrow - and not grounded in solid theory or data. The commentaries that are included in the same issue don't clobber the whole thing, it's bad for other evolutionary psychologists to say that anyone in a fledgling, controversial field is out of their minds, but rather just argue that self-actualization is not just a quaint artifact of the 1940s but makes more sense than saying everyone on the planet is driven by the need to be parents.For the first time, researchers have shown that using a nanovaccine to deliver cancer immunotherapy can slow tumor growth and prolong survival in mouse models of several types of cancer. Researchers found that the nanovaccine slowed tumor growth and prolonged survival in numerous mouse models of cancer. This image shows how a solution of the nanoparticles scatters laser light. Image credit: UTSW Researchers found that the nanovaccine slowed tumor growth and prolonged survival in numerous mouse models of cancer. This image shows how a solution of the nanoparticles scatters laser light.Image credit: UTSW The team - from the University of Texas Southwestern (UTSW) Medical Center in Dallas - describes the work in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. Immunotherapy is a way of treating disease by getting the body's immune system to fight it. When that disease is cancer, it is "critically important" that the immunotherapy generates immune cells called T cells that can recognize and target tumor cells for elimination. One way to do this is to apply the principle of a vaccine, where antigens - molecules that uniquely identify the target - are delivered to the immune system to prime it to recognize and destroy the disease-causing cells. Co-senior author Jinming Gao, a UTSW professor of pharmacology and otolaryngology, says that various established vaccine approaches - such as using live bacteria as the delivery mechanism - have been used in cancer immunotherapy. However, he notes that these tend to be complex and costly, and they can also result in immune-related side effects. 'Minimalist nanovaccine' takes antigen to lymph nodes The approach that the UTSW researchers have developed - which they describe as a "minimalist nanovaccine" - comprises a simple mixture of a tumor antigen and a synthetic polymer nanoparticle. Nanoparticles are being increasingly used in medicine as they allow scientists to manipulate materials at the level of individual atoms, which is a very useful scale for tackling disease inside cells. A significant advantage of UTSW's nanovaccine approach is that the nanoparticles take the antigen directly to the lymph nodes to help generate primed T cells. Prof. Gao says that conventional vaccines do not do this - they require the immune cells to collect the antigens in a "depot system" first and then transport them to the lymph nodes to prime the T cells. For the vaccine to work, it has to first deliver the antigens into a type of immune cell called an antigen-presenting cell. The antigen-presenting cells process and present the antigens for recognition by the T cells. Nanovaccine delivers antigen and triggers response The process of priming the immune response is not simply a case of delivering the antigen. At the same time, there has to be a signal that also triggers the immune response to use the antigen. The researchers note that their experimental nanovaccine does this by triggering an adaptor protein called STING. Co-senior author Zhijian J. Chen, professor of molecular biology at UTSW, sums up how their nanovaccine performs all the necessary steps: "For nanoparticle vaccines to work, they must deliver antigens to proper cellular compartments within specialized immune cells called antigen-presenting cells and stimulate innate immunity. Our nanovaccine did all of those things." The team tested the nanovaccine on a variety of mouse models of cancer, including colorectal cancer, melanoma, and HPV-associated head, neck, cervix, and anogenital cancers. They note that in nearly all cases, the treatment led to slower tumor growth and prolonged survival. The researchers are now teaming up with UTSW doctors to look at how to use the new nanovaccine in the clinic for a variety of cancers. They believe that it is also possible to increase the anti-tumor effectiveness of the treatment by combining it with other immunotherapies, radiotherapy, and checkpoint inhibitors. "What is unique about our design is the simplicity of the single-polymer composition that can precisely deliver tumor antigens to immune cells while stimulating innate immunity. These actions result in safe and robust production of tumor-specific T cells that kill cancer cells." Prof. Jinming Gao Learn about the recent discovery of thousands of rare cancer-related gene mutations.Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed My Rating: ★★★☆☆ After promising Saladin that I’ll be reviewing the book within a week of its coming out, I stand ashamed that it took me this long to get to it. Probably the reason was that in spite of all the acclaim I had heard heaped on it, I knew in my heart that ‘Throne of the Crescent Moon’ is still an out and out ‘Sword And Sorcery’ fantasy genre novel and I had made a conscious decision to stay away from genre novels. But now that I have just finished reading it, I have to admit that I am reminded of why I love the fantasy genre above all others. It is because authors like Saladin can bring alive characters and situations and bathe them in all the fantastic magic imaginable and still make them all appear so real and so part of our world. The world-weariness of the fat old codger with the big belly, Doctor Adoulla Makhslood and the internal conflicts of the scrawny zealot, Raseed and the other quirks of every character speaks directly to us and the characters come alive in vivid detail, especially since the author takes care to not spare us the coarser details as well. There is a level of perfection in Ahmed’s style and narration that you can feel in every page. A tight, well polished reserve in the choice of words and in the slow construction of the plot. The plot is in reality not of central importance in the book. Ahmed spends more than three-quarters of the book developing his characters, making us inhabiting the heads of various characters as they travel about the city of Dhamsawaat, using these quiet spaces to put in vast details about the inner life of these characters and the outer complexity of the fictional city and its teeming complex life Unfortunately, this strength of the book is also its weakness. The final climax can only be called anti-climactic in its lack of devoted pages as well as the lack of action, not to mention the lack of any real feeling of conclusion. There is no explanation provided for the existence of the evil they are battling or for the reason of its existence. I do not want to go into plot details here, but the fact that this is the first in the series should not be an excuse for so little to happen in the book. The characters are developed and primed for a series and the world-building is detailed and complete but the sense of anticipation or of denouement that would draw one back to a series or make one wait eagerly for the next edition is sadly lacking. But then, as Ahmed makes clear in the last musings of Adoulla, this book was perhaps not intended to be an epic with world-changing climaxes and thundering, sky-splitting battles. Maybe the world-weariness and resignation of Adoulla is also the premise of the book – To remind us that no matter what you achieve, life still goes on with all the challenges still there, undiminished and after the night celebrating your greatest achievement, the next day again dawns and you have to trudge on. If you are a fantasy fan who has been mourning the superficiality that permeates the genre and is on the lookout for a reflective and quiet but rich and satisfying read, this might be worth picking up. Don’t let the religious overtones and the constant allusions to God and the ‘Avenging Angel’ put you off too much, those are just a part of the magic world the characters inhabit and the book is not trying to convey any religious messages. The invocations from the Holy Book etc., serve as spells in Ahmed’s world and all are weapons of God in a drawn out struggle against the forces of evil which might reach an epic conclusion in some future book in the series. In fact, these religious allusions help in adding texture and credibility to the deeply arabic experience that Ahmed is trying to create. This adds to the rich Arabian atmosphere and the originality with which a glorious Muslim kingdom is painted along with the language, the addresses and the mannerisms will all provide for an authentic 12th Century Arabian Nights like experience. For a debut author, Saladin Ahmed shows exceptional mastery of his craft and this book is unlikely to disappoint any serious reader who is looking for a bit more than a few swords slashing and spells misfiring. If nothing else, this book was a tuition class in plot and character development by Ahmed, maybe as a practical example to aid the people he helps through his Novel Critiques ad commentaries. This series and the world that Ahmed has created definitely has the potential to develop into something amazing. The groundwork has been lain in this first book and here is hoping that Saladin Ahmed manages to build a grand castle on it soon. View all my reviews Related articles AdvertisementsThe One Love Peace Concert, held in the outdoor National Stadium in Kingston, the Jamaican capital, was the longest and most political reggae concert ever staged, and one of the most remarkable musical events I have attended. That day in April was a remarkable day for Jamaican reggae and its greatest celebrity, Bob Marley. It started at 5pm, and ended, under a full moon, in the early hours of the following morning with the prime minister Michael Manley and opposition leader Edward Seaga embracing two previously notorious rival gang leaders, Bucky Marshall and Claude Massop. The two political leaders then joined hands with Bob Marley, in an emotional scene that was made all the more bizarre by the billowing marijuana clouds provided by the watching Rastafarians. This was a crucial period in Jamaican politics. The city's ghettos had been torn apart by the gun battles between Marshall and Massop's quasi-political street gangs (Massop supporting Seaga's Jamaica Labour party, and Marshall favouring Manley's ruling People's National party, PNP). Now, the two sides had declared an uneasy truce and the Peace Concert was planned to celebrate the ending of the killings and also the visit to Jamaica exactly 12 years earlier by the Ethiopian leader Haile Selassie, regarded as a deity by the Rastas. This was also the first concert that Bob Marley, Jamaica's international celebrity, had given in his homeland in a year and a half. He had left the country after what appeared to be a politically motivated assassination attempt in December 1976, when unknown gunmen, assumed to be linked to the JLP, fired on him inside his home, wounding the singer in the chest and arm. Opposition groups claimed that Marley supported Manley, because he had agreed to appear at the Smile Jamaica free concert, organised by Manley, which aimed to stop fighting between the warring political street gangs. The Peace Concert had many of the same aims, but very different organisation. This show was put together by the gang leaders Marshall and Massop, who now called themselves a peace committee and said that their aim was to raise money to improve conditions in the Kingston ghettos. The audience was divided into sections marked "togetherness", "love" and "peace" (peace being the most expensive ticket), while the government provided extensive police and military assistance to stop any trouble. There was even a ban on the sale of oranges in the stadium, as they were considered to be potential weapons. Considering the background, the Peace Concert was a remarkably easy-going event. The crowd was informed that Mick Jagger and the foreign press were present, and watching them, and there were constant chants of "peace" from the Rastas. For their part, the politicians and security forces refused to be publicly angered either by outspoken comments by the musicians or the blatant marijuana smoking by the Rastas. If they had reacted, there would have been a riot. The concert was a who's who of Jamaican reggae, including veterans such as Big Youth and the Mighty Diamonds alongside newcomers Althea and Donna. Many of the best songs of the day were the most topical, with the hefty Jacob Miller adding lyrics about Massop to the tune of The Streets of Laredo. He then sang The Peace Treaty is Going On, Hurrrah, to the tune of Johnny Comes Marching Home, lit an enormous joint, jumped down in front of the prime minister, and put on a policeman's helmet. He knew that no one would dare arrest him. Peter Tosh must have upset the prime minister even more with a bitter and personal attack from the stage, in which he accused Manley to his face of not doing enough to help the poor. Now it seemed that there might be a riot, but Tosh moved on to the safer topic of marijuana, with a long version of Legalise It, and the situation was defused. Bob Marley headed the bill, preaching unity and showing why he had become an international star, with a short set that included Trenchtown Rock, Natty Dread and War. He was not singing as well as he had at his memorable London shows at the Lyceum in 1975 or Rainbow in 1977, but was still exhilarating to watch, and it would have been impossible for any other artist to create such a theatrical, emotional finale. He improvised the lyrics to Jamming, demanding "could we have here on stage the presence of Mr Michael Manley and Mr Edward Seaga? I just wanna shake hands and show the people that we're gonna unite". And he did just that, before easing into One Love, as gunmen, opposing political leaders and Rastas embraced. It was an extraordinary, if brief, moment of hope for Kingston; Bob Marley could hardly be blamed for presiding over a Peace Concert that failed to end the violence.- Demonstrate industry response to a simulated coordinated physical and cyber attack that damages the Bulk-Power System and causes widespread outages followed by partial restoration and rotating blackouts lasting weeks or months. Participants will have the opportunity to review and exercise their security and crisis response plans. “The goal of the November 14, 2013, GridEx II Executive Tabletop discussion is to examine policy-level issues and decisions required to manage the impact of a severe emergency event. The objectives of the Executive Tabletop are to: According to their own documents, “ GridEx 2013 is a North American Wide Distributed Play Exercise” The first exercise was performed in November 2011. These dates also coincide with another first time ever joint humanitarian/disaster relief exercise with the U.S. Army and the Communist Peoples Republic of China Army. This exercise will involve actual boots on the ground disaster relief exercises in Hawaii. U.S. Army Pacific said the two countries will practice providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to a fictional third country during the Nov. 12-14 exercise. By now, it is assumed that most Americans know there is a security exercise to be performed on the power grid and will take place this week called GridEx II / GridSecCon. This exercise involves the cooperation of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Simulations of physical and cyber attacks on the power grid could occur during this exercise. The most important article you will read about GridEx II. How far will they go with national preparedness to predict the next catastrophe scenario… for our safety? The GridEx II Executive Tabletop will simulate a severe emergency caused by a high-impact, low frequency (HILF) event aka a successful coordinated physical and cyber attack. This will prompt the need for timely policy-level decisions, which includes: These 10 facilitators will provide the injects, moderate the discussions, and industry response for the two days of training. An additional 10 assistant secretary level players of government agencies will also participate including DOE, DHS, DOD, FEMA, FBI, and others. These players are selected by the Government Coordinating Council. There are approximately 10 CEO’s from the industry including: electricity industry executives, e.g., chief executive officers, general managers, or chief operating officers. All participants will be selected by the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC). Lead Planners (LP) will determine and notify independent employees aka players and will need to participate in the GridEx II exercise. They will also assign the internal controllers and evaluators to conduct the drills. Lead Planner will also be responsible for periodically calling the SPP Conference Bridge to report the organization’s responses to the exercise. The GridEx II Communications paths are shown below. As you can see, it illustrates the major communications pathway which will take place during the exercise involving the NERC crisis action teams. There are a number of organizations participating nationwide in the GridEx II power grid drill. The following map shows the toal registered organizations to participate. It is unclear whether this list is the most up-to-date. Approximately, 49+ other organizations will monitor and respond and only exercise the scenarios which are internal. They will gather the personnel and act as an internal table top for the exercise. 102 Full Player Organizations are involved. According to the documentation, each participant/organization will be assigned a Lead Planner (LP) who will have a role in shaping the scenario and or event. Full players have participated in the planning conferences, will respond to all exercise activities, and copy or report their responses to NERC and BAH aka Booz Allen Hamilton (yes, the same group that Edward Snowden worked for…). Once the GridEx II exercises are performed, an Executive Table Top will examine the policy-level decisions between the industry and government, which is required to manage the impacts of a severe emergency to Bulk Power System reliability. What input will the government have regarding the electricity industry’s restoration priorities to customers, particularly other critical infrastructures, and how might these change through a prolonged outage? What input will the government have regarding the electricity industry’s restoration priorities to customers, particularly other critical infrastructures, and how might these change through a prolonged outage? Will the site of a suspected terrorist attack be treated as a crime scene and how might this affect the industry’s ability to restore the electricity service? Will the site of a suspected terrorist attack be treated as a crime scene and how might this affect the industry’s ability to restore the electricity service? How will initial situation assessments be made and how will they be shared with industry executives and senior government officials? How will initial situation assessments be made and how will they be shared with industry executives and senior government officials? GridSecCon – ExCon (Exercise Control) - Herndon, VA The GridEx II Task Force There will be regional plays. An example would be Southwest Power Pool (SPP) GridEx II Task Force. During the exercise, SPP will have open conference calls during the exercise to catch similarities in SPP members responses and to find ways to integrate and coordinate regional responses for next time. (Predictive Programming for the next exercise?) Map via Wikipedia CONCLUSION Across the internet, media of all types have been ramping up the concerns for the GridEx II 2013 Power Grid attack exercise. There are also rumors floating around as to the real reasoning behind the drill. Researchers across the internet, forums, and blogs have speculated the exercise is to get ready for preperations for a major power grid failure. This failure could be caused by a natural or man-made catastrophe, cyber attack, Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMT), or false-flag event. These speculations range from EMT’s and Comet ISON coming, terrorist attacks on American infrastructure, and war. Other reasons have been speculated but those listed above are by far the most common. DHS, the CIA, FEMA, and others have endlessly instilled fear into the Americans the terrorist bad guys are coming and ‘could’ destroy the power grid, which would cripple the infrastructure. Fear sets in when one thinks about this possible scenario, which would leave many Americans without food, water, and power. The fear tactics left behind resemble the usual 101 business class of the problem-reaction-solution model scenarios… a never ending cycle of ‘Get Ready’ the bad guys are coming and the ‘OMG, we must be afraid and prepare for the never ending unknown Act of God’ program… Even former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned “a major cyber attack is looming” as reported by Reuters earlier this year. Napolitano also said, “A cyber 9/11" could happen "imminently" and that critical infrastructure - including water, electricity and gas - was very vulnerable to such a strike. "We shouldn't wait until there is a 9/11 in the cyber world. There are things we can and should be doing right now that, if not prevent, would mitigate the extent of damage," said Napolitano, speaking at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington and referring to the September 11, 2001, attacks.” As you can see, these agencies and others cannot survive without some sort of ‘threat’ coming in the near future. Every since 9/11, it appears everything in government literature has to do with some sort of threat and a way to practive neutralizing the threat. Whetherit is the worst flu season ever, worst storms ever, terrorist attacks, cyber attacks, the lone gunman on the loose, the threat of earthquakes, comets or asteroids coming, the inevitable doomsday scenario plays out in these disaster preparing and authoritarian agencies which seem to mysteriously coincide with Hollywood doomsday movies and many disaster preparedness articles, publications, and expanding polices and procedures. This GridEx II is obviously a two-fold drill. It serves the purpose of preparedness in case of a cyber attack on the infrastructure, but it also has a downfall which is the dollar amount spent in these types of exercises. It is appearant these drills are just to keep these governmental agencies and contractors in business! That is what all these practive drills have become – a business… What if I told you that in order for these participants to continue doing business, the government has made it mandatory regulations include ‘disaster preparedness’ manuals and policies and procedures in order to keep their license to do business? What if I told you these agencies have to continue their regurgitation of fear and predictive catastrophe programming in order to make their fiscal paychecks? What if I told you these national preparedness drills, whether they are the active-shooters, the cyber attack terrorists, the new strain of deadly flu scenario, the next shake-down earthquake, the next economic collapse, the next artificial police chase, the next typhoon, or next power grid failure are all set-up for your entertainment to keep the public/private employees in these fields up-to-date on their national preparedness scorecards so they can renew their industry practitioner’s license… go ahead and think about it… Is this really just about money, control, and power? It appears the federal government is now in a position that dictates to the states, corporations, and individuals who needs to participate in these ‘doomsday’ scenario disaster preparednes drills in order to be worthy of renewing their industry license… Interestingly enough… we must present the concept of the ‘super-soldier’ when debating this reasoning for predictive catastrophe planning and disaster preparedness training. It is just that… training. These agencies have to have some sort of new ‘threat’ in order to carry out their war games or problem-reaction-solution scenarios. Military and militarized humanitarian organizations have cashed in on these disaster planning and doomsday war game scenarios so the new and improved ‘super-solders’ can continually feed the need to be praised by authoritarians and feel as though they are compassionate and life saving heroes… Is this an example of Obama's new Citizen Army of nationally prepared worker bees? It never ends, and now, it is a specialized degree. Without disaster preparedness and super-solder hero training aka EMS training… how will these people majoring in these fields across campuses ever survive? As long as there is a ‘predictive threat’ there will be the need to employ those that can diffuse it. Every police officer, sheriff, deputy, EMS worker, fire fighter, medical staff worker, city worker, and others at one point or another will have to prepare for the inevitable disaster preparedness exercise. It is all about identifying, reacting and defusing the threat… Special Medical Operations. This is to appease the insurance companies and non-profits to lower the cost of doing business. We must have plastic playgrounds at school so the children have fewer injuries. We must have gun free zones to give the Victim Right's players the illusion you will be safe from the lone gunman. We must have disaster preparedness training so we can monitor, evaluate, find the means, ratios, and percentages to predict the next perceived threat… Are you seeing the bigger picture yet? Someone needs to ask the hard questions. Are you ready to fall away from the fake paradigm we must live every day of our lives with the predictive programming of a new ‘threat’ coming? Does it not seem to you these 'perceived' threats are never ending? Always moved back to the next month...etc? Where is this money coming from to keep these disaster preparedness training plans in business? From the American Taxpayer? Why is the IRS a d v i s i n g of a Power Outage Ahead of Grid Ex Electricity Drill: “This service will be unavailable”?? Take for example the US Army/China disaster preparedness humanitarian drill taking place in Hawaii at the same time as the GridEx II exercise this week. According to numerous reports, the biggest ever typhoon has just struck the Philippines. Over 10,000 people are predicted to be dead as of today? If this is really the case then why is China still parked in Hawaii? If they are really here on American soil, with boots on the ground for a humanitarian exercise, then should they reschedule the 'drill' and go do the ‘real-deal’ in the Philippines…? As you ponder those questions… Other drills within a month time frame resemble the same characteristics… Are we going to lose power? I guess that depends on the problem, reaction, solution... Yes? 08NOV2013: Communist Peoples Republic of China Army wandering about Hawaii Nov 12th 07NOV2013: Salvation Army and Military to Conduct WMD Joint Disaster Exercise 06NOV2013: More Concerns as Military Destroys Parks with Drills in NM 06NOV2013: Emergency response exercises held across Maine 04Nov2013: Police profiling specific cars for searches in GA 04Nov2013: Foreign SWATS and 35 other teams joined to play shoot-em-up for our safety 31OCT2013: US Army and China disaster relief exercise in Hawaii same time as GridEx II / GridSecCon 21OCT2013: Alert: FBI Investigating Threats to Midwest Water Supply Systems: “On High Alert” 21OCT2013: Active shooter exercises prepare Academy Airmen, cadets for potential threats 17OCT2013: ARIZONA – WEAPONS TACTICAL SIMULATION TRAINING W/ACTORS 17OCT2013: MD Military Drill- Gunfire and Explosions alarm Bowie residents 10OCT2013: FS-ISAC CAPP Exercise for Financial Institutions 08OCT2013: US Cyber Command’s Plan X: Pentagon Launching Covert Cyber Attacks 07OCT2013: Operation Urban Shield 2013 – Oct 25-28th Plus... China here before? Dropping off Troops? 08SEPT2013: US-Chinese Joint Military Exercises to begin at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii -------------------------------------- *this article was updated and corrections were made since the original posting. Sources http://thegovernmentrag.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/us-canada-mexico-emergency- drill-in-nov-to-simulate-physical-and-cyberattacks-on-power-grid/ http://thegovernmentrag.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/communist-peoples-republic-of- china-army-wandering-about-hawaii-nov-12th/ http://www.nerc.com/files/NERC_GridEx_AAR_16Mar2012_Final.pdf http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/UnitedStatesPowerGrid.jpg http://www.spp.org/publications/Chris%20-%20GridEx%20update%20for%20SPP%20Conf.pdf http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/24/us-usa-cyber-threat-idUSBRE90N1A320130124 http://www.infowars.com/government-to-run-cyberattack-drill-in-november/ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-typhoon-philippines-20131110,0,3220526.story http://www.thedailysheeple.com/irs-advises-of-power-outage-ahead-of-grid-ex-electricity-Pep Guardiola said he was telling Nathan Redmond he was "a good player" and he had "to attack" Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola will face no Football Association action over his heated post-match discussion with Southampton's Nathan Redmond. Guardiola approached the Saints winger after Raheem Sterling had scored a late winner for the Premier League leaders at Etihad Stadium on 29 November. The FA accepted the Spaniard's explanation of the incident but reminded him of his responsibilities. Redmond, 23, has said Guardiola was "very complimentary" towards him. The Spaniard appeared to shout and wave his arms, while Redmond covered his mouth and seemed to respond. "He commented on my qualities as a young English player and how he wanted me to attack his team more during the game in a similar way to last season," Redmond later said. "I told him I was doing what my manager had asked me to do in the game. That's it." Former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss Guardiola said on Friday: "I cannot control myself. I have to do that, hopefully I can improve."Keg King Inline Regulator via William’s Brewing. About: “This in line regulator features 1/4″ hose barbs, and can be adjusted with a flat head screwdriver. It can reduce incoming pressure from 150 PSI to 1 PSI. It is very handy to use when you want to use a single output C02 regulator in a draft system, but supply different kegs with different dispensing pressures. 4.75″ long with included brass hose barbs installed.” This is basically an inline secondary regulator. You still need a primary regulator attached to your CO2 tank. The idea is, you set the primary to the highest pressure you will use (without exceeding specifications of any component of your system) and then use these regulators inline (one per line) to fine tune pressure and carbonation [See: Balancing Your Draft System]. As an example, you could set your primary to 25 PSI for faster force carbonation and set each line to a different pressure based on desired carbonation level. As of this posting, these are selling for just $8.99. Check site for current price and availability. IN LINE REGULATOR The inline regulator is adjusted by a screwdriver and does not have pressure markings or a gauge. You could use something like this inline gauge, manually check pressures with something like this keg pressure tester, rig up something with a t-fitting or (my least favorite) use trial and error. Also: Hands on Review: William’s Brewing Inline CO2 Regulator Also: Kegerator Tips & Gear \| Keg Repair Part #s \| Recent Keg FindsDiane Haithman is a Deadline contributor. As previously announced, Syfy’s Warehouse 13 will return April 29 in a new 10 PM time slot behind Syfy’s drama Defiance. After today’s NBC Press Day panel on the show, Syfy SVP Original Programming Erik Storey told Deadline that he hopes the new time slot will “expose Warehouse 13 to potential new audiences” and hopes that the series “will benefit from cross pollination.” Following up on a question asked during the panel — featuring executive producer/showrunner Jack Kenny and stars Joanne Kelly and Eddie McClintock — Storey said he could not confirm details about whether a new season of 22 episodes will air consecutively until the show is picked up for the fifth season. He said the show is returning with the back 10 episodes of Season 4 (“We call it Season 4.5”) that are already in the can. The executive could not give a potential renewal date but said the series would get the word about Season 5 in “spring or summer.” Showrunner Kenny said: “The writers are breaking stories for Season 5, hoping for another 15. It’s development. You know how that goes”.Dolkun Isa was on his way to speak at Italy’s Senate late last month when he was stopped by the police and detained for a number of hours. Isa is considered a terrorist by Beijing but in 2006 he was given German citizenship. Today, he is the General Secretary of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), an advocacy group that, it says, represents “the collective interest of the Uyghur people,” many of whom demand independence from China. Isa’s detention led to heated speeches in the Italian parliament and suggestions by advocacy groups that China is now pressuring European Union nations to silence Uyghur activists, some of whom live in Europe in exile. “We have even seen in recent years, Uyghur asylum seekers forced back to China by European states against their will, which certainly does indicate that the Chinese government holds tremendous power [over European governments] in this respect,” said Peter Irwin, project manager of the WUC. Not Separate Or Equal Faruh Dilshat was deported to China by Sweden in November 2011. Two months later, Stockholm also returned Adile Omer. Muhtar Tiliwald was deported from Germany in 2006 and went missing in China shortly after arriving, WUC reports. Burhan Zunun took his own life to avoid such a fate. He was denied asylum by Germany and then Norway. In December 2005 he was detained by the Danish authorities and, fearing deportation, he committed suicide. This indicates “the fear that many have when they are returned against their will,” Irwin said. The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group who predominately practice Sunni Islam. More than 10 million are thought to live in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a large autonomously run area of northwestern China. For decades many have clashed against the central government and a Uyghur independence movement has grown. But it is helplessly divided and groups clash over the role of religion and violence. The Turkistan Islamic Party calls for jihad and sent members to fight for ISIS; others, like the exiled WUC, promote non-violent, pro-democracy and pluralist methods. Beijing’s Not-So-Hidden Hand In April, Isa was also barred from attending a summit on indigenous issues at UN headquarters in New York, Human
woman, only identified as Soopika P, died from her injuries early on Saturday morning after she was attacked in the early hours in the German town of Ahaus, close to the border with the Netherlands in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Police were called when neighbours heard the woman’s cries for help shortly after midnight and eyewitnesses saw a man leaning over the woman on the ground. However the emergency services could not save the woman who had been stabbed several times and she died later in hospital. Chief Prosecutor Martin Botzenhardt said: "She died shortly thereafter in the hospital. The background to the crime is still unclear. "A large number of stab wounds were found in the upper body and neck. The considerable blood loss inevitably led to the death of the young woman." Local media reports said woman had been stabbed in the head multiple times. CEN/Facebook Soopika P, who was stabbed to death in Ahaus Soopika, who had moved to Germany from Sri Lanka with her family, had lived in Ahaus for a number of years and had wanted to work with children after having had experience working in youth welfare. According to reports, she was very popular, had many friends and loved playing keyboard and violin in her spare time. Police chief Herbert Mengelkamp who is investigating the attack said that a Nigerian man was suspected of having carried out the killing. Germany on Fire: Five injured in fire at home for asylum seekers Mon, February 6, 2017 At least five people were injured in a fire that broke out in a flat on the first floor of an asylum seekers accommodation in Bad Homburg, Germany. Firefighters were able to rescue trapped residents, one man had apparently already jumped from a window. Play slideshow EPA 1 of 10 Firefighters try to extinguish the flames during a fire at an asylum seekers accomodation in Bad Homburg, GermanyHARRISBURG � As he has done during each budget address since taking office, Gov. Tom Corbett this year praised the Marcellus Shale gas industry as the linchpin of his economic and jobs policies. Pennsylvania, he told the Legislature on Feb. 4, has become the nation's second largest producer of natural gas with the help of an impact fee that was placed on "fracking" wells in 2012. "And we were smart enough to welcome that industry, and all those jobs, by working together with local governments, industry and environmental organizations to craft a responsible impact fee that by April will have generated more than $600 million in less than three years," Corbett added. But that impact fee, which came when the Legislature passed Act 13 in 2012, doesn't generate the kind of revenue a severance tax would. A third of the collected fee, about $200 million, is expected to be distributed to counties and municipalities in the next two months. However, that is less than half the amount the state would have collected in revenue this fiscal year had the Legislature adopted a 5 percent severance tax on extracted gas as West Virginia has. The record high 3.1 trillion cubic feet of gas uncorked from Pennsylvania's 4,904 wells in 2013 would have generated about $425 million for the 2013-14 budget if the Legislature had copied West Virginia's gas policies, The Morning Call found after analyzing records of the state Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That's because severance tax revenue fluctuates with production, meaning the more gas that's extracted, the more money that goes to the state. "These are astronomical numbers," said state Sen. John Yudichak, a Luzerne County Democrat, minority chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. "They show how Act 13 and the governor's impact fee has shortchanged Pennsylvania and will cost taxpayers in the long run." There is new interest in the Legislature to drop the impact fee for a higher severance tax, a move supported by many of the eight Democratic gubernatorial candidates. The governor believes the impact fee works best because it strikes a balance, said Patrick Henderson, Corbett's deputy chief of staff and energy executive. It makes companies pay for the right to operate without being overburdened, he said. Local and county governments also have grown accustomed to receiving the tax in two annual payments, he said. "We wanted to find a medium where you raise revenue to compensate local impacts and costs that are there for municipal county governments, but avoid that tipping point where you send a signal where we discourage you from coming to Pennsylvania," Henderson said. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a gas industry trade group in Pittsburgh, did not return calls for comment. Range Resources, a Texas corporation that pioneered fracking and has the most wells in Pennsylvania, apparently sees the value in the low tax rate here. "Targeted drilling in the Marcellus Shale play in Pennsylvania drove our production growth," the company stated in its 2012 Securities & Exchange report. "Most energy analysts consider the Marcellus wet and super-rich area in southwest Pennsylvania to be some of the most economical gas plays in the U.S., and Range holds a dominant position in each of these areas." Boom years Pennsylvania's shale gas output is far higher than West Virginia's. About 531 billion cubic feet of shale gas was extracted from 1,091 wells in 2013, according to the latest data from the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey. The Marcellus Shale formation does not observe state boundaries but gas companies do, said Calvin Kent, a Marshall University accounting professor who has studied states' shale taxation polices. Companies are tapping Pennsylvania's mineral rights because of the lower tax burden as evidenced by the number of wells on the West Virginia border in Greene County, he said. But that does not mean Pennsylvania has made the right economic decision, he said. "It seems to me the state of Pennsylvania is just overlooking an incredibly lucrative source of revenue," Kent said. If a 5 percent severance tax had been in place when drilling began in 2004, Pennsylvania would have generated $841 million in revenue by this spring, The Morning Call analysis found. West Virginia's severance gas tax revenue is tied to the prior year's well production and the nation's annual average price of natural gas per 1,000 cubic feet. All but a few of the roughly 17 states that have shale drilling charge a severance tax. Some are higher or lower than West Virginia's, which is close to the national average. By tying the tax to production, states capture more revenue quickly. When shale gas is tapped in a horizontal drilling process known as fracking, it shoots out of the well like champagne in a shaken bottle and then tapers off. So most of the extracted gas occurs in the first months before production settles down. Pennsylvania's impact fee does not take advantage of that high production period. It's a 15-year fee companies pay whenever they break ground on a well, regardless of whether that well is producing gas. The fee has a sliding scale that is tied loosely to the price of natural gas in a given year. That sliding scale allows drillers to pay more in the first years and less at the back end but does not take into account how much gas is extracted. In addition to its severance tax, West Virginia charges drillers a 4.7 cent fee for every cubic foot of gas extracted. The Morning Call did not count that as part of its calculation. Pennsylvania's fee structure equates to an effective tax rate on the gas industry of 1.3 percent, which is one of the lowest in the nation, according to an August 2013 report by Headwaters Economics, an independent research group in Bozeman, Mont. With natural gas deposits trapped in the Marcellus and Utica shales that lie below roughly half the state, gas production is not expected to slow. More wells are expected to come online. And Corbett wants to open the door even more with a proposal to allow companies to use fracking to extract gas beneath state parks and forests to generate $75 million in lease payments for the state. Environmental groups oppose fracking in general and Corbett's new plan for the parks and forests because the fracking process cuts through shale with chemicals that can pollute wells and waterways. If drilling is here to stay in Pennsylvania, a severance tax is a far better solution to a revenue shortfall than Corbett's parks and forest plan, said Adam Garber, spokesman for PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center, an advocacy organization in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. It would bring in more revenue without further hurting the environment, he said. "The severance taxes are a good solution to a bad situation," Garber said. Corbett's plan to allow drilling in parks and forests would not have any additional impact on the environment, Henderson said. Companies would be able to drill from existing wells pads on private land adjacent to parks. Missed opportunities In 2003, one year into Gov. Ed Rendell's first term, there were no horizontal wells in Pennsylvania, DEP records show. The next year there were 14, DEP records show. By 2010, 849 wells were producing more than 307 billion cubic feet of gas. But energy companies paid no taxes on that gas. Rendell, a Democrat, see-sawed between his support and opposition to a severance tax. In 2008 and 2010, he allowed drilling in state forests. It was not until the Great Recession ravaged state finances that Rendell pushed hard for a severance tax. In the final fiscal year of his term, Rendell wanted a tax and fee structure similar to West Virginia's. Democrats, who controlled the House in 2010, passed a bill with a higher tax rate than Rendell had proposed. The Republican-controlled Senate passed a lower tax bill. During the debate, gas companies advocated for a 5 percent tax rate, which included deductions that would have reduced their payments, said Michael Wood, research director at the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center in Harrisburg, which advocates for taxation that raises sufficient revenue for quality public services. Then the legislative clock ran out and no gas tax bill was passed. Corbett, who in 2010 pledged not to raise taxes, took office in January 2011. Senate President Joe Scarnati, a Jefferson County Republican, came up with the impact fee that Corbett used to keep his promise, said Scarnati's chief of staff Drew Crompton. "In some ways it's like a tax and in some ways it's not," Crompton said. Gas companies won, Wood said. The companies got a lower tax than what even the companies themselves had proposed, he said. "Funny how things work out," Wood said. The impact fee remains much lower than severance taxes in Wyoming, New Mexico and Texas. But it's higher than Ohio's severance tax, according to a report by Resources for the Future, an environmental policy group. When the impact fee went into effect in 2012, it retroactively captured revenue that was not realized under the Rendell administration. That allowed the fee to generate $204 million by spring 2012. That first year, the fee generated 34 percent more revenue than what a West Virginia tax would have garnered based on Pennsylvania's 2011 production levels of 631 cubic feet of gas. But as gas production increased, the fee lost value. About $202 million in impact fees was distributed in spring 2013. That's about $28 million, or 14 percent. less than West Virginia's tax would have raised on the 1.6 trillion cubic feet of gas fracked in Pennsylvania in 2012. The amount of unrealized revenue exploded with 2013's record-breaking production. With so much potential revenue lost and with a gubernatorial election in November, the debate over a severance tax � not to mention the environmental and political issues surrounding gas drilling � is heating up again in Harrisburg. In December, the state Supreme Court struck down the main component of Act 13: statewide zoning laws for drilling. The decision, which the court upheld Friday, ruled the law violated municipal zoning rights and the state constitutional guarantee giving citizens the right to a clean environment. As part of its ruling, the Supreme Court sent the case back to Commonwealth Court to decide if the impact fee and other elements of Act 13 must be tossed out. With that court ruling in the wings, lawmakers are crafting severance tax bills. Yudichak is working with soon-to-retire Sen. Ted Erickson, a Delaware County Republican, on a bill proposing a 4 percent severance tax. In the House, Republican Reps. Gene DiGirolamo of Bucks County and Thomas Murt of Montgomery County, are proposing a 4.9 percent tax. The severance tax debate also is a hot topic in this year's gubernatorial election. At least five of the Democratic candidates propose tax rates similar to West Virginia's. It's not fair to compare the state's impact fee to severance taxes in other states, Henderson said. Other states do not have the high corporate tax structure of Pennsylvania, which charges companies the highest corporate net income tax in the country and also levies a separate capital stock franchise tax on companies' physical assets. "Our view is someone has to bear in mind other taxes," he said. But, the amount of money the state is collecting in business taxes is dropping due in part to the $1.2 billion in business tax cuts Corbett and the Legislature have adopted since 2011-12. The amount of tax money � including corporate net-income, capital stock and other business taxes � the state has collected from gas industry companies dropped 40 percent between 2011 and 2013 to about $265 million, state Revenue Department records show. One reason for the decrease is that corporate net-income tax is paid only by companies that incorporate as a "corporation." Companies registered as a limited liability or subsidiary pay the smaller personal income tax. In 2008, the Revenue Department identified 317 corporations in the shale gas industry. Five years later, there were 240 corporations. During that same time, the number of gas-related companies paying the personal income tax in Pennsylvania rose by more than a quarter to 792. It's not clear from Revenue Department records whether those companies changed corporate status to secure a lower tax because names are not included in the report. Steve Esack:�717-783-7305717-783-7305; email: sesack@mcall.com; Twitter: @sesack. Call Send SMS Add to Skype You'll need Skype CreditFree via Skype[screenshot from video here] It almost unfathomable, considering the many many shows we’ve attended over the last decade, that we had not previously crossed paths with Kevin Devine. His abundant vocal and songwriting talents, and the picture perfect nature of his intelligent indie-pop records are exactly what we look for in a performer. So when we finally got the chance to catch Kevin at Maxwell’s on Saturday, the entire show felt completely natural. And when we met and chatted with Kevin after the show, he seemed like a kindred spirit. The songs themselves make it obvious that we are listening to a writer with vision, emotion and fortitude — dealing with life’s difficulties while persistently finding the beauty in it all. On Saturday, Kevin performed solo acoustic and while surrounded by diehard fans in an intimate venue, and delivered a powerful set that included much of his new album Between the Concrete & Clouds (Razor & Tie), but also dug deep into his catalog including classics “Cotton Crush”, “Tap Dance” and “Ballgame” (streaming below). Kevin even included a song from his old band Miracle of ’86 (“Knife”), and two new songs. Kevin Devine will be touring Europe in February, and will be back in the US for some Midwest dates in March, but promised some East coast dates in the Spring. Stream “Ballgame”: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Direct download of complete show in MP3 files (HERE) Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE]. Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request. Kevin Devine 2012-01-07 Maxwell’s Hoboken, NJ USA Digital Master Recording Soundboard + Audience Matrix Soundboard + Neumann KM-150s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, set fades, downsample) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and Tagging via Foobar) Recorded and Produced by nyctaper 2012-01-08 Setlist: [Total Time 1:26:30] 01 [intro] 02 Petite Mort 03 Tap Dance 04 Off Screen 05 Afterparty 06 Brooklyn Boy 07 Time To Burn 08 [banter – Maxwells] 09 Knife 10 [banter – dream] 11 Awake in the Dirt 12 A Story A Sneak 13 Noose Dressed Like a Necklace 14 [banter – I know how its gonna go] 15 Tomorrows Just Too Late 16 Carnival 17 No Sides 18 [banter – encore] 19 Country Sky Glow 20 Cotton Crush 21 Ballgame 22 [crowd – teases] 23 I Used To Be Someone 24 Between the Concrete and Clouds 25 [banter – thanks] 26 Brother’s Blood If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Kevin Devine, visit his website, and purchase Between the Concrete and Clouds from Razor and Tie Records [HERE].MORRIS PARK — Former “30 Rock” star Grizz Chapman, who played Tracy Morgan's tender-hearted bodyguard on the Emmy-winning show, wants to turn his real-life experiences as the part-owner of a Bronx comic book store into a TV sitcom. Chapman came up with the idea after becoming part-owner of The Lair, a small comic book and collectibles shop at 1808 Colden Ave. about two years ago. “One day, I was there. I was just hanging out and this particular day we had a lot of laughs,” he said. “All the kooky characters that come through the store are going to be involved.” Chapman became involved in the shop through his longtime friend Jorge Rodriguez, who opened it in 2005. The actor and self-proclaimed nerd is still honing the script. "I’m pitching it mainstream, and if it doesn’t work mainstream then I’ll backtrack and go to the Internet," he said. He compared his show to the hit CBS sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," only with a broader perspective on what comic book fans look like. "I want to show there’s an edgier side of people who love comic books," he said. "And there are people who don’t look like you and me who do read comic books and who love artists." Laura Gómez, who plays Blanca Flores in "Orange is the New Black," has also signed on to the project. Although Rodriguez, who will consult on the show but is trying not to get his hopes up about it getting picked up, said he is excited and flattered that his store inspired Chapman. "It’s an opportunity for a small business like mine to be recognized," he said, "So it’s an honor to be the inspiration for something that big." Despite the troubles facing bookstores nationwide — including the recent near closing of the Barnes & Noble in Co-op City — Rodriguez said business at his store continues to be strong, to the point where he is looking to grow. "There is a plan to expand," he said. "Hopefully, in a year, we'll be a multi-floor store." Inside the business are rows and boxes of comic books ranging from "The Avengers" to "Archie Meets KISS." Figurines of Superman hang from the ceiling and a giant version of Batman from "The Lego Movie" stands on a counter in the corner. Chapman, who goes to The Lair about twice a week, said the store offered a welcoming environment and was a fun place to just come chat about books or movies. "It's a place where you can come and talk to a bunch of people that are like-minded," he said. Although comic books have traditionally been thought of as part of nerd culture, Chapman maintained that this was not a bad connection. "Being a nerd is not always a bad thing," he said. "It’s actually cool to be a nerd. I’m the biggest nerd you know. I’m a nerd, I’m a techie and I don’t have a problem with saying it."Wright State University’s finances look better than projected, but the school has already fell behind its goal of boosting reserves in the upcoming year despite more than $30 million in cuts. Wright State ended fiscal year 2017 with about $41 million in reserves when administrators projected the total would only be $31 million. The unexpected increase is mostly due to austerity measures that included eliminating overnight travel and catering, among other things. The school’s board of trustees were told Tuesday the school has already started to fall behind on its goal of boosting reserves by another $6 million in fiscal year 2018. Just two years ago, Wright State maintained reserves close to $100 million. EXCLUSIVE: WSU president talks plans for first school year on campus Along with austerity measures, Wright State slashed $30.8 million in June from its fiscal year 2018 budget to begin correcting years of overspending. “We made savings both on budgeted salaries, benefits and then on spending,” provost Tom Sudkamp said. “That really did make a significant payoff to end the fiscal year.” The $10 million in added reserves was accomplished even as revenue from Wright State’s summer classes came in around $2 million less than last year, said Jeff Ulliman, vice president of business and finance. WSU administrators have predicted since June that the school would almost certainly enter state fiscal watch within the next two years. The state measures the financial health of each public college and every institution that falls below a state threshold two years in a row is placed on fiscal watch. Although Wright State is still expected to fall below that threshold this year, Ulliman said there’s a slight chance that the extra $10 million may keep Wright State from falling below it again next year and onto fiscal watch. In fiscal watch, the state will take over the financial control of the university. RELATED: Wright State named one of ‘Best Midwestern’ colleges by review The $10 million in unexpected savings came as Wright State’s board of trustees met for a special session on Tuesday. It marked president Cheryl Schrader’s first meeting and one in which she was presented with financial and legal issues that WSU faced long before she arrived in July. “We cannot and will not overspend the FY 18 budget and we must work diligently together to be in the best possible financial position by year end,” Schrader said. “The trials of the past few years really is a stark wake-up call to the institution.” The new way of financial management at Wright State should not be seen as a temporary detour of how things have been handled in the past, said board chairman Doug Fecher. The budget cuts implemented in June were not a long term solution for Wright State but an “emergency tourniquet to slow the financial bleeding,” Fecher said. Both Fecher and Schrader have repeatedly called for more to be done to stabilize the university’s finances. In fact, more needs to be done for Wright State to boost its reserves by the $6 million mandated by the board of trustees this year. The school is on track to fall about $2.3 million short of that goal. The shortfall was caused by some of the university’s departments having “late information” that wasn’t factored into the budget approved by trustees in June. RELATED: As president, Schrader wants to be Wright State’s ‘warrior’ In an attempt to correct that shortfall, Wright State’s strategic hiring committee will review every vacant position to see if its is a priority, Sudkamp said. The university could save around $11 million in attrition every year, Sudkamp said, so filling the $2.3 million gap should be relatively easy. Wright State trustees on Tuesday also agreed to waive attorney-client privilege so the Ohio Auditor’s office can have access to an internal audit relation to an ongoing investigation into possible H-1B visa fraud. The state auditor’s probe marks the fourth agency that is looking into information stemming from the internal audit. A spokesman for the state auditor declined to comment last week. TOP HIGHER ED READS » Wright State professor resigns while under investigation » Miami University named third best party school in the country » Higher education’s perception problem deepens along political linesRecent coyote sightings have raised concerns on the Southern York County Facebook page. (Photo: Courtesy of USFWS) Kayla Robinson has seen coyotes near her home in Red Lion before. They come by her house pretty regularly – about once or twice a week, she said. And lately, they’ve been coming closer, sometimes even right up to her deck. “They’re not scared of us anymore,” she said. “We can go outside, and they won’t run.” But she wasn’t concerned about it until Sunday night when she let her 50- to 60-pound pit bull-great Dane mix out just after dark and returned to find the dog being attacked by a coyote. The dog suffered wounds to its face and tail, and scratches on its stomach and back, Robinson said. Robinson is just one of several York County residents who have raised concerns about recent coyote sightings on the Southern York County Facebook page this week. On Dec. 6, a Shrewsbury resident posted that he saw a wild animal, which he believed to be a coyote, near his home three times in a span of four days. The post said, “Neighbors beware especially if you have smaller pets outside.” Another Facebook user reported a sighting on Mount Airy Road toward Windy Hill Road in Shrewsbury Township. Sadie, a pit bull-great dane mix, was attacked by a coyote in Red Lion on Sunday. (Photo: Submitted) And another said she saw an accident on I-83 South near Plank Road in Shrewsbury Township Friday morning caused by a “coyote the size of a large deer." However, the Shrewsbury Volunteer Fire Company fire chief said the animal involved was a deer. Jeffrey Mock, regional supervisor at the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s southcentral regional office, said he has no doubt coyotes are living in southern York County. “We have coyotes in all 67 counties in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Mock said. “They’re here, they’re part of our ecosystem and we just have to learn how to live with them.” But despite the recent concern on Facebook, he and Wild Conservation Officer Steve Knickel said they have not received reports of an increase in coyote attacks or coyote population in York County. “It’s not that our numbers of coyotes are going up by any means,” Knickel said. “We’ve always had coyotes in a pretty good number here … It’s not something that’s news to me or any hunters out there.” Coyote attacks on pets aren’t a regular occurrence in York County, he added. Knickel said he hasn’t received a report of one since June of 2015. But he does recognize that they can happen. If you know a coyote is hanging around your house, he said, don’t let your pet outside unsupervised. Here’s what to do if you see a coyote: Observe from a distance. Don’t try to approach or corner a coyote. This will make the animal feel threatened. Don’t try to approach or corner a coyote. This will make the animal feel threatened. Make some noise. Coyotes will most likely see or smell you before you see them. But just in case, make some noise to let the coyote know you’re there. Chances are, they’ll run away. Coyotes will most likely see or smell you before you see them. But just in case, make some noise to let the coyote know you’re there. Chances are, they’ll run away. Back away from the animal. If you have concerns about a coyote that has attacked or tried to attack your pet, call the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Southcentral Region office at 814-643-1831. Concerns will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Read or Share this story: http://on-ydr.co/2h5PUhaOct. 24, 2016, 5:33 PM GMT / Updated Oct. 24, 2016, 5:33 PM GMT Update: Watch the documentary now. A new documentary presented by NBC Asian America, and in production with International Secret Agents (ISAtv), will make its debut at the 17th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival in San Diego, Calif., on Nov. 6, 2016. “AKA SEOUL” is a follow up to the documentary series “AKA DAN,” which chronicled the 2013 journey of alternative rapper and Korean adoptee Dan Matthews as he reconnected with his biological family, including a twin brother he never knew about. Three years later, audiences will see Matthews and four other Korean adoptees visit Korea during the summer of 2016 and shed light on other aspects of the adoptee identity. “We’re focusing on other individuals with unique stories that I hope are going to impact not only the adoptee community, but other communities at large,” Matthews said. “That’s the one thing I’ve discovered is that although this might be adoptee-oriented content, the themes of family, searching, and self discovery are universal.” Profiles include: Dan, an alternative rapper from Los Angeles, California. Three years after first meeting his biological family, he returns to Korea to introduce his adoptive and biological mothers for the first time. Siri, a Swedish adoptee experiences Korean culture for the very first time. Peter, an artist and professor from Boston seeks to discover his artistic muse. Chelsea, a woman from Minnesota who was rejected by her adoptive parents because of her sexuality, reclaims her identity in Korea. Min, a transgender man from the San Francisco Bay Area, experiences Korea for the first time as a man. Along with screening at the San Diego Asian Film Festival, "AKA SEOUL" will be released in digital episodes beginning Nov. 10, 2016, as part of "NBC Asian America Presents...," a digital video channel that features original content centered around themes and voices found in Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. "NBC Asian America Presents..." videos can also be watched on NBC Asian America's Facebook page, NBC News' official YouTube channel, and the NBC News app available on mobile devices, Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV. Follow NBC Asian America on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr.Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence joined in with Donald Trump Thursday and declined to endorse Sens. John McCain and Kelly Ayotte amid their re-election campaigns. According to NBC News, Pence declined to say whether he supports the pair of senators, who Trump publicly railed against during an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday. Pence said that he plans to support GOP candidates "all over the country," adding that Trump does too, but didn't reveal his intentions regarding McCain and Ayotte. "I look forward to supporting Republican candidates in the days and weeks ahead all over the country, and so does Donald Trump," Pence said. "But the stakes in this election are so high. To restore our country at home and abroad, we need new leadership, and I'm looking forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with Donald Trump to drive that new leadership forward." In the Tuesday interview, Trump also declined to support House Speaker Paul Ryan ahead of his primary election next week against Paul Nehlen, who has been supportive of Trump's campaign. Despite Trump's declaration that he was "just not quite there yet" on endorsing Ryan, the Indiana governor came out Wednesday and endorsed the speaker, saying that Trump "strongly encouraged" him to do so. "I talked to Donald Trump this morning about my support for Paul Ryan and our long-term friendship and he strongly encouraged me to endorse Paul Ryan in next Tuesday's primary and I'm pleased to do it," Pence told Fox News on Wednesday. "These two men are going to do great things to restore this country at home and abroad," Pence said. "In politics, it takes time to get relationships going... I think we need Paul Ryan in the Congress of the United States to rebuild our military, to strengthen our economy and to ensure that we have the kind of leadership in this country that will make America great again."Mark Presley bought the world’s oldest hockey stick on a whim. He saw it hanging on the wall of George Ferneough’s North Sydney, N.S., barbershop, where it had been on display for more than 25 years after being given to the shop by local resident Charlie Moffatt. The Moffatt stick, a hockey stick dating back to the 1830s, might be the oldest in existence. Owner Mark Presley of Berwick, N.S., who paid $1,000 for the artefact four years ago, now plans to sell the stick, which could be worth more than $2 million. ( Submitted by Colin Laroque ) “It was so folksy,” said the 44-year-old Berwick, N.S., resident, who was “terrified” to tell his wife what he paid for the “old chunk of wood.” Four years later, the stick he paid $1,000 for could be worth more than $2 million. After Presley announced his plans to sell the stick in early October, CBC News reported that Ferneough, who is now retired, feels ripped off. Article Continued Below “I think I should get a little cut,” he told the CBC on Thursday. The stick’s estimated value is based on the sale of the famous 1850s Rutherford stick for more than $2.1 million U.S. at a 2006 auction, according to VIPthrills.com. But Presley’s stick has since been dated back to the 1830s by both scientific and historical research. Ferneough’s reported resentment has Presley “feeling badly.” “When I made the purchase I wanted to give a fair price, but I had no idea what it was worth,” Presley said. An avid collector and hockey fan, Presley originally wanted to display the stick in his den. He finds the 175-year-old stick “magical” because it was created for a kid to play a game, he said. But after talking at the barber’s suggestion to the then 92-year-old Moffatt, who has since passed away, Presley realized the stick could be much older than he originally thought. Article Continued Below He took it to Colin Laroque, a tree-ring scientist at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. Because of a knot in the flat top of the stick, Laroque dated the tree to between 1835 and 1838. He even found five layers of paint on the stick that match popular paints used over the years. Laroque has since assessed about a dozen similar sticks (after all, people don’t play hockey alone), but Presley’s is the only one with enough rings to accurately predict its age — a “needle in the haystack,” he said. Charlie Moffatt’s wife Joyce supports Presley in his sale, according to the CBC. Without him, the excitement about the stick wouldn’t exist, she told the network. James Milks, president of the Society for International Hockey Research, wouldn’t venture a guess as to how much someone will pay for the stick, but he hopes it ends up in a place where the public can see it. “It’s worth a fortune to Canadian culture and history,” Milks said.Art, music and food from Edmonton will help fund the efforts of Standing Rock protesters camped in the dust 1,500 kilometres away. A group of Edmontonians raised more than $3,000 during a benefit concert and silent auction at Whyte Avenue's Buckingham bar on Sunday. Their money will be sent to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota. "It's hard when you're up here and you want to do something," said Moira Mackinnon, one of the organizers. "It's hard when you're up here and you want to do something," says Moira Mackinnon, who helped organize the benefit concert for Standing Rock protesters. (Zoe Todd/CBC) "The easiest way is to just throw a party. One of the best parts of this is selling stuff from local artists and local businesses." Tensions between police and protesters in North Dakota have escalated, as those who call themselves the 'water protectors' attempt to divert the Dakota Access pipeline from what they claim is sacred land. More than 500 people have been arrested during the protest against the $3.8 billion pipeline which is to carry crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. The Texas-based company trying to complete the project, Energy Transfer Partners, still needs to drill underneath Lake Oahe on the Missouri River which flows through the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Thousands are camped just north of the reservation in a largely peaceful protest, though police have resorted to using water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets to control the crowds. 'Constant state of threat' Gitz Crazyboy travelled from Alberta to Standing Rock twice this summer. He recalls tense, sleepless nights as police spotlights illuminated his tent and their helicopters circled above. "Always that feeling of threat like they're going to do something, it's really unsettling," he said. "The constant state of threat, even the force of threat is there. Gitz Crazyboy (far right) travelled from Alberta to join the Standing Rock protest twice this summer. (Supplied by Gitz Crazyboy) "The feeling that it leaves me with, there's a bit of anger, there's a bit of sadness." Crazyboy stood near the bar on Sunday and watched as Edmonton volunteers set up their benefit concert. The fundraiser will help bolster Standing Rock protesters by paying for supplies for North Dakota's looming winter, he said. "You might not be able to get down there, even though you want to. You might have this inner drive that you want to help out. "This is a great opportunity to help the cause from the comfort of your own city." The money may also help protesters weather an eviction notice from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Crazyboy added. A letter to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe states the Corps of Engineers will shut down the protester's main camp on Dec. 5, closing the site to all public use and access.I had a great time at Denver’s 3rd annual Mini Maker Faire, which was held inside the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The official theme this
for the Montclair Film Festival, Oliver revealed that he was home watching election results on November 8 when it occurred to him that Colbert would need to do a live post-election show only minutes after coming to terms with the fact that it looked like Trump would win. “I was like, ‘Oh shit, Stephen has a show in a half-hour, glad I’m not him.’ I turned on Showtime at 11:02 and I saw your eyes,” Oliver said, according to Page Six. “I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to see this.’” Colbert wasn’t much more positive in his retelling. “Fans were sobbing openly,” he said. “That show was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” He and his staff had prepared about two and a half episodes’ worth of content for the predicted Hillary Clinton win, but when his writers and executives asked if they should prepare more for a possible Trump victory, he said no. “I’m like, ‘No! There is nothing you can write!’ I have 400 people in my theater, if we know Donald Trump is going to win, it’s going to be like doing stand-up comedy for one of those Chilean soccer stadiums where they bring in the villagers to execute the neighbors,” he explained. [image: screengrab] Lindsey: Twitter. Facebook. Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comPresident Trump criticized the media on Monday for being mean to his staff. "It is amazing how rude much of the media is to my very hard working representatives. Be nice, you will do much better!" Trump tweeted. It is amazing how rude much of the media is to my very hard working representatives. Be nice, you will do much better! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2017 Trump didn't say what he was responding to, but over the weekend, his press secretary was ambushed in an Apple store by a woman who accused Trump repeatedly of supporting "facism." His counselor, Kellyanne Conway, had just spoken on several morning news shows and was forced to answer for some of Trump's controversial statements, such as his claims that President Obama tapped the phones at Trump Tower during the campaign. The interviews were contentious at times, but some — such as Conway's appearance on Fox and Friends — were more collegial. A host on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" said Conway doesn't believe what she says about Trump, and that show has refused to book her. Trump's aides have often been faced with a critical media eye during interviews during his administration.ALL UK policy decisions are to be based on anecdotal evidence, the government has announced. Ministers believe actual research is a waste of money when policies can be inspired by something that happened to you, your uncle, or someone you met in the pub. A Downing Street spokesman said: “Apparently there’s a man in Chester who’s signing on but gets a new 52” TV and a massive slap-up curry delivered to his house every day. Yes, every day.” The new policies will include a price increase on fizzy alcoholic drinks, because the bubbles make you more pissed, and a total ban on sitting too close to the TV, which it is hoped will prevent people needing glasses. Meanwhile, the government will step up its anti-pornography campaign after one Mumsnet user revealed her son had stumbled across images of large-breasted milfs after typing ‘GCSE revision guides’ into Google. Office worker Nikki Hollis said: “My boss’s auntie was in hospital recently and one of the doctors was clearly smoking a spliff. “Or he might have had a pen in his mouth, but it’s best to be on the safe side and close the hospital down.”A couple years ago, I was staying in Karachi with a writer-friend while attending the city’s first literary festival, held in a heavily guarded hotel. I knew barely anyone. “Would you like to meet Declan Walsh, the Guardian chap?” my friend suggested. I said I would. I had been following Walsh’s reporting from Pakistan for several years, and had been impressed. In the evening, a tall, rakishly handsome Irish man with stubble, slinging two cameras and a bag on his shoulder, arrived at my friend’s house: this was Declan. Ten minutes later, I was talking to Walsh with the excitement a reporter feels when getting to know an excellent specimen of the tribe. “I have to interview a Baloch activist,” Walsh said. “Would you like to come along?” We jumped into an auto-rickshaw and sped along Karachi’s busy roads. At some point, we reached a McDonald’s, where we waited outside with cups of Pepsi, close to a Ronald McDonald statue. A wiry, mustachioed man wearing an ill-fitting suit appeared. He was part reporter, part activist; he had grown up in Balochistan, a sparsely populated, resource-rich province of Pakistan, the site of multiple insurgencies and lethal counterinsurgencies. Earlier, I had seen Urdu translations of Che Guevara’s “Motorcycle Diaries” being sold in Karachi’s Urdu bazaar and asked a bookseller whether it sold and who bought it. “It sells a lot,” he’d said. “The Baloch buy it the most.” There had been little news from Balochistan in the Pakistani press while I was there. Walsh had heard about a spree of disappearances and killings of rebels, activists, students, and lawyers by the Pakistani authorities in the province. It was a dangerous story for a foreign reporter to pursue, but he understood the moral import of the situation and was carefully investigating it. The Baloch man spoke with great emotion about horrors he had witnessed and heard about. Walsh listened carefully, asked detailed questions, and sought more names, references, and contacts who might make his visit to the province possible. Four months later, the piece, “Pakistan’s Secret Dirty War,” appeared in the Guardian. The opening paragraph is worth quoting for the sheer force of its writing, for the way it conveys the tale of a people oppressed and forgotten, for the way it reminds one what a reporter must do: The bodies surface quietly, like corks bobbing up in the dark. They come in twos and threes, a few times a week, dumped on desolate mountains or empty city roads, bearing the scars of great cruelty. Arms and legs are snapped; faces are bruised and swollen. Flesh is sliced with knives or punctured with drills; genitals are singed with electric prods. In some cases the bodies are unrecognisable, sprinkled with lime or chewed by wild animals. All have a gunshot wound in the head. The foreign correspondent’s job in countries like India and Pakistan, which have a significant English-speaking population, can be both easy and difficult. A good reporter is often welcomed by the cultural élite, and doors are opened. But an American or British correspondent in the subcontinent is also judged by a wide range of highly educated, well-trained people. Each story is discussed, the biases surgically examined, the writing debated. In this age of poorly paid freelancers, there are very few impressive foreign correspondents in South Asia. Until a few days ago, when the government decided to expel him, Declan Walsh was one of the few foreign reporters working in Pakistan whom everybody seemed to love and respect. His reporting, most recently for the Times, was nuanced and careful. He did not live in a bubble of expatriates—his friends were Pakistani journalists and writers. In the summer of 2010, the British literary magazine Granta devoted an entire issue to Pakistan. It had pieces by the very best Pakistani writers: Intizar Hussain, Mohammad Hanif, Nadeem Aslam, Mohsin Hamid, Jamil Ahmed, Kamila Shamsie. And the best piece of reportage in the issue was “Arithmetic on the Frontier,” by Declan Walsh. In the essay, Walsh offered a memorable portrait of a Anwar Kamal Khan, a politician from the North Western Frontier Province, who had represented Pakistan briefly at the United Nations in New York, flew his own plane, and yet, at home in the countryside, “sleeps with a rocket launcher under his wood-frame bed, in a sprawling, draughty fortress guarded by dozens of tribesmen, spends his time in lengthy confabulation with bearded elders and generally acts in a manner that seems to contradict everything the other Anwar Kamal stands for.” The best Pakistani nonfiction writer was an Irishman. Declan never gave you the sense that he wanted to go elsewhere. Pakistan was his beat. Yet he was conscious that Pakistan is a hard place for a journalist. In 2013, Pakistan slid eight places—from hundred and fifty-first to hundred and fifty-eighth—on the World Press Index, published by Reporters Without Borders, classifying it as one of the most difficult countries for journalists. In mid-April, as Pakistan went into election-campaign mode, a suicide-bomb attack by the Pakistani Taliban in Peshawar, in the northwest, killed Aslam Durrani, an editor for the newspaper Daily Pakistan, and injured a reporter for the paper, as well as another reporter, for Express TV. In 2012, seven journalists were killed in Pakistan. In May, 2011, the investigative reporter Saleem Shahzad, of the Asia Times, was found dead after he wrote a series of articles that were critical of the Pakistani defense establishment, including one describing Al Qaeda’s infiltration of Pakistan’s Navy. It’s widely believed that Shahzad was arrested by the country’s intelligence service, and that he was in their custody before his death. Indeed, Pakistan’s robust media has shown great courage in its reporting, despite threats of violence from extremist militants, gangsterized political groupings, and the military establishment. “Those working for comparatively little known or less influential media groups—like Shahzad did—have been more vulnerable,” M Ilyas Khan, a longtime BBC reporter in Pakistan, wrote after Shahzad’s murder. “The feeling that these institutions might actually kill journalists in cold blood is more dreadful than killings by extremists.” In the past decade, twenty-three journalists have been killed in Pakistan, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The risk of being a journalist who might be targeted in a volatile context is evident if you visit any Pakistani-newspaper office. I recently spent some time at the headquarters of Dawn, in Karachi, the country’s finest and most prestigious English-language newspaper. The entrance looks like a military checkpoint, with high barbed wire, iron drop gates, and armed guards. One day, I drove across Karachi with Hameed Haroon, the erudite and brave publisher of the Dawn Group, which includes the newspaper and the highly respected monthly magazine Herald, among other publications. Haroon got his doctorate in economics at Harvard but has spent his life managing Dawn. Along the way, he edited several books on Pakistani art and ran a Sunday-morning music show on FM radio. When we got into his car, a guard with a gun jumped onto the front seat; his driver had a pistol on him. I turned to Haroon; he laughed his generous laugh. “The guards might save me from a bored rookie, but if they target you and mean to kill you, then one doesn’t have much of a chance,” he said. Even the Sulzberger of Pakistan lives with fear. In the first week of May, as the election reached its crescendo, the temperatures rose above a hundred degrees. Like hundreds of his fellow-reporters, Declan Walsh was on the campaign trail. His reports for the Times evoked the chaotic, giddy, complex aspects of Pakistani politics. He reported on a Sunni extremist joining the electoral fray, and explained how patronage works in the Pakistani political system. Two days before Pakistan went to the polls, Walsh was summoned to his residence, in Islamabad, where policemen and a plainclothes officer waited for him. The plainclothes officer gave him a letter, according to the Times, which ordered Walsh to leave the country within seventy-two hours, “in view of your undesirable activities.” The Times editors spoke to the Pakistani authorities, but the authorities did not budge. Walsh had to pack up and leave his story, his friends, his life of a decade. A lesser man might have been flustered and shattered, but Walsh used his remaining time to cover the election from Lahore—thus doing every reporter proud. His friends spent the night helping his partner pack their house. On Sunday morning, plainclothes intelligence officers accompanied him to the airport, making sure he flew out of Pakistan. Before his departure from the country, Walsh posted on Twitter, “72 hours, wheels up. To all friends, especially in Pakistan, who offered overwhelming support in recent days, thank you so much.” Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) is expected to be form the new government within days. Although final results are still being tallied, Sharif is expected to win around a hundred and thirty out of the two hundred and seventy-two parliamentary seats. A winner needs a hundred and thirty-seven seats, and getting support from seven independents or a small party will be very easy for Sharif. (Pakistan reserves seventy parliamentary seats for women and non-Muslim minorities, and they are allocated to parties after the results are officially declared.) A decade earlier, Sharif, then Prime Minister of Pakistan, was expelled and exiled from his country by an Army general named Pervez Musharraf. Sharif has spoken about the pain of expulsion, being forced to live away from the place he has devoted his professional life to. At a press conference on Monday, Sharif said that he would look into Walsh’s case. It might be a good first act for Sharif as Prime Minister to recall Walsh, a man who, though born in Ireland, has devoted his life to telling the story of Sharif’s Pakistan. For Sharif’s democratic victory would lose some of its sheen with the expulsion of Walsh. And Pakistan would lose a great reporter and a good man. Above: Declan Walsh at the Karachi literature festival, in 2013. Photograph by Aine Moorad/Alamy.The Xbox One was the best-selling video game console throughout the holidays according to NPD data. According to Microsoft, average weekly sales for the Xbox One outpaced the Xbox 360 by 50% during the same period in the previous-gen system's lifecycle. After a year of falling behind Sony's PS4, Xbox One was the best-selling console for both November and December 2014. The bump in sales came during the biggest months for video game software and hardware sales, and during aggressive promotions from Microsoft, including price cuts and bundle deals. In the US, Xbox One also sold the most video games (retail) of any platform according to NPD. From the beginning, the Xbox One lagged behind PS4 not because of graphics, games or any other factors. The two systems are far too similar for these to have that much of an impact on sales. Rather, the $499 price-tag, on top of poor Xbox PR, hampered early sales and gave Sony the chance to capitalize on a cheaper $399 system and a wave of reactionary, "pro-gamer" PR. 2015 will be a much more interesting test of the two video game systems, as both will gain a broader catalog and more exclusives while competing at a more comparable price point, now that Microsoft has announced yet another price-cut back to the $349 sweet-spot that saw them win the holidays. Meanwhile, combined sales of the PS4 and Xbox One after 14 months on the market exceed their previous-gen iterations by an impressive 65 percent. Whoever said the video game console is dead was mistaken.Some people argue that the Judiciary Committee cannot proceed with impeachment hearings because it would distract Congress from passing important legislative initiatives. We disagree. First, hearings need not tie up Congress for a year and shut down the nation. Second, hearings will not prevent Congress from completing its other business. These hearings involve the possible impeachment of the vice president - not of our commander in chief - and the resulting impact on the nation's business and attention would be significantly less than the Clinton presidential impeachment hearings. Also, even though President Bush has thwarted moderate Democratic policies that are supported by a vast majority of Americans - including children's health care, stem-cell research, and bringing our troops home from Iraq - the Democratic Congress has already managed to deliver a minimum-wage increase, an energy bill to address the climate crisis and bring us closer to energy independence, assistance for college tuition, and other legislative successes. We can continue to deliver on more of our agenda in the coming year while simultaneously fulfilling our constitutional duty by investigating and publicly revealing whether Cheney has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.Clearly discernible: the malware seems to be particularly comfortable on Snow Leopard (Darwin kernel versions 10.x), but it also likes Leopard (kernel versions 9.x), which is completely defenseless against the trojan Source: Dr.Web According to a report by Russian IT security firm Dr.Web, the Flashback malware has made itself particularly comfortable on systems running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. The anti-virus specialist and discoverer of the currently active Flashback variant has recorded and evaluated the botnet's communications. Dr.Web says that Apple computers running the predecessor to 10.7 Lion, 10.6 Snow Leopard, are particularly affected. Almost 63% of infected Macs run Snow Leopard, and another quarter use Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Only 11% of systems infected with the Flashback botnet are unpatched Lion machines. Leopard users currently have no official way of protecting themselves against the trojan, because Apple only provides security updates for Snow Leopard and Lion. Making matters even worse, the Flashback malware removal tool only works under Mac OS X 10.7. One of the likely reasons why significantly fewer Lion systems are affected is that Java is no longer a default component of the latest Mac operating system and must be installed manually. Apple's future plan is to completely abandon its own Java development and leave it to Oracle, which published its first sponsored Java release for Mac OS X last week. Only few users have granted administrator privileges to the Flashback trojan Source: Dr.Web However, it appears that Mac users tend to be more suspicious when being asked for their admin password – Flashback must make do without root on 88% of infected computers. The trojan initially asks users to enter an administrator name and password. See also: (crve)DALLAS – On the eve of the US national team’s warm-up friendly against Ecuador, head coach Jurgen Klinsmann left no doubts about his team's expectations for next month’s Copa America Centenario. “The goal, then, is really to get to the final four,” Klinsmann said. “We want to get to the final four.” Klinsmann spent much of his Tuesday afternoon press conference discussing how important the upcoming summer tournament is to his squad – a team that consists of a handful of fresh, new faces compared to last summer’s Gold Cup roster. For starters, noted Klinsmann, Copa America is a “very unique competition” in regards to its size, scope and historic nature. “It’s the biggest tournament since the 1994 World Cup in the United States, and I think as a player you want to jump on that one,” Klinsmann said. “You want to make an impression. You want to make it your tournament.” The USMNT will get their first chance to make that impression Wednesday night at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas against Ecuador (8 pm ET; ESPN2, UniMás, UDN), the first of two friendlies before kicking off the real competition next month. The US meet Bolivia at Children's Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas on Saturday (8 pm ET; FS1, UniMás, UDN). For Klinsmann, Wednesday's chance to watch his revamped squad in live action will be a good indicator of what’s to come in a few weeks, when they open the tournament vs. Colombia on June 3. “Having two opportunities to play friendlies against Ecuador and Bolivia means a lot to us, because it will give us hopefully a lot of good information of where our players are at, but also the terms of different styles they play down in South America,” Klinsmann. “So hopefully it teaches us a lot before we hit it with Colombia.” One of the things Klinsmann said he’s hoping his team has learned, particularly dating back to the 2014 World Cup, is how to manage the highs and lows of the game. The Yanks advanced through a difficult group phase – something they’ll again face in this year’s Copa America – much to the delight of their home fans. But he says managing the feat was somewhat troublesome for his players, which had a carryover effect into last year’s Gold Cup. “I think all of the players – there are very, very few exceptions probably – all of them had an emotional roller coaster following the World Cup in Brazil,” Klinsmann said. “You get a lot of compliments for what you achieved there, a lot of reactions in your home country. That took a while for a lot of the players to digest and put into perspective going forward again. So that’s normal and understandable and human too. It’s a lot that these young players are getting confronted with coming out of a tournament like that.” Klinsmann also said he’d like to use the experiences from the last two years to help the US learn how to handle knockout-round games en route to at least the semifinals in this year’s Copa America. But it won’t come easy, starting with Colombia, who are ranked No. 4 in the current FIFA World Rankings. “We expect every game to be a final,” Klinsmann said of the upcoming tournament’s intensity. “I think that’s exciting for the players, exciting for us coaches, but hopefully very, very exciting for fans.”Last year at this time, RWE, one of Germany’s largest power producers, announced a surprise annual loss for 2015 and scrapped its dividend for the first time in decades. That was nothing. Today, the company warned of an even bigger loss in 2016—a whopping €5.7 billion ($6 billion)—and, again, decided to forgo a dividend payment for most shareholders. The main culprit is a €3.7 billion writedown in the value of RWE’s German power-plant portfolio. Wholesale power prices have plunged in Germany in recent years, as the country ramps up renewable production. Around 30% of the country’s power is now generated by renewable sources, with a long-term target of 80% by 2050. “The large writedown is unhelpful, but this shouldn’t come as a complete surprise in the context of wholesale power prices that are still historically low,” noted analysts at Jefferies after RWE’s announcement. As more wind and solar capacity comes online, the value of fossil fuel-burning plants has plummeted. Both RWE and EON, its main German competitor, have written down the value of their power plants by some €30 billion in recent years, according to Bloomberg, especially since German policymakers announced an aggressive “Energy Transition” (Energiewende) in 2010. Reflecting the diverging fortunes of their power portfolios, last year both RWE and EON split their renewable businesses from their fossil-fuel operations and sold stakes in the new companies to investors.Singer Songwriter and sought after producer Jack Antonoff appears to have finally reached personal fulfillment with his sophomore LP “Gone Now,” the follow-up to his debut album “Strange Desire.” When Antonoff unleashed his monumental debut under the moniker Bleachers three years ago, the project transpired as a fallback option to the superior popularity of Fun. However, steadfast critical acclaim followed the beatific path set by “Strange Desire.” Thus, Antonoff gained steam as a high-demand producer, validated by writing chart-topping hits for the lesser talents of Taylor Swift and Lorde. Antonoff steadily manifested into a puppeteer dictating top 40 charts in recent years due to his masterful ability as a songwriter. Despite having authored some of the biggest pop acts in music, Antonoff finally poises his talents front and center. In “Gone Now” Antonoff’s image is cleansed from headline-grabbing stars with the exception of minimal contributions from Carly Rae Jepson and Lorde. Ensuing, Antonoff’s artistry shines on “Gone Now,” his most accomplished body of work to date. Antonoff’s latest, akin to “Strange Desire,” is handcuffed to nostalgic emotion. “Gone Now” envisions Antonoff exercising his demons dealing with loss and trauma. Naturally, a quest for personal salvation suffices in the form of brighter melodies to help quell his lingering grief. The line, “Trying to get myself back home,” refrains throughout the album in order to indicate the spiritual road Antonoff is travelling. Through each track of this dexterous follow-up to “Strange Desire,” Antonoff exudes substantially more emotional confidence compared to his previous project. Unlike prior release, this LP feeds off a hopeful inclination where some sort of light exits at the end of this synth-driven tunnel. Nevertheless, it eludes thematic and emotional aimlessness and progresses into a bittersweet collection of mission-driven odes dedicated to experiences of heartbreak, loss, youthful fulfillment and artistic renaissance. Bleachers’ second LP emanates a conflictual warmth. It reboots “Strange Desires’” anthemic, eighties synth-driven pop arrangements — a mere love letter to a John Hughes soundtrack. However, Antonoff reveals in different styles this time around, delivering a holistically contemporary offering to modern pop music. At times, subtle jazz infuses its way into the synthesized heart of this album, most significantly on “Everybody Lost Somebody.” Here, Antonoff blends jazz with climactic, horn-laden soft rock whilst maintaining Bleachers’ ‘80s flourished drums, vocal reverb, and cascading synthesizers. While Antonoff’s cut-and-dry song structure tends to meander, “Gone Now” transpires a therapeutic essence for both Antonoff and the listener. These songs are as honest as they are sweeping in emotion. With “Gone Now,” his most vibrant work to date, Antonoff finally curates a unique voice that represents his pop music ingenious — separate from Fun., Swift, Lorde or any other pop artist sell out that has exploited Antonoff, a singular pop auteur,Illustration: M. Venkata Kamalakar/Nature Communications Advertisement Graphene did not immediately impress anybody with its potential in the field of spintronics, the use of the spin of electrons to encode information rather than charge. If you laid graphene out flat, it didn’t appear to influence electron spin, that property remained random rather than patterned. But that all changed when scientists saw what happens when you put a small bend in the graphene. Since then, there’s been a steady stream of research looking at the capabilities of graphene in spintronic applications. The latest, and perhaps most significant development, is news that researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have been able to preserve electron spin for an extended distance using large area graphene. "We believe that these results will attract a lot of attention in the research community and put graphene on the map for applications in spintronic components," said Saroj Dash, one of the Chalmers researchers, in a press release. Typically, the spin of electrons in a material is a fragile and short-lived affair. In the most common spintronic application, the read heads for hard drives, that short life span doesn’t pose a problem because the information that the spin imparts only needs to travel a few nanometers. However, if you could extend the spin over a greater distance, you would have a greater opportunity to use it for transmitting information. "In future spin-based components, it is expected that the electrons must be able to travel several tens of micrometers with their spins kept aligned. Metals, such as aluminum or copper, do not have the capacity to handle this,”said Saroj Dash. “Graphene appears to be the only possible material at the moment.” In work published in the journal Nature Communications, the Chalmers researchers were able to demonstrate precise pure spin transport over lengths of 16 micrometers with a spin lifetime of 1.2 nanoseconds. According to the research paper, these spin parameters are “six times higher than previous reports and highest at room temperature for any form of pristine graphene on industrial standard [silicon/silicon-dioxide] substrates.” What may be the most encouraging bit of this research is that the Chalmers team was able to use graphene produced through chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to achieve this result. CVD techniques promise a way of producing graphene in bulk and consequently more cheaply than the so-called “Scotch Tape” method in which graphene is pulled off of bulk graphite in single-layer flakes. Also, the long-term impact of this development may mean an end to the albatross that graphene has worn around its neck: the lack of an inherent band gap. "Graphene is a good conductor and has no band gaps. But in spintronics there is no need for band gaps to switch between on and off, one and zero. This is controlled instead by the electron's up or down spin orientations," explained Dash. Recent insight about graphene’s ability to transport electrons long distances without resistance (ballistic transport) promised a new era in electronics. It seems now that graphene’s ability to maintain an electron spin over a greater distance will also change the way we approach electronics.Broken Vows Tom Bower London: Faber & Faber, 2016 Few political indiscretions in Britain have had the effect of the Andrew Neather leak of six years ago. The former speech writer for Tony Blair recalled a speech on immigration he had worked on and wrote: Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural. I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended—even if this wasn’t its main purpose—to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date. The effects of this slip still reverberate today. Only now as we look back only eighteen years can we really discern the outline of something that had long been suspected—that there was a hostile secret agenda to impose multiculturalism on Britain and to transform the country beyond recognition. More evidence for this has been gathered in a new book by journalist Tom Bower titled Broken Vows. Bower has interviewed 200 members of Blair’s administrations including the civil servants closest to immigration decision making. The sheer scale of the deception takes the breath away. Blair is said to have told ministers and officials: “Don’t mention the advantages of immigration in public because they won’t even want that.” But the real significance of this book is not that there are any explosive documents or indiscretions but that it has been written at all. For in the nineteen years since Blair came to power the entire issue has been submerged under a blanket of silence. The media has done its best to look the other way and has shied away from analyzing the roots of a mass immigration policy imposed on a totally unwilling population. Like family incest, Blair’s secret mass immigration policy is the establishment’s guilty secret. The story begins in 1996 with the previous Conservative administration that was forced to act over growing public anger that only five per cent of asylum seeker immigrants were legitimate. So the Conservatives passed an Immigration Act which tightened the rules and created penalties for employers who employed unrecognized asylum seekers. This had an almost immediate effect and the number of applicants fell from 43,000 to 29,000 in 1996 and was to eventually to drop to below 20,000. When Tony Blair’s Labour Party came to power in May, 1997, it seemed that a priority was to dismantle as much of the previous year’s immigration act as fast as possible, and as discreetly as possible. The new Home Secretary Jack Straw, insisted all asylum applicants were fleeing oppression and to say otherwise was “racist.” His most energetic parliamentary supporter was a Labour MP colleague called Gerald Kaufman. One of the first things Straw did was to abolish a rule in which he had a special interest. Many of his Pakistani constituents from his Bolton constituency claimed they wanted to fly in prospective brides from their homeland. Until 1997, the “primary purpose rule” imposed a requirement that the applicant should show “that the marriage was not entered into primarily to obtain admission to the United Kingdom.” This was a major ground for refusing applications and dismissing appeals. Almost immediately, the new Home Secretary abolished the rule and cases of immigration for marriage purposes almost immediately shot up. In vain, civil servants pointed out that these arranged families were largely immigration scams. Muslim families had a vested interest in getting their daughters married to someone in Britain—so that the entire extended family could follow on. Straw was just not interested in the arguments against this, and so began a flood of non-English speaking illiterates. In 1997 Jack Straw told officials that only 10,000 foreigners would take advantage of the removal of the primary purpose rule. In fact over 150,000 arrived in 1998. (By the end of Labour’s reign more than 550,000 arrivals were arriving annually from Asia, Africa and the Americas and even more from the rest of the EU.) The centerpiece of Labour’s legislation during this period was the passing of the Human Rights Act of 1998 which was to make it immeasurably more difficult to remove asylum seekers. Labour’s new laws created a vast “gravy train” for lawyers. Asylum seekers were rehearsed to conceal the circumstances of their origins. The chaos might have been a headache for immigration officers but it was a bonanza for the legal profession because all their bills were paid by the taxpayer. This booming human rights industry was epitomized by the law firm of Matrix Chambers launched by Tony Blair’s QC wife Cherie Booth. Eventually Blair and Straw were to ensure that, unlike in other countries, asylum applicants would qualify for the full range of benefits including welfare, free health care, and subsidized housing, thus ensuring that Britain become a honeypot for immigrants. Bower notes that in one year 350,000 asylum seekers were repackaged as economic migrants to avoid public outrage. The government secretly gave the go-ahead for 150,000 work permits, the author added, and most of the recipients, including the unskilled, went on to become UK citizens. Straw even extended the list of countries whose citizens could be considered for asylum status to include states like Nigeria which, while not pleasant, was not at war or in an emergency. Any concern about bogus claimants were waved aside as racism. Straw even removed an English language requirement for nationalization. The immigration laws were relaxed yet again in 1999. Straw’s Home Office instructed that in cases where asylum seekers had “lost” their documents to conceal their origins, they were invariably to be given the benefit of the doubt. When a court case decided that even failed asylum seekers could not be denied housing welfare and free health care, the civil servants fully expected the government would fight the ruling. Instead Straw decided to let it go. In 2004 Britain lifted restrictions on immigrants coming from Eastern Europe and again there was a huge influx. The government predicted only 13,000 would come and in fact the final intake was well over a million. And this was when other EU countries were exercising their option not to take such immigrants for five years! But at a time when billions of pounds were being diverted into the public sector, the civil servants in charge of immigration were being mysteriously starved of resources and seeing their numbers sharply cut. Thousands of immigration officer’s posts were removed over this period. In Tony Blair’s autobiography he claimed that his government was the victim of unforeseen events,[1] but as Tom Bower makes clear, it was a deliberate policy of maximizing immigration. Blair’s interest was solely limited to public perception and how it might affect the next election—not the asylum seeker influx itself. With the Home Secretary Jack Straw it was also a blatantly two-faced approach. In private Straw showed no concern about the rocketing numbers, but for media consumption and before the House of Commons he said he favored strong controls. As the arrivals were dispersed to housing estates across the country, the local communities protested that blocks of flats and even streets had become foreign territory. In 2001 race riots exploded between Whites and Pakistanis on the streets of Oldham and the police clamped down hard on White resistance while the BBC played down the cause of White complaints. Then Blair announced that more students would be allowed into Britain. Civil service warnings that that this would lead to a flood of bogus students and sham language schools were again brushed away. More students, he said, would be good for Britain’s economy. There were cosmetic controls against bogus marriages, and lorry drivers caught a tiny number of illegal immigrants, but it was all part of a campaign of spin. These generated lots of headlines in local newspapers, but were miniscule compared to the huge floods of asylum seekers arriving through conventional routes. What interested Tony Blair more was presentation. So, to give the new policy a veneer of respectability, he had drafted in a Jewish academic called Jonathan Portes to produce a report justifying the policy. In the report, Portes emphasized the economic benefits of migration unreservedly. Migrants, he wrote, were not a burden on the public purse but increased the government’s income through taxation. Although his report was published in 2001, Portes left out the huge flood that had begun when Labour began to dismantle controls. Quite brazenly, he wrote that most migrants were White—omitting the 510,000 immigrants who arrived from the Indian subcontinent during the first three years of Blair’s government. In the same manner, Portes downplayed the adverse consequences of immigration. Bower writes: He asserted that ‘in theory’ there was ‘no evidence’ that migrants would ‘increase pressure on housing transport…and health services’. On the contrary he praised migrant children for bringing ‘greater diversity into UK schools’ and assured Blair that migrants had not caused any overcrowding in London—which was true in 1997. “There is little evidence” he wrote, “that native workers are harmed”. He added, ‘Migrants will have no effect on the job prospects of natives.’ Nine years later, a report by the Migration Advisory Committee found that twenty three British workers had been displaced for every hundred born foreign-born workers employed in the country. Portes brushed aside any damaging consequences to British life by not mentioning the reluctance of the growing Muslim and Hindu communities to integrate. Nevertheless, the Portes report was excellent material for an important speech to the City of London in which the government’s radical new direction would be signaled. It would be made by the new Junior Immigration Minister Barbara Roche; an early draft of the Portes document was shown to her to help her with her speech. As the guardian of Britain’s border security, Blair chose as Lunior Immigration Minister a woman who seemed to retain an acute sense of her own Jewishness while having a great enthusiasm for eradicating White British identity. Roche, a staunch enthusiast for all things LGBT, is the daughter of a Polish-Russian Ashkenazi father and Sephardic Spanish-Portug
, where the subtitles were cropped very close to the bottom of the screen, making it very difficult to see them over people’s heads. Again, there was chatter, mainly from a guy who required virtually a line-for-line recapping of everything that was happening onscreen. After the movie was over, my steamed-up friend whipped around and launched into a profane, spittle-filled rant… at an elderly man. It was then that I learned that in the social code, “respect your elders” trumps “don’t talk during movies.” Sean O’Neal I was more or less raised by a single mother, so a lot of my formative years were spent blooming in the pot of dirt known as public daycare. I was a “lifer,” inducted when I was a preschooler and not turned loose into a latchkey existence until I was nearly 11, so most of the teachers there were pretty familiar with me—primarily for my smart-ass attitude and general disinterest in arts and crafts, but also as someone who could be trusted not to bully smaller children or play “doctor” with the ladies. (Except that one time.) This also meant I sometimes got the rare privilege of choosing which video would be used as a mid-afternoon pacifier, when our underpaid guardians wanted to go read old issues of People and bitch about how much they got paid, and its proportionate ratio to the need to put up with this shit. Because I am a dork who thrills at any iota of authority, I took this role very seriously. For a while there, I was an excellent programmer, selecting only the safest of Disney’s G-rated fare like Pete’s Dragon and The Sword And The Stone. Then one week I fucked up and lobbied for Amazing Grace And Chuck—a PG-rated movie. I remember arguing that its message—one boy’s mission to foster peace in the Cold War by refusing to play baseball—was an important one. (I guess because how else would we learn about the importance of nuclear disarmament through sports-related pacifism? Why, for all we knew, one of our classmates would be an NBA star, and one day he’d disarm a Soviet ICBM by just taking a knee during the playoffs! etc.) Anyway, the movie itself isn’t particularly profane, but anyone who’s ever been in a room full of 5- to 10-year-olds knows that the slightest curse word can spark a near-riot. Needless to say, the first “hell” caused the entire assembly to erupt into uncontrollable hysterics, and I remember every pair of teacher eyes turned my way like I had just popped in a tape of German scat porn. I spent the rest of that movie turning crimson at every “damn,” “hell,” and “ass” (and there probably aren’t many, but at the time, it seemed like Charles Bukowski and Quentin Tarantino had collaborated on the script) until our faux-principal Ms. Ellen finally popped the tape out to a swell of anticipatory “Ooooo”s. I was absolutely mortified. Ms. Ellen quietly informed me we would be having a talk with my mother later, I guess because she was concerned I might develop a potty-mouth if I continued watching films like that. Fortunately, my mom didn’t give a damn hell ass shit, so fuck that bitch. Amazing Grace And Chuck for life!Mrs. Clinton did not hesitate. “Well, I would say that everybody should be believed at first until they are disbelieved based on evidence,” she said, with an awkward smile, as the crowd applauded. Still, the issue seems to be echoing, at least among her detractors. Other Republican candidates, including Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson, have followed Mr. Trump’s lead, saying Mr. Clinton’s history is a legitimate criticism, though Mrs. Fiorina said she doubted voters would care. Mr. Clinton, after all, is 69 years old, and the Lewinsky scandal happened nearly two decades ago. The Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus has been critical of Mr. Trump but on Tuesday wrote that she agreed with him that Mr. Clinton’s past is relevant to his wife’s campaign. “Trump has smeared women because of their looks,” she wrote. “Clinton has preyed on them.” Mr. Trump has been the most direct in his attacks on Mr. Clinton, but Republicans, concerned about the party’s declining appeal to women, have long considered using the former president’s personal life and Mrs. Clinton’s response to the women who alleged extramarital affairs. Stuart Stevens, a Republican operative and Mitt Romney’s chief strategist in his 2012 presidential campaign, said the way the Clinton operation disparaged women who complained about the president’s behavior in the 1990s “would be all but disqualifying in a Democratic primary” nowadays. During Mr. Clinton’s 1992 campaign, Betsey Wright, a close aide, coined the term “bimbo eruptions” in describing rumors of extramarital affairs involving the candidate. According to White House-era documents from Diane D. Blair, a close friend of Mrs. Clinton’s who died in 2000, the first lady had referred to Ms. Lewinsky as “a narcissistic loony toon.” Until last week, Mr. Trump had hardly uttered a negative word about Mr. Clinton. In 1999, he said the president had been treated unfairly for his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky. His criticism, according to an interview with The New York Times at the time, was the president’s choice of paramour: “It was Monica! I mean, terrible choice.”Today, the bill giving the government the power to trigger Article 50 – the mechanism by which we will leave the EU – will start to be debated in the house of commons. This is a golden opportunity for MPs who want to support our National Health Service, and deliver on the will of the people, to ensure the government fulfils the leave campaign’s pledge to spend £350 million more a week on our NHS, something most remain voters can back, too. That’s why I have put down an amendment to the legislation, making the passing of the bill contingent on the government providing an analysis of the impact of Brexit on the public finances, and in particular health spending. The government has no mandate for a Brexit that leaves our NHS worse off. If it has a mandate, it is to deliver on the promise made by Vote Leave during the EU referendum campaign – to spend £350 million more a week on our NHS. As the winter crisis of recent weeks and months has demonstrated, our NHS does need this spending boost desperately. After seven years of Tory underfunding and incompetent reorganisations, we are dealing with an A&E crisis, a social care crisis, a mental health crisis, and a chronic lack of GPs. Fulfilling Vote Leave’s pledge is not just about respecting the will of the people; it is about doing the best for our National Health Service. This cannot be allowed to become a here today, gone tomorrow policy offer that is lost in the political maelstrom. It was by far the most high-profile and the most graphic promise made by the Leave campaigners – literally plastered on the side of a red bus that was driven around Britain for months. Five of the MPs who made this pledge are now members of the cabinet, including Boris Johnson. The government clearly doesn’t want to discuss this amendment – or indeed, any others at all. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming by both the High Court and the Supreme Court just to put this matter to parliament at all. Now, they want to get this through parliament as quickly as possible – without even introducing the white paper that David Davis spoke of just days before he was elevated to the cabinet. They have provided just five days for MPs to discuss the bill – a fraction of the time provided to debate the Maastricht treaty, the Lisbon treaty or any other piece of important, EU-related legislation ever put before the house of commons. They briefed extensively in advance that they wanted the legislation to be “amendment-proof”. They are trying to stop MPs from fighting not just to deliver the promise made to our NHS, but to even debate many other very important aspects of Brexit, including important amendments put down by other Labour MPs. We need to fight this disgraceful attempt to muzzle democracy and let the Leavers in the cabinet off the hook. And we need to put as much pressure as possible on the government to give our National Health Service the spending boost it desperately needs.A few weeks ago I wrote an article titled What We Lost When We Lost Our Hymnals and was rather surprised to see 300,000 people stop by to read it! I meant to point out that there are consequences in shifting from one medium to another—in this case, shifting from hymnals to PowerPoint projection. (I use “PowerPoint” to stand in for all forms of projection.) It is true of every new technology that it brings benefits and drawbacks. Neither hymnals nor PowerPoint are exempt from the rule. Sponsor Show Your Support Become a Patron Where that article focused on what we lost when we shifted from hymnals to projection, today I want to focus on what we gained. When our churches turned away from hymnals to instead sing lyrics projected on a screen, here is some of what we gained. We gained immediacy. Not all of the good songs are old songs. In fact, today we are seeing a great resurgence in hymnody that has generated many wonderful new songs. There are some that are almost too good not to sing. Yet hymnals made us wait years or even decades before we could add them to our services. “In Christ Alone” became a modern day staple in part because PowerPoint made it so easy to add it to our services. Other songs like “He Will Hold Me Fast” or “Before the Throne of God Above” are worthy of singing and of standing the test of time, but can only easily be sung by churches that are not reliant on hymnals. PowerPoint projection reduces the lag between great new songs and updated hymnals. We gained posture. Hymnals forced us into a particular physical posture. We had to hold the hymnal in one hand (or even in both hands) and look down at the words. Thus hymnal posture was stiff and fixed. PowerPoint projects words onto an elevated screen and asks us to hold nothing in our hands. Thus PowerPoint posture is open and free which may be a superior posture for worship, and especially for worship that is physically expressively—something the Bible seems to allow or even advocate. It is difficult to raise your hands in worship while clutching a three-pound, five-hundred-page hymnal. It is even more difficult to clap your hands. We gained variety. There is undoubtedly a hazy line between a hymn and a chorus. “The Gospel Song” is probably not the kind of song that would make it into many hymnals, yet it has sound lyrics and can be a sweet addition to worship. There are many other choruses that do not fit the “hymnal mold” even though they are biblical, purposeful, and singable. To a significant degree, hymnals promoted certain kinds of songs while holding off others. Yet the Bible gives us freedom to worship in “songs, hymns, and spiritual songs”, to praise God in every variety of song. PowerPoint helps us do this. We gained portability. In many places in the world church buildings are forbidden, rare, or unreasonably expensive. That is exactly the case here in Toronto where most new congregations have to rent space in schools, libraries, or community centers. Transporting several hundred hymnals to a building is difficult when compared to simply transporting a laptop and projector. There is a convenience and portability to PowerPoint that is missing in hymnals. Not only that, but the cost is lower. Two hundred and fifty hymnals will cost around $6,000; a laptop and projector can be had for a fraction of that. We gained spontaneity. PowerPoint allows a kind of spontaneity that may not be present when relying on hymnals. At a recent engagement I quoted a song’s lyrics in my sermon, and with a click or two, the worship leader was able to immediately add it as the song of response. This would not have been possible if that church had used hymnals (unless, of course, that song had been in the hymnal). We gained service. Our hymnals reflect a vetting process where hundreds of thousands of hymns were whittled down to just a few hundred. This happened by generations of Christians fumbling their way through awful hymns so they could, over time, settle on the few excellent ones. Remember, we honor Charles Wesley for the ten or twenty of his hymns we continue to sing today, and gladly forget the other 5,980. We have the opportunity to serve future generations by singing a variety of today’s songs and, as we do so, filtering the good from the bad and the best from the rest. The reality is that neither hymnals nor PowerPoint are entirely good or entirely bad. Both have benefits and both have drawbacks (which is what we should expect for any technology or innovation that exists in a sinful world). What is important is that we properly weigh and assess both in the light of our context and decide which will best serve our local church.by Luke Wortley (eldub) and Steven Cantrell (scantrell24) This edition of Two Guys, One Deck is strictly for fun. We’re just two southern gentlemen (Steve from Georgia, Luke from Kentucky) that wanted to get together and pair up a couple factions that are, in many ways, diametrically opposed to one another geographically and culturally. So we chose House Stark and House Martell. The original idea (Luke’s idea, to be fair) was to make a really janky Direwolf deck that focused on winning the military challenge…and pretty much just that — control icons and kill stuff. We’ll just say that deck is awful. If you can come up with something better, please share it with us, as we were both pretty excited about the idea. Anyway, if you want to see that mess, here’s the link to Stark-Banner Sun, aptly named “Desert Wolves”: https://thronesdb.com/deck/view/110080. Eventually, however, we both decided that the inverse faction pairing might be better, seeing as we’ve both been playing a lot more Martell lately (who hasn’t, though? Okay, John, we get it…). The essential question was: what if we went Martell-Banner of the Wolf with some interesting removal options? Steve’s idea was better… Also, we made this before we realized that Bamford actually won a Regional Championship across the Narrow Sea…perhaps we were on to something. Luke So that was terrible. Let’s do the other one. Steve How about we start with the board-clearing package? Luke Sounds like fun. Steve Marched, 2 Tyene, 2 or 3 Tears, 2 Ward, First Snow, 3 Ghaston, 2 Vengeace. Luke 2 Tyene and 3 Tears seems like the right number. 2 Ward for sure. I already like this deck better…it’s not as janky. Steve Yeah, it looks more streamlined already, Though I wish Stark had better non-loyal events. Luke Ward is its own type of removal, so that’s interesting enough for me. So…characters? Steve 3 Nymeria, 1 Caleotte, 2 Arianne, 1 Hotah. 1 Arya, 2 Bran, 1 Rickon? Luke Sounds good for now. Steve Reducer chuds…Do we want all 3 stewards? Might need them to reach 12 for the banner. Luke Yes. Setup. Steve I often go with just 2 from my banner faction. Sucks to draw them mid-game when you need an impactful character. Luke True. I’m willing to try 3 scavenger and 2 steward. So does this deck want Fast Eddie? He accelerates power gain, which always seems good in Martell. Steve He’s a beatstick and gives us closing speed, but he doesn’t really synergize with anything. 2 is good since Martell lacks renown. Luke Ight. Unless we’d rather use Viper to close games? These two factions don’t seem to pair well haha. Steve The Martell-Lion builds that Buzz and Brandon have been using just grind out wins with little renown. This deck is kinda similar. Next, 3 Greenblood Trader. Luke Yeah, it’s the only source of draw. Steve We’re starting to look susceptible to our own First Snow of Winter, though, because the wolf banner has so many cheap characters. Luke Something to think about. In that case, we want Knights of the Sun. Steve For sure. At least 2, maybe even 3. Luke 2 for now. We’ll see. 1 Littlefinger and 1 Syrio. Steve Ok. Yup. I’m looking at the other 4-cost characters and our options aren’t great. Luke Rattleshirt’s. Steve I’m fine with 1 Rattleshirt’s. Maybe we max out Fast Eddie and add a cheeky Jon Snow? Luke I don’t think Jon is good for this deck. Not enough targets. Steve True. He can jump in with Arianne, though. Great banter. I’m starting to think this deck can’t press the First Snow advantage as well as Martell-Lion. Luke Then let’s go to 3 Ward, 3 Steward and done with the banner. Steve Ok. Let’s add a 3rd Knights of the Sun, too. Now on to locations…All 9 Limited? Luke Yeah. So we’re at 50 cards before the rest of the events, attachments, and locations. Steve 1 Sunspear? It might be too expensive. Luke Overkill, I think. We can’t afford the 2-gold on a sometimes-used location. I guess we should decide to do attachments or events first. Steve Agreed. Let’s go with events. Luke 2 His Viper Eyes? Steve I like at least 1…So good with Ghaston. Luke Yep. I like 2 for now. Do we want The Hand’s judgment, even with Bran? I think it’s competing with HVE for slots. Steve Agreed. I don’t. Luke There aren’t very many pieces in here that i’m 100% committed to protecting at all costs. Steve Works for me. 2 HVEand 0 HJ, but that would be something I’d keep an eye on in testing. Luke Agreed, but, if we’re playing it right, they should be so scared to make a challenge. Steve Cool, I like it. Luke I like 1 In Doran’s Name. Steve The econ event? I was thinking maybe 1 Tourney Grounds, 1 Put to the Sword. Tourney Grounds is great on setup. Luke It is, but I’d almost rather have a 3rd Vengeance for Elia if we run it. Steve We could even go 2 Tourney Grounds, 3 Vengeance, and 1 Put. What do you think? Luke I don’t know if I like 1 PTTS i this deck…I don’t know how many important military challenges we’re realistically making. Steve Well, we have Syrio, Knights of the Sun, Eddard, Hotah, Arya and Nymeria to push through military. Luke Yeah, true. Hadn’t tallied it up totally, yet. Steve I love single copies of events, too; they can be unexpected, and once you show the first, your opponent has to worry about a 2nd that you don’t even have. Luke I’m convinced. Let’s try it. 2x Tourney Grounds, 3x VFE, and 1x PTTS. On to attachments. Steve I like 1 Attainted since we have Tyene and Tears. Luke I think 2 Attainted and 2 Milk for 60 even. Steve I’d go 1 Attainted, 1 of either Imprisoned or Condemned, and 2 Milk. Luke If we’re choosing between those two, then Condemned. But I think I still like 2 Attainted just for tears and Tyene guarantees. Steve Yeah, that would be worth noting in testing. You’re probably right. Luke If the point is removal, then we need to tool it up. Now plots. We already have Marched and FSoW. Steve Sorry, one more thought. We could potentially go Nightmares instead of Milk, since we have Tourney Grounds. Luke Milk is just so great in the current meta. So much Mirri and other nonsense… Steve Calm, Long Plan, or both? I like one or the other to open most games. Luke Calm is better at the moment for us, though I use Long Plan a lot. Steve Ok. I don’t think we can go wrong either way, but Long Plan does help set up great First Snow turns. Lukeve Ight. I’m down. Let’s go Long Plan. Steve Do we want Naval? It can be great to help keep the board small so our removal is more potent. Luke I’m down. Let’s try it. Steve Cool. I think we need Summons and Calling. That leaves 1 spot. Luke Calling for sure. Initiative control + econ. Clutch. Steve Do you like Heads on Spikes here? With Ghaston? Luke Yes. Steve Sweet. I’ll try this deck out on my stream sometime this week. I think there’s potential. Thanks for the invite, Luke, it was fun. Luke Absolutely. Steve Cool, I cant wait for people to tear it apart. Here’s the deck: 2g1d: Martell-Wolf Faction: House Martell Agenda: Banner of the Wolf Plots 1x Calling the Banners (Core Set) 1x Heads on Spikes (Core Set) 1x Marched to the Wall (Core Set) 1x Naval Superiority (Core Set) 1x Summons (Core Set) 1x The Long Plan (Taking the Black) 1x The First Snow of Winter (No Middle Ground) Characters 1x Littlefinger (Core Set) 1x Rattleshirt’s Raiders (Core Set) 1x Areo Hotah (Core Set) 2x Arianne Martell (Core Set) 1x Maester Caleotte (Core Set) 3x Desert Scavenger (Core Set) 3x Greenblood Trader (Core Set) 1x Arya Stark (Core Set) 2x Bran Stark (Core Set) 3x Winterfell Steward (Core Set) 3x Nymeria Sand (The Road to Winterfell) 1x Syrio Forel (The Road to Winterfell) 3x Knights of the Sun (Calm over Westeros) 2x Tyene Sand (True Steel) 2x Eddard Stark (Wolves of the North) 1x Rickon Stark (Wolves of the North) Locations 3x The Kingsroad (Core Set) 3x The Roseroad (Core Set) 3x Ghaston Grey (Core Set) 3x Blood Orange Grove (Core Set) 2x Tourney Grounds (Wolves of the North) Attachments 2x Milk of the Poppy (Core Set) 2x Attainted (The King’s Peace) 3x Ward (True Steel) Events 1x Put to the Sword (Core Set) 3x Tears of Lys (Core Set) 3x Vengeance for Elia (Calm over Westeros) 2x His Viper Eyes (Wolves of the North)When **** August 9th 2016 **** Notice New Location!!! Where At Business Development Center, 100 Cherokee Blvd., Chattanooga, TN 37405 Time 5:30 - Food & Conversation 6:00 - Meeting & Presentation Starts Topic: Why Try F#? An Introduction for.Net Developers Speaker: Branden Schwartz F# and functional programming have grown in popularity recently, so why are some object oriented developers still hesitant about FP? Some worry about its limitations and have concerns that new concepts and vocabulary will create a steep learning curve with little practical return on that investment. This talk will address those fears and introduce the language through useful examples. Speaker Bio Website: LinkedIn: Twitter: Last Months Presentation by? is here: Meeting Sponsored By: Contact Information: Brian Livingston Regional Recruiting Manager blivings@teksystems.com Work: (423) 414-3613 About Teksystems Our value proposition is rooted in a single, profound belief: the success of any initiative hinges on the quality of the people driving it. Because we are relentlessly focused on providing the absolute best people to lead and support our clients’ initiatives, we help our clients achieve their business targets better, faster and more cost-effectively. Every week, we speak with over 100,000 IT professionals - a reach that grants us unparalleled insight into the IT workforce. We understand IT professionals’ career goals and aspirations. We know where the best professionals are, who else is hiring and what makes an organization a great place to work. This vantage point means our clients receive the most qualified people to plan, build and run their IT initiatives – and the most practical advice to attract, develop and retain those people long term. We offer a proven ability to plan and implement IT service solutions that work where it matters most—in practice. Through our massive client and consultant network, we have a real-world pulse on the latest IT trends. Based on our first-hand experience executing IT and business goals, we know what works, who is best suited to get IT jobs done and how to optimize the performance of IT teams. Our ability to deliver results shows in our annual satisfaction surveys—TEKsystems’ clients consistently rate us nearly 30 percent higher than our competition. Additionally, 98 percent of our clients say they would do business with us again. We meet you where you are and take you where you want to go—the way you want to get there. Our services can scale from staff augmentation to fully outsourced services, depending on the level of responsibility you want us to assume. Additionally, we can leverage our global delivery models to ensure cost-competitive solutions without sacrificing quality outcomes. View Larger MapThe parking meters that line Seattle’s streets aren’t exactly high-tech. Payment processing time can often take not just a few seconds, but sometimes more than a minute, and options to control how much time you paid for is limited. The city is well aware of this and has decided to make an upgrade. First, though, it wants your help. Seattle has installed seven new parking machines in downtown Seattle as part of a mini pilot program. If you try them out, the city wants to hear feedback with your opinions on efficiency, aesthetics and overall functionality. The city noted that the new machines will feature more complex parking rate programming requirements and better integration for options like Pay By Phone. Seattle introduced the pay-by-phone functionality this past July, which allows you to add time to the meter remotely with a cell phone. Seattle plans to replace all 2,200 its parking meters by 2016, with installation beginning this summer. The project will cost $25 million, paid over seven years. Update, Feb. 25 — Heard back from the city, and here’s what they told us:Those familiar with the workings of Washington are aware of the influences at work on the web of think-tanks, university departments and individual scholars, officials and analysts which direct their conclusions into defined paths. For example, the countries comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council depend on the United States for their security. Hence, the urgency to ensure that policy papers from “expert” and “non-partisan” sources reflect less the core strategic interests of the US than the desires of those at the apex of the GCC. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi detested Saddam Hussein—or Moammar Gaddafi, and more recently Bashar Assad—enough to want NATO to get rid of them. Foundations, university departments and individual scholars have, over the decades, received generous assistance from sources that are either within the GCC or linked to them, and it is no surprise that those getting such largesse know exactly what views they need to espouse to ensure that the flow of funds continues. Several leading politicians, for example, have set up foundations and other “charitable and non-profit” institutions that pay for their corporate jets, luxury hotel stays and staff expenses. Almost none have revealed the actual donors, nor is there any curiosity as to the process by which policy conclusions reached by such agencies mirror so accurately the needs of their patrons. Given the uproar that has ensued over Donald Trump’s suggestions on foreign policy, the assumption may be made by innocents that the policies the Republican candidate for the Presidency is opposing or distancing himself from, represent triumphs. In actual fact, they have proved to be disasters, whether they be the manner in which the post-Saddam occupation of Iraq took place, or the steps taken in Afghanistan after the Northern Alliance and the US Air Force had the Taliban on the run in the final weeks of 2001. As for NATO, the errors made by that entity have often led to horrendous results. Of course, such is not the narrative related by the authors of such policies. In Iraq, for example, the “surge” is considered to have “turned the tide” in Iraq, before—such self-serving narratives claim—Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki imposed a “Shia dictatorship controlled by Iran” on the country. What most GCC countries sought after Saddam’s fall was the setting up of a governance mechanism once again controlled by the Sunni minority, rather than the natural preponderance that the far greater numbers of Shia in Iraq gave that community. The relentless intervention by US policymakers to press the Wahhabi-serving GCC agenda on Baghdad created much of the policy missteps, which resulted in the growth of ISIS safe zones in Iraq and the refugee flood into Europe. ISIS followed in Iraq the 1995-96 example of the Taliban and bribed army commanders in Iraq to cease defensive operations against them. The cash for this came from much the same sources as had contributed to the coffers of the Taliban, yet such donors are still welcome visitors to a Washington where the analyses which steadily morph into actual policy are usually bought and paid for by those interests which benefit from them. Across the political divide, almost all those prominent in politics in the national capital of the world’s biggest economy partake of the resources of those with a transparent interest in precisely the outcomes which the policies recommended by key Washington policymakers seek to generate. Whether it be the facilitation of the Taliban by Bill Clinton during the 1990s or the later bungling of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars by George W. Bush, or the way in which Team Obama members subsequently forced through regime change in Libya or how armed ISIS volunteers in Syria were passed off as the “moderate opposition” by the Wahhabised secret services of regional allies of the US, each such disaster is rooted in policy errors caused by the financial linkages that have been built up across the Washington Beltway since the 1970s. Neither Bernie Sanders nor Donald Trump was the beneficiary of the complex of interests that for so long have dominated US policy. While Sanders has given way to Hillary Clinton, Trump has managed to savage his foes to the shock of the army of lobbyists who do not—yet—have even the smallest influence on the man. Trump has not hesitated to mention the failures of US policy and of NATO, thereby putting thousands of paid-for “experts” and public opinion builders at risk of exposure. In reality, it makes sense to have Russia as a friend rather than remain a foe, and to invite Kim Jong-un to Washington, to cool down the latter’s suspicion that he is slated to be on the same conveyor to doom that Saddam and Gaddafi were, and which Bashar Assad declined to step onto. The Republican nominee is correct when he points out, for example, the link between the disastrous US policies followed since the “Arab Spring” and ISIS. However, for those worried at a possible steep fall in their grants and other incomes were he to get elected over Hillary Clinton, such Trumpian sense needs to get portrayed as nonsense, so that their domestic and international patrons get the candidate of their choice elected in November.It was the most seismic political event for a generation. In the first of a two-part series, based on extensive interviews, Severin Carrell, Nicholas Watt and Patrick Wintour tell the behind-the-scenes story of how the union was saved The drinks were still flowing at the Better Together victory party at the Marriott Hotel in Glasgow in the early hours of 19 September when Alistair Darling woke from a brief kip in his room a few floors above the celebration. The former chancellor of the exchequer – who had reluctantly agreed to head the campaign to save the 307-year-old union between Scotland and England – had been informed that David Cameron was planning to shatter two years of cross-party cooperation by playing the English card. At 5.00am, an hour before the formal declaration that the United Kingdom – and the prime minister’s job – had been saved, Darling telephoned Cameron to warn him against using the moment of victory to demand English votes for English laws at Westminster. If he did so at this sensitive moment, rather than waiting to address the matter in due time, Darling reportedly told Cameron, he would let Alex Salmond back in the front door – essentially jump-starting the campaign for another referendum. Alistair Darling’s 5am plea to PM ignored after Scottish no vote Read more But as Glasgow commuters made their way to work two hours later, Cameron stepped out of No 10 Downing Street to make his first statement on the referendum result – and pointedly ignored Darling’s plea. “The question of English votes for English laws – the so-called West Lothian question – requires a decisive answer,” the prime minister said, determined to silence any threat from the Ukip leader Nigel Farage. “All this must take place in tandem with, and at the same pace as, the settlement for Scotland.” The prime minister’s intervention, which had been prepared in great secrecy by Tory strategists in Downing Street, made clear just how quickly Cameron and the Tories were prepared to press their advantage over the Labour party now that Scottish independence had been averted. Leading lights in the Better Together campaign were astonished. Within minutes of Cameron’s announcement, Gordon Brown, who had done more than any other figure to save the job of his successor, telephoned the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, to express his dismay. The highest civil servant in the land was warned by Brown that the pro-UK parties would pay a big price for the announcement, which he regarded as a disaster. Cameron’s move added a sour taste to the highly emotional celebrations among supporters of the union after their decisive win in the referendum. The SNP wasted no time in crying foul, declaring that the prime minister had abandoned the last-minute pledge made by the leaders of the UK’s three main parties to deliver more powers to Scotland by appearing to make further devolution contingent on the introduction of English-only votes at Westminster. A few days later, Downing Street declared that the prime minister had not intended to formally link the two processes. But the Liberal Democrat cabinet minister Danny Alexander, a leading Better Together strategist, said Cameron seemed to be “trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”. Alexander, who burst into tears when the referendum result was formally confirmed at around 6.00am, had made several requests to see the prime minister’s statement before it was delivered, which were curtly rejected. “What it did was just give the nationalists a whole grievance agenda from a minute after the result was declared,” Alexander recalled. “It was just dreadful.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Cameron dismays Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling by playing the English card. Illustration by Ellie Foreman-Peck The union had been saved after a tumultuous end to the referendum campaign, which had seen billions wiped off the share prices of Scottish companies in the wake of a YouGov poll on 7 September giving the Yes side a narrow lead. But after a clear defeat – 55.3% to 44.7% – the SNP had been thrown a lifeline within hours of the result, undermining the Labour party and highlighting a path to a second referendum. Within weeks, the losers enjoyed a surge in party membership and soaring poll ratings, while the Labour party, once the dominant force in Scottish politics, saw its embattled leader Johann Lamont resign. A YouGov poll last weekend placed the SNP on 47%, 20 points ahead of Labour – which would mean the loss of the vast majority of the party’s 41 Scottish seats. When the results were announced, however, the yes campaigners were distraught. The atmosphere was deflated at the Dynamic Earth geological sciences museum in Edinburgh, where they had gathered in the hope of celebrating the demise of the union. With their dreams shattered, dejected members of the SNP and other parties in the yes camp instead listened to a crestfallen Alex Salmond concede defeat at 6.15am. In a flurry of telephone calls earlier that morning, as he travelled from his home in the north-east to Edinburgh, Salmond told his close aides that he had decided to resign. Senior SNP figures, led by his deputy Nicola Sturgeon, tried to persuade him not to do so. “It was a very, very emotional moment,” Sturgeon recalled. “I didn’t think it was necessarily the right thing to do on that day but he had made up his mind.” The SNP appeared to be the party in disarray throughout the day, as Salmond repeatedly delayed a press conference at the first minister’s official residence at Bute House. When he finally announced his resignation at 4.00pm, declaring in an elegant speech that “the dream shall never die”, Salmond immediately eased the pressure on the SNP. “Alex took himself out of [the equation] and obviously the story became something quite different,” one SNP aide said. An unlikely coalition of sworn enemies, who had campaigned together under the Better Together slogan of “No Thanks”, came to a juddering and messy end as the UK parties bickered over future voting rights of MPs at Westminster. “We started off perhaps with half a step in the wrong direction,” said Lord Strathclyde, the former Tory leader of the House of Lords, who warned the prime minister at a Chequers meeting of Tory MPs and peers shortly after the referendum that he needed to act with care. “If we are serious unionist politicians, we need to use the language of healing and strengthening.” By the end of the day, as weary campaigners from both sides repaired to bed after two days without sleep, the SNP had a clear sense of direction as it rallied around Sturgeon, Salmond’s presumptive successor. There was little time for recriminations within the yes campaign: the prime minister’s intervention had allowed the
with 15,000 reinforcements left over, and if it was just the Navy, it could affect enough sailors to crew every aircraft carrier and submarine and 30,000 more besides. If you removed that many personnel from the Air Force it would affect more people than the entire Air National Guard and seven years' worth of new pilots combined--or, if you prefer to look at it through the prism of a eagle, globe and anchor, it could be enough LBGT Marines to take and hold darn near anything, from the halls of Montezuma, to at least somewhere near the shores of Tripoli. I don't want to pay that price, and apparently the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff don't either...so hey, John Mc Cain...why don't we just get over this imaginary Great Big Deal and move on to some real ones?The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that all leopards may qualify for “endangered” status under the Endangered Species Act. The decision comes in response to a legal petition submitted in July 2016 by the Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Center for Biological Diversity and The Fund for Animals. Leopards are at risk of extinction across their African and Asian range, having suffered a population decline in sub-Saharan Africa of more than 30 percent in the past 25 years, in part due to unsustainable trophy hunting by Americans. Yet due to a loophole in place since 1982, hundreds of leopard trophies per year have been imported into the United States without proper scrutiny by the federal government or scientific experts. In 2014, hunters imported 311 leopard trophies into the U.S. In making its decision, the agency found that the group’s petition presented substantial scientific evidence that endangered protections may be warranted. The decision kicks off a comprehensive review of the status of the species. Teresa M. Telecky, Ph.D, director of the wildlife department at HSI, said: “African leopard numbers are plummeting and as the largest leopard trophy importer in the world, the United States has taken a critical step toward ensuring that our consumption does not threaten the survival of this species.” Jeff Flocken, IFAW’s North America regional director, said: “This is a crucial step forward in saving these imperiled animals. We thank the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for recognizing that enhanced protections under U.S. law may be warranted.” Anna Frostic, senior wildlife attorney for the HSUS, said: “Initiating a status review of the species is long overdue and it is imperative that FWS expeditiously conclude this process and take action to increase oversight of African leopard trophy imports, as required by law.” Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said: “Leopards in Asia and northern Africa have long been recognized as endangered, and the United States must extend this same level of protection to all leopards to reverse their disturbing decline.” Background In sub-Saharan Africa, the leopard population has declined by more than 30 percent in the past 25 years, and the species has lost 48-67 percent of its historic range in Africa. Between 2005-2014, at least 10,191 individual leopards were traded internationally as hunting trophies, with the U.S. as the top importer (accounting for 45 percent of this trade). The number of leopard trophy imports has remained over 300 per year since 1999, despite commitments from FWS in 1982 to only allow “very few” leopard trophies into the country. Panthera pardus is listed on CITES Appendix I, which prohibits international trade for commercial purposes, but this international agreement does not prohibit trade in hunting trophies. Competition for records and prizes, such as Safari Club International’s “Grand Slam Cats of the World” and others, drive wealthy trophy hunters to seek out the world’s rarest animals and encourage trophy hunting at a time when the long-held belief that such killing aided conservation efforts is crumbling under increasing evidence that ecotourism boosts economies more than hunting expeditions (PDF). Trophy hunting is under increased scrutiny following the 2015 killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe. Support the work of our Wildlife Protection Campaign. Donate NowAnyone for another end of year list? We have shared our songs of the year, UK & Irish albums of the year and Dom's gigs of the year. Now it is time for our annual albums list. In a year where music has needed to be a salvation, ye gods of noise have really spoiled us. As our offering to those that make the sun shine a little brighter, we have compiled a list of 100 albums that our team and readers have loved in 2015. This poll has been done democratically, to a point. Various genre specialists' choices and senior staff picks were taken into consideration, even if no other staff member voted for them or they weren't picking up votes on the boards. In weighting the list like this - as we have done every year for the past 5 or so - it hopefully makes for a reflection of the music we've been passionate about this year, rather than an approximation of what was most agreeable to our team. Before we get to that big ol' list of 100 names and titles in an increasingly arbitrary order, here are the 20 albums we loved the most. DIS' ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: 2015 20) Laura Marling Short Movie (Virgin) Marc Burrows wrote: “With Short Movie the Hampshire native has, for the fifth consecutive time, made the strongest album of her career, expanding her palette to include electric-guitar-led alt rock (‘False Hope,’ ‘Don’t Let Me Bring You Down’) and percussive drones (‘Strange’, ‘Short Movie’) while retaining the English-rose folk that made her name (‘Walk Alone,’ ‘Easy.’) There’s a clear through-line to her earliest work, yet a clearer progression that points to an evolving artist - which is how it’s supposed to go, of course, but is rarely the case with a Brit-winning major-label star… This is Marling at her finest, but as she’s proved five times in a row, the best is always yet to come.” 19) Young Fathers White Men Are Black Men Too (Big Dada) Aidan Reynolds wrote: "Despite the weight of their subject matter, Young Fathers are too careful to let it overwhelm their music. They understand that you’ll need a way in. This is the best thing they’ve released, and I have no caveats to insert after that statement. ‘Shame’ is the fucked-up younger brother of Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya,’ and the most summery-sounding song ever to feature the word ‘cunt… Like DEAD before it, White Men… is an elusive beast. It’s more immediate, more instantly gratifying and more technically proficient, but there are also dark, difficult corners which hint at hidden terror. Little details emerge from the fog each time you put it on, and it’s impossible to keep it confined to the background. The beats are closer to krautrock than hip-hop and everything is just that little bit too loud, regardless of the volume at which it’s played. One suspects this may be intentional.'" 18) The Lucid Dream The Lucid Dream (Holy Are You) Dom Gourlay wrote: “Regulars on the psych rock circuit long before it became fashionable; they're the only act to have played all three of Liverpool's International Festivals of Psychedelia since the first one in 2012. Nevertheless, listen to their records in chronological order from that first release five years ago and the progression is there for all to see and hear. Granted, some comparisons are inevitable. For example Spacemen 3 and Spectrum – the latter of who they've shared a stage with – as well as The Black Angels and Darker My Love. However, The Lucid Dream is brimming with diversity throughout its eight pieces and is anything but another psych-by-numbers record as a result.” 17) Nils Frahm Solo (Erased Tapes) Nils released an album for Piano Day, a special day in the calendar that he invented. Here’s what the day was all about. At the end of 2014 I had an immediate urge to release a solo piano album which I recorded some time ago, and I was looking for a specific occasion to do so. I wanted it to be a nice surprise for everyone, so I thought of a meaningful release date to begin with.Seconds later it came to my mind: I was about to create my own holiday in order to come up with a reason for this release. Moreover, if I could be proud of something, then of being responsible for an annual celebration of the piano. And here comes the best bit, Piano Day will happen on the 88th day of the year, which most of the time is the 29th of March. Piano Day is intended to be the most joyful of all holidays. My album –solo– can be downloaded in any desired format and can be listened to for free. For those who like the real thing, there is a vinyl and all other kinds of round discs available (sorry, these are not for free). It would be appreciated if you get this thing on vinyl, simply because it’s very nice looking and sounding! Anyways, this is all part of a fundraising enterprise for a very special piano project. 16) Low Ones and Sixes (Sub Pop) Benjamin Bland wrote: A crucial aspect of Low’s dynamic mastery here is the new focus on electronic instrumentation, which provides less of an occasional intrusion than a steady, and consistent, undercurrent. It fleshes out the band’s frequently skeletal arrangements, particularly on the beautiful ‘Congregation’ and on ‘Into You’, which both prove Low’s penchant for extreme minimalism to be as jaw-droppingly effective as ever. Nowhere is Low’s ability to coax power out of limited musical ingredients more obvious, however, than in the record’s closing quarter-hour. It is a quite astonishing final burst from the trio. ‘Landslide’ is ten minutes of stark reflection, which manages to be one of the most punishing things the band has ever committed to tape. “Scream ‘til you bleed” Sparhawk commands. The heavens open and then ‘DJ’ sweeps in. A majestic and austere closer, its sombre piano undertones make for one of the band’s most deftly stirring pieces to date. Much the same thing could be said of Ones and Sixes as a whole. It’s another subtly heart-rending effort from a band that remains one of the very finest in the world. If you needed a reminder of why Low are an institution then this is it… 15) Lana Del Rey Honeymoon (Polydor) Sean Adams, in a letter to Lana, wrote: Dear Lana… I get the sense from ‘The Blackest Day’ that you’re not in awe of America all the time. Then again, it seems like you close the blinds and rattle around in your own world. Please remember that no human is an island, but the way you present your communications, I get this sense that you and fka Twigs would make for wonderful neighbouring colonies. Your tribes would probably get along pretty well. And with the chapter entitled ‘Music While I’m Watching The Boys’ the warm uplifts got me thinking that Julianna Barwick’s island would sit just off your coast, like a dormant volcano protruding from the distant mist. 14) Kathryn Joseph Bones You’ve Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled (Hits The Fan) Sean Adams writes: "Earlier this year I was invited to judge the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY Awards). When last year’s Twilight Sad record didn’t make the shortlist, I began paying much closer attention to those records that did. At first Kathryn Joseph’s album seemed like a pleasant Antony, Coco Rosie or Tori Amos-ish piano record, but then I started reading about it, and every listen became this intense and visceral experience. It’s an understated masterpiece that wears it heart, guts and those of everyone we’ve lost on its sleeve, torso, cheek, lips, hair, and you can probably see the entrails hanging from its belt, dripping blood on its feet. Its pain is vivid and stark, but it probably won’t pierce your skin on first listen." 13) Blur The Magic Whip (Parlophone) Andrzej Lukowski wrote: “I don’t think The Magic Whip is Blur’s best album, though you might. But there has been no artistic dip. The laborious way in which it was strung together has, perversely, given a feeling of freshness and spontaneity – the highest compliment you can pay it, I think, is that it doesn’t sound like a comeback album or a ‘statement’ record. There are comparisons to be made with other Blur records, but it doesn’t sound particularly like any of them, and Albarn’s lyrical preoccupation with the far east – abstract, rather than patronising – means it’s completely adrift from any sort of ‘Blur are back, bee-atches!’ gestures… fuck it, let’s just enjoy it: we’ve got a new Blur album, and it’s good. Really good. Will there be another, I wonder? I dunno. 13 sounded like the end of a band. Think Tank sounded like the end of a band. The Magic Whip does not sound like the end of a band.” 12) Charli XCX Sucker (Atlantic) Gemma Samways wrote: “Forget what you’ve read: Taylor Swift didn’t make the best pop album of 2014 – Charli XCX did (it then came out two months after the US release in the UK)… The biggest development here is Charli’s shift towards guitars, likely inspired by the punk record she reportedly wrote and shelved prior to starting Sucker. There’s the brilliantly bratty, Bow Wow Wow-ish ‘Breaking Up’, the frenetic pogo of ‘London Queen’, and the low-slung swagger of Rivers Cuomo-collaboration ‘Hanging Around’. Best of the bunch is ‘Body Of My Own’. Essentially a celebration of female masturbation, the chorus’ Eastern-inspired chord progression posits it as a 21st century take on ‘Turning Japanese’… an artist who’s proven – with quite brutal efficiency – that she knows her way around a killer hook. As Charli herself told the NME, at the start of 2014, 'I can write a fucking hit song. And I'm going to write some for me now.' There are 13 of them here; take your pick, suckers.” 11) Viet Cong Viet Cong (Jagjaguar) Andrzej Lukowski wrote: Their aesthetic, I suppose, is extremely loud and incredibly close, gargantuan drums that sound like live recordings from a war married to screeching noise and woozy bass and electronics. There is a painful enormity to the music, which is mixed with a rawness and volume that often makes it come across like an approximate recording of something too huge to contain on tape. ‘Death’, with its supple beginnings, terrifyingly loud instrumental midsection, and howled final phase, is a strangely difficult song to actually remember except in snapshots, something to be lived through rather than hummed along with. That said, Viet Cong's volatile brew often coalesces into something disarmingly catchy: ‘Pointless Experience’ is staggering, frantically phasing electronics dancing ballistically round an implacable battering ram of a vocal mantra from Fiegel; the verse of ‘Continental Shelf’ - basically just very loud feedback and a single drug hit extremely hard – gives way to a wry, clubby chorus; ‘Silhouettes’ flings some icy, detached keys in and manages to echo something of Pornography-era Cure. 10) Jenny Hval Apocalypse, girl (Sacred Bones) Alexander Tudor wrote: Gender and the process of gendering remain omnipresent in the lyrics and music of Jenny Hval, who, as of album #7 may no longer be referred to as a 'prodigy', in that she’s now more like a confirmed woman-of-juno (that being the under-used feminine form of ‘genius’). 'That Battle is Over' – her ironically titled single – reminds us that we’re still at the fourth wave of feminism, and while the album’s soundscape largely dispenses with signifiers of confrontation (the dissonance, noise, and fragmentation of her mid-period albums), it’s also a long way from the sweet Scandi-pop of her earliest incarnation, Rockettothesky, where she smuggled subversive sentiments via her lyrics, delivered in an almost operatically affected soprano (as if to hint at the performance that is gender, without forcing the issue). 9) Sleater-Kinney No Cities Left To Love (Sub Pop) Sammy Maine wrote: Sleater-Kinney are one of the great rock bands and No Cities To Love is the perfect comeback: a treat for die-hard fans as well, a perfect introduction for newcomers – and what a journey that’ll be. 8) Braids Deep In The Iris (Arbutus/Full Time Hobby) Gavin Miller wrote: Across these 40 minutes or so, you realise that they've totally nailed the 'half electronic/ half band' sound they've been going for since their debut. It's hard to find a highlight to the record, because honestly, the whole thing is. There's an utterly remarkable maturity in the execution of their sporadic ideas here, especially for a band so young and one only on album number three. They employ a pretty hefty sonic arsenal too, but crucially know when to sit back and when to push forward - nothing feels like an afterthought, or a cluttered experiment in music tech - it's frenetic stuff, but they know how to steer each song…. The centrepiece to the whole thing is undoubtedly the incredible 'Miniskirt'. A plaintive vocal eventually unravels with the gradually unfurling synth line into a vitriolic, snarling missive aimed squarely at the kind of neanderthal misogynists she's undoubtedly had to deal with in the past. "I'm not a man hater, I enjoy them like cake" she humorously coos at the start, before unleashing "but in my position, I'm the slut, I'm the bitch, I'm the whore, the one you hate… It's like I'm wearing red and if I am, you feel you've the right to touch me, because I asked for it", sung with such passion and control, it's hard to find fault with such bravery in committing this to tape. Those unmistakably Braids-like choppy, almost drum'n'bass rhythms and zipping, bass heavy synths take over the second half of the track in what is a definite career highlight, let alone simply an LP highlight. 7) Joanna Newsom Divers (Drag City) James Skinner wrote: A wash of strings and the sound of chattering birds open the Nico Muhly-assisted first song ‘Anecdotes’, before Newsom’s harp, piano and distinctive vocals herald the tune proper, and it’s a doozy. Against a rich backdrop of antique keys, horns and wind instruments, Newsom details a fantastical battlefield unstuck in space and time. Here, during a break in the fighting, she converses with nightjars and poorwills, longs for “temporal infidelity” and is, somehow, a newborn babe and a rueful soldier simultaneously. A sweeping, graceful coda turns the song inside out, positing that time is both static and fluid, something felt over and over again on Divers. It’s a thoroughly, admirably Tralfamadorian notion, and one Newsom mines to riveting effect… These are startlingly beautiful, fiercely inventive songs, couched in the metaphysical, touching on the universal, born from a deeply personal place. Conveyed with sincerity, warmth and the musicianship and love of language and storytelling that sets - has always set - Joanna Newsom apart, Divers is a colossal achievement. 6) Carly Rae Jepsen E-MO-TION (Interscope/Polydor) Sammy Maine and Kate Solomon wrote: Sammy: I really hope people that wouldn't necessarily give CRJ the time of day give this album a go. The album honestly makes me feel so many things but mainly it makes me feel alive. I genuinely have a spring in my step every time I listen to it. It's so proud to be pop and hopefully this'll make others realise it's never a guilty pleasure to enjoy songs that make you happy; songs that make you wanna dance your ass off and songs that perfectly fit the criteria for pretending to be in a music video Kate: I've listened to it so much and still love it. I'm not sick of it at all Sammy: I just want to hug it. I want it to be my best friend Kate: It totally feels like a friend Sammy: And maybe dudes will have a hard time feeling like that? But that doesn't matter cuz more CRJ for us. Kate: Yeah, I think men have enough music now. Enjoy your Ryan Adams 1989 cover album, dudes. 5) Sufjan Stevens Carrie & Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty) James Skinner wrote: Carrie & Lowell is an incredibly sad record. Listened to in a delicate state, its songs can be harrowing. A friend of mine was brought to tears upon hearing ‘No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross’ on the radio recently, and when I heard it played from start to finish in a crowded bar a couple of weeks ago the effect was jarring (not least because it hasn’t yet been released). Sufjan Stevens has long conveyed great emotion in his music, often married to an admirable, outsized sense of ambition. Here, he strips everything back to its bare minimum, painting a painfully honest depiction of bereavement and the grief and confusion that followed… a collection of songs as captivating, poignant and finally, ultimately, redemptive as any that Stevens has produced. 4) Wolf Alice My Love Is Cool (Dirty Hit) Sean Adams wrote: Wolf Alice have been erroneously dubbed a grunge revival act and it's understandable why people are conflating their sensibility with needless nostalgia. If Cobain’s ambition was to make music that sounded like The Beatles and Black Sabbath, then Wolf Alice have upped the ante by making a record that sounds like the Cocteau Twins and Motörhead. ‘Fluffy’ may sound like The Pixies having a riff-fight with Sonic Youth whilst ‘Turn to Dust’ has a brief Lynchian moment with a sniff of Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’, but unlike many of their contemporaries nothing about My Love Is Cool feels like a homage to the past. Retromania, this is not. In fact, it’s a forward-leaning record that’s very much in the moment, magpieing up the music and experiences that they love, ingesting it all, twisting around, and throwing it all up with aplomb. If you could spew gracefully, this is what it would sound like. Whereas Noel wanted to start a Beatles-indebted revolution from his bed (on a comedown from night before no doubt) and Alex Turner wanted to reinvigorate rock & roll; Ellie Rowsell (high on life, love, literature and the rejuvenating power of angst) wants you to start appreciating how good you’ve got it. 3) Björk Vulnicura (One Little Indian) Sam Lewis wrote: If Björk tackled the biological world with her last album, 2011’s ‘media project’ Biophillia, on Vulnicura she applies the same forensic veneration towards the death of her relationship with long-term partner Matthew Barney. ‘Family’, the monolithic eight-minute-track at the heart of the album, is at once a requiem to the collapse of her home life (“Is there a place / Where I can pay respects / For the death of my family?”), and a prayer for relief from pain (“There is a swarm of sound / Around our heads / And we can hear it / And we can get healed by it”). That first line suggests music as a healing force, and here the music very much accompanies Bjork as the central figure of the album, the narrator and lamenter, dreaming her relationship back into life to understand it better and come to terms with its passing… The sheer weight of its creator's emotional honesty holds the album together. Like the ‘Black Lake’ that she compares her heart to (“My soul torn apart / My spirit is broken”), the album spirals around the weight of her emotional loss, the record full of empty spaces, in the abstract production, in the longing strings, in the people and feelings absent: “Explore the negative space / Around my mouth / It implodes / Black hole”). If this is music as catharsis, the sheer length of the songs, and their wondering musings, make for a strange, intense listening experience. We feel Björk’s pain, but the music holds us at a remove, only rarely letting us in close with her. Maybe that’s part of the healing process - when something dies, when a period of our lives is suddenly lost to us, we need space to grieve and recover. 2) Kendrick Lamar To Pimp A Butterfly (Interscope) Jude Clarke wrote: It's the sort of album that deserves – no, demands – to be really listened to, worked out for oneself, and - in case this is all making it sound like homework or duty, god forbid - relished and delighted in, in all its jazzed up, funked out, soulful, loud, proud, angry, sad and beautiful glory… To Pimp a Butterfly is a concept album with many themes, which interlock and overlap. It isn’t a straight narrative, instead leaving the listener to fill in some of the gaps for herself. So threads running through the album include the perils and temptations of fame (personified and referenced several times as Lucy aka Lucifer), the importance of home vs hotel rooms and life on the road, weightier concerns like black-on-black violence, US race relations, African-American role models, the history of black music, slavery, America… To Pimp a Butterfly is an album with more to say about contemporary America – race relations, the country’s foundations on the slave trade, the vast inequalities dictated by money and skin colour, the dysfunctional relationship between the sexes, fame and more – than you might read in many so-called Great American Novels. This is an important – a very important – piece of work that will stand the test of time. It’s also an utter blast to listen to and live with. 1) Father John Misty I Love You, Honeybear (Bella Union) Jude Clarke wrote: Loosely framed as a concept album around his getting together with wife Emma, I Love You, Honeybear pinwheels between an honest, bruised tenderness and worldweary cynicism, but never in that yawnsomely earnest way you all too often find when singer-songwriters use their material to present and fillet their own relationships… So we first meet the pair on the opening title track, a straightforward ode to their love, set to syrupy high-maintenance strings. They frolic on “Rorschach sheets”, literally fiddling while Rome metaphorically burns, or as Tillman puts it “Getting high on the mattress, while the global market crashes”. Already you’re swept up in that exclusive everything-is-shit-except-you-and-me feeling of fatalism and romance – a recurrent theme that can also be found in the chucklesome ‘Chateau Lobby #4…’, with its distrustful neighbours (who complain about Josh and Emma’s noisy lovemaking, fearing that “the misanthropes next door are probably conceiving a Damien”); or in Tillman’s sweet, dazed wonder at the pair’s fortune in actually meeting, delivered with stark honesty on the simple, acoustic closer ‘I Went to the Store One Day’. “For love to find us, of all people / I never thought it could be so simple”, he sings, tangibly relieved and still astonished at his good luck…. Here is the full list of 100 Albums released this year that our team loved. 1) Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear 2) Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly 3) Bjork - Vulnicura 4) Wolf Alice - My Love Is Cool 5) Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell 6) Carly Rae Jepsen - E-MO-TION 7) Joanna Newsom - Divers 8) Braids - Deep In The Iris 9) Sleater-Kinney - No Cities Left To Love 10) Jenny Hval - Apocalypse, girl 11) Viet Cong - Viet Cong 12) Charli XCX - Sucker 13) Blur - The Magic Whip 14) Kathryn Joseph - Bones You’ve Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled 15) Lana Del Rey - Honeymoon 16) Low - Ones and Sixes 17) Nils Frahm - Solo 18) The Lucid Dream - The Lucid Dream 19) Young Fathers - White Men Are Black Men Too 20) Laura Marling - Short Movie 21) PINKSHINYULTRABLAST - Everything Else Matters 22) Susanne Sundfør - Ten Love Songs 23) Girl Band - Holding Hands With Jamie 24) Max Richter - Sleep 25) Fetty Wap - Fetty Wap 26) Foals - What Went Down 27) Kamasi Washington - The Epic 28) Gwenno - Y Dydd Olaf 29) Petrels - Flailing Tomb 30) Haiku Salut - Etch And Etch Deep 31) Du Blonde - Welcome To The Milk 32) BADBADNOTGOOD & Ghostface Killah – Sour Soul 33) Marilyn Manson - The Pale Emperor 34) Mbongwana Star - From Kinshasa 35) Idlewild - Everything Ever Written 36) Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress 37) Ezra Furman - Perpetual Motion People 38) Algiers - Algiers 39) Hop Along - Painted Shut 40) Trust Fund - Seems Unfair 41) Everything Everything - Get To Heaven 42) Mew - +/- 43) Grimes - Art Angels 44) The Icarus Line - All Things Under Heaven 45) Destroyer - Poison Season 46) Maccabees - Marks to Prove it 47) Then Thickens - Colic 48) Lower Dens - Escape From Evil 49) Heather Woods Broderick - Glider 50) Blanck Mass - Dumb Flesh 51) Girlpool - Before The World Was Big 52) HEALTH - Death Magic 53) Deerhunter - Fading Frontier 54) Lanterns on the Lake - Beings 55) Julia Holter - Have You in My Wilderness 56) Ryley Walker - Primrose Green 57) Gnod - Infinity Machines 58) Killing Joke - Pylon 59) Blank Realm - Illegals in Heaven 60) Title Fight - Hyperview 61) Belle and Sebastian - Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance 62) Desaparecidos - Payola 63) Songhoy Blues - Music In Exile 64) Errors - Lease of Life 65) Joanna Gruesome - Peanut Butter 66) Cheatahs - Mythologies 67) Mercury Rev – The Light in You 68) Ghostpoet - Shedding Skin 69) Alabama Shakes - Sound and Cloud 70) Beach House - Depression Cherry/Thank Your Lucky Stars 71) Jessica Pratt - On Your Own Love Again 72) Colder - Many Colours 73) Ghost Culture - Ghost Culture 74) Jamie XX - In Colour 75) Dre - Compton 76) Anna Von Hausswolff - The Miraculous 77) The Libertines - Anthems For Doomed Youth 78) Battles - La Di Da Di 79) John Grant - Grey Tickles, Black Pressure 80) Lonelady - Hinterland 81) JME - Integrity 82) The Cribs - For All My Sisters 83) Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit 84) Drake - If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late 85) Tame Impala - Currents 86) Kurt Vile - b'lieve i'm goin down… 87) El Vy - Return To The Moon 88) Ought - Sun Coming Down 89) Tobias Jesso Jr. - Goon 90) Holly Herndon - Platform 91) Villagers - Darling Arithmetic 92) Deafheaven - New Bermuda 93) Floating Points - Elaenia 94) Gaz Coombes - Matador 95) Fairhorns - Fuckup Rush 96) Nadine Shah - Fast Food 97) Roisin Murphy - Hairless Toys 98) Soak - Before We Forgot How To Dream 99) The Mountain Goats - Beat the Champ 100) Drinks - Hermits On Holiday Got an opinion about this list? Join the discussion over on our music forum. Or post about it on Facebook: Or use the hashtag DiSLPSof2015 on Twitter: #DiSLPsof2015 Tweets Join Our List Mailing list subscribers are be kept abreast of our album recommendations and playlists throughout the year: And there's more... 1) Songs of the year 2015 2) UK& Irish albums of the year 3) Dom's gigs of the year 4) Forgotten what our previous albums of the year were? Albums of the Year archive. 5) Vote now in our annual reader poll and see what else the DiS community has been loving. ![102034](http://dis.resized.images.s3.amazonaws.com/540x310/102034.jpeg)Now that Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system has hit the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) stage, it's time to see how it stacks up against the incumbent Windows 7. Can the upcoming operating system keep up with -- or even beat -- Windows 7, or does Microsoft still have work to do to optimize performance? Note that the RTM version of Windows 8 is the version that is sent to OEMs to load onto new systems. I have previously benchmarked both the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows 8 Release Preview releases. The hardware The following hardware platform was used for benchmarking the two operating systems. The system was purpose-built for the job of benchmarking: Intel Core i7-2600K processor Crucial 4GB DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) RAM EVGA 01G-P3-1460-KR GeForce GTX 560 GIGABYTE GA-Z77MX-D3H motherboard Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB hard drive CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W power supply unit Everything on the system was set to stock speeds, with no component overclocked. For the tests I used a Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB hard drive with the Windows 8 RTM 64-bit installed on it. All drivers and updates were installed, along with all the software that would be needed for the tests. The drive was then defragmented using the Windows tool before the benchmarking was carried out. Data related to the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows 7 was collected from the a benchmark test of Windows 8 I carried out in April and the Release Preview data dates back to June. The benchmark tests Here's a rundown of the tests that were run on the three operating systems. I've chosen a mixture of real world and synthetic benchmark tests. Each test was run three times and the results averaged. Boot time Measured using a handy tool called BootRacer. This measures both the time it takes to get to the logon screen and the time to boot to the desktop. Measured using a handy tool called BootRacer. This measures both the time it takes to get to the logon screen and the time to boot to the desktop. Audio transcode time Transcoding an audio test file from WAV to MP3 format using iTunes. A measure of the operating system's ability to handle multimedia. Transcoding an audio test file from WAV to MP3 format using iTunes. A measure of the operating system's ability to handle multimedia. Video transcode time Transcoding video test file from DVD to MP4 format using Handbrake. A measure of the operating system's ability to handle multimedia. Transcoding video test file from DVD to MP4 format using Handbrake. A measure of the operating system's ability to handle multimedia. PCMark 7 A benchmark run with PCMark 7. The industry standard PC test for CPU, HDD, SSD, memory, and graphics performance. A benchmark run with PCMark 7. The industry standard PC test for CPU, HDD, SSD, memory, and graphics performance. 3DMark 11 A benchmark run with 3DMark 11. This is a set of six demanding benchmark test measuring the graphics performance of gaming PCs. A benchmark run with 3DMark 11. This is a set of six demanding benchmark test measuring the graphics performance of gaming PCs. FurMark A benchmark run with FurMark. This is a VGA stress test, GPU burn-in test and an excellent OpenGL benchmark. This is a very stressful benchmark and can damage -- or even destroy -- hardware if used incorrectly, and as such I do not recommend running this tool on a system unless you know exactly what you are doing and fully understand the risks associated with it. A benchmark run with FurMark. This is a VGA stress test, GPU burn-in test and an excellent OpenGL benchmark. This is a very stressful benchmark and can damage -- or even destroy -- hardware if used incorrectly, and as such I do not recommend running this tool on a system unless you know exactly what you are doing and fully understand the risks associated with it. Cinebench 11.5 A benchmark run with Cinebench 11.5. This is a real world cross, platform test suite that evaluates a computer's CPU and GPU performance capabilities. A benchmark run with Cinebench 11.5. This is a real world cross, platform test suite that evaluates a computer's CPU and GPU performance capabilities. Heaven 3.0 A benchmark run with Heaven 3.0. This is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on the advanced UNIGINE engine. Not only does this tool give the maximum frames per second (FPS), it also records minimum frames per second, which is handy observing dips in performance during heavy load. A benchmark run with Heaven 3.0. This is a DirectX 11 GPU
your own at home to help build these new habits. Some things you can try out include: Invest in a full-length mirror where you can work on your posture, gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, or fashion. By doing this you can see yourself as other people will see you in person, and when you look in the mirror you can ask yourself “What is it that I’m communicating to others when they see me? What nonverbal cues am I sending?” Work on your tone of voice by recording yourself reading a newspaper article or sharing a personal story. Then listen to what you recorded, make notes on your tone, and re-record it fixing the stuff you have issues with – maybe you speak too fast, or too softly, or you mumble your words, or you don’t express yourself enough. Role-play by yourself. Imagine how you would act with people in specific situations, then act them out as if they were really happening in front of you. Pay attention to how you act in these hypothetical scenarios and ask yourself how you might use nonverbal cues differently to improve how you communicate in real life. If you want, record it in video and play it back later. Role-play with others. Do mock interviews, dates, conversations, or speeches with your friends and ask them to give you constructive criticism on how to improve your nonverbal communication. This can be especially fun if you’re both working to improve aspects of your communication. Use YouTube or Google images to practice nonverbal cues. Search for videos or pictures of people looking directly at the camera, then practice maintaining eye contact or guessing what emotions are being expressed by the other person. This will help you become more comfortable at looking into people’s eyes and reading their expressions. This whole article is an excellent starting point in becoming a master of nonverbal communication, but it’s not magic. You have to willingly go out in the real world and practice all of this stuff or it will do nothing for you. And it all takes time. However, even just paying more attention to nonverbal communication in your day-to-day interactions can do wonders in helping you become more socially aware and socially intelligent. Hopefully reading through this stuff has opened your mind to new ways of perceiving your everyday relationships, and that can begin to transform how you go about these relationships in the future. Stay updated on new articles and resources in psychology and self improvement:Suu Kyi to swear parliamentary oath Posted Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi says she will swear an oath required to enter parliament. Speaking to reporters in Rangoon, Aung San Suu Kyi said she and her National League for Democracy colleagues will take the oath as soon as possible. She and 42 others were supposed to enter parliament last week after winning seats at historic by-elections on April 1. But they refused to take an oath requiring them to safeguard the constitution and asked instead to be able to use the word "respect." Now she says the party has decided to take the oath to fulfil the desire of those who voted them in. "We will go as soon as possible to attend the parliament," she said. "Some people might ask, given that we didn't accept the wording of'safeguard' in the beginning, why we accept now. The reason we accept it, firstly is the desire of the people. Our voters voted for us because they want to see us in parliament." Due to the stoush, opposition members were not in parliament today to witness a speech by UN chief Ban Ki Moon who called on the international community to continue easing sanctions on Burma. Mr Ban has become the first foreigner to address Burma's parliament during his visit to the country, which he says comes at a critical moment in its transition to democracy. Mr Ban has told parliament that success requires partnership, and the international community stands ready to help. "The path of change is still fragile and uncertain. But it is indeed too narrow to turn back," he said. "Let us walk together to meet all of these challenges by summoning the political will to make lasting change." ABC/wires Topics: world-politics, myanmarFacebook Twitter Reddit Google+ While it is impossible to predict the weather, and therefore impossible to predict hop futures, the beer industry got some important information the other day when Hop Growers of America (HGA) released its 2015 Statistical Report. I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is, expect higher yields in 2016 and more acreage dedicated to the aroma hops you love. The bad news is, as expected, 2015’s exceptionally hot and dry weather negatively impacted the hop crop. Remain calm. The sky is not falling. This does not intrinsically mean the price of your favorite IPA is going up. In all honesty, that could happen at any time regardless of the health of the hop harvest. The result of the low harvest was a deficit in worldwide production that hop suppliers will make up from inventories built in previous years. That’s not uncommon in the hop industry. There are good years and bad years. Last year was a bad year. sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor sponsor It should be noted that there was also a drought in Europe last year. Germany, the second-most productive hop region on earth, also suffered. They rely more heavily on rain for irrigation than farmers in the Northwest. That is, they are more reliant on rain for direct irrigation. According to reports, the water stores for the Yakima Valley are currently at 117 percent of normal. For Washington overall, water stores are at 109 percent of normal. Hop Growers of America cautiously anticipates a good crop in 2016. [singlepic id=815 w=475 h= float=none] “The unusually high temperatures experienced this past summer were unprecedented, and we do not anticipate a repeat of an early and persistent heat wave,” said Ann George, Executive Director of Hop Growers of America (HGA). “While we are waiting to see the final snowpack situation in the spring, we know we are already far better off than last year, so we anticipate higher yields along with more acres going in to meet contract demands.” Don’t Simply Blame it on the Rain In a recent presentation at the Annual American Hop Convention, the Brewers Association (BA) noted that hopping rates and hop usage in the US continues to climb, and will continue to do so as consumers reach for hop-heavy IPA above all other beer styles. According to the BA, last year the craft beer industry produced twice as much IPA as it did in 2011. The continually increasing demand for aroma varieties puts as much pressure on the hop industry as anything else. [singlepic id=857 w=475 h= float=none] Hop farmers continually adjust to meet the needs of the industry. In recent years, that means planting more of the aroma varieties used to give IPA its beloved aromatic, floral hop character. Although the harvest suffered in 2015, a larger percentage of the harvest included the varieties that hop heads crave. That trend will continue, in good years and bad. Still, there’s no denying that last year’s weather impacted aroma varieties more than other varieties. According to the HGA Statistics Report, “High summer heats and water restrictions meant mixed results for crops, particular hitting earlier harvest varieties (aromas).” Who Will Get the Hops? If you’re worried about your local brewery’s ability to get the hops it needs to brew your favorite IPA, that’s a valid concern, but you should know that most breweries have multi-year contracts with hop suppliers, so essentially they are guaranteed to get the hops they need. For those looking to make spot purchase, like nano-brewers and other smaller breweries without contracts, it may be a rough year. [singlepic id=707 w=475 h= float=none] Hop contracts are not an iron-clad elixir, and many brewers grumble about them, but breweries that do not have hop contracts will most likely find it more difficult to get the most popular hop varieties, especially in bad years. According to Ann George, “Essentially, it was a rough year at home and across the globe, however, contracted needs will be met with occasional substitutions for something very similar because of the highly unusual growing season. We are already planning for and looking forward to 2016 harvest.” Price of Your Pint If you are worried about how all of this might impact the price of your pint, know that hop availability is just one of many factors involved in the equation. For breweries that have contracts, the price is set. At least in theory. You should probably be more concerned about lawmakers in Olympia passing new taxes or increasing existing taxes on beer, which is always a real concern. After all, this is a budget year in Washington. More States Producing Hops, Kind of Something interesting the HGA Statistics Report revealed, 21 additional states were added to the hop report in 2015. More and more states outside the Pacific Northwest are beginning to produce measurable quantities of hops. Still, production outside the Northwest was very small by comparison. To put things in perspective, here are the top four hop-producing states, in terms of acreage: Washington – 32,158 (acres dedicated to hops) Oregon – 6,612 Idaho – 4,863 Michigan – 320 Although states like Michigan, New York, Montana, Nebraska and others are beginning to produce more hops, the Pacific Northwest continues to produce more than 90 percent of the nation’s hop crop, with about 75 percent coming from the Yakima Valley. Here’s a link to the complete HGA Statistical Report (pdf).Kek must have been smiling that day when Cassandra Fairbanks and Mike Cernovich were caught red-handed in fragrante delicto, as it were, showcasing (and from the White House press room no less) the latest covert white power hand signal, according to the trolls at 4chan anyway. And what exactly was the nefarious sign by which they subversively signaled their neo-nazi inclinations? The “ok” hand gesture. Mike Cernovich’s fortuitous appearance with Cassie might seem merely coincidental to the uninitiated in the ways of Meme Magic, but for the Egyptian god of random Chaos (often portrayed in his 21st-century avatar of Pepe the Frog) nothing is merely coincidental. Cernovich had been the guest when 60 Minutes decided to use his Pizzagate coverage as an excuse to expose the life cycle of a fake news story and how it spreads. Ironically, Cernovich is now tangential to a story that seems to expose how the mainstream media is occasionally party to the same sort of lax fact-checking and partisan blinders that breeds disinformation and propaganda. From a baseless tweet which was subsequently debunked to a story in the Independent UK shared some 40,000 plus times worldwide and coverage in Ha’aretz, another widely read and respected international outlet, this story shows how respected journalists wield a power that comes with certain responsibility. Fusion’s Editor-in-Chief Dodai Stewart said in a statement to BuzzFeed that the company would defend Roller in the lawsuit, calling it a “publicity stunt and an attempt to intimidate reporters.” A publicity stunt? Cassandra in an interview remarked that she had to inform her daughter’s school not to let her out in recess due to fear from threats that were made when the baseless slur that she was a white supremacist spread worldwide. I would argue that knowingly (and after the ADL article and hundreds of tweets, it would be hard to feign ignorance) proferring harmful and malicious statements about a reporter that could (and did) result in death threats and could easily result in a nightmare for friends and family in both personal and professional spheres is in itself a form of “reporter intimidation.” Buzzfeed writer Joe Bernstein refers to the case as indicative of “the new, far-right activist press against the mainstream media.” He goes on to speak of “the rise of a group of nakedly partisan writers who promote conspiracy theories, fabricate rape threats, and have connections to extreme online communities.” Let’s break this down bit by bit. First off, his article headline begins “Pro-Trump writer.” From the headline on, he’s announcing his bias and since it’s doubtful there are many, if any, “pro-Trump” readers at Buzzfeed, beginning thusly is a sure sign of his own “naked partisanship” as well as ideological dog-whistle to his readers. As for conspiracy theory promulgation, how about Emma Roller trying to claim the OK hand sign was a white pride symbol far after the ADL had debunked the hoax. As for “connections to extreme online communities,” would that include groups like AZ Antifa who threatened Cassandra and her daughter’s life? The day after Cassandra was defamed by Emma Roller, the Anti-Defamation League published an article entitled, “No, the ‘OK’ Gesture Is Not a Hate Symbol.” In case it wasn’t blatantly clear from the get-go, ADL continues to explain who is responsible and their practicum behind initially spreading the hoax – 4chan, “an outsized cultural impact on the internet.” It has been responsible for everything from the “I can haz cheeseburger” cat meme to the concept of rickrolling,” as ADL reports was the source of the claim. “The ‘OK’ hand gesture hoax originated in February 2017 when an anonymous 4channer announced ‘Operation O-KKK,’ telling other members that ‘we must flood Twitter and other social media websites…claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy.’ The user even provided a helpful graphic showing how the letters WP (for ‘white power’) could be traced within an ‘OK’ gesture. The originator and others also suggested useful hashtags to help spread the hoax, such as #PowerHandPrivilege and #NotOkay. ‘Leftists have dug so deep down into their lunacy,’ wrote the poster, ‘We must force [them] to dig more, until the rest of society ain’t going anywhere near that s**.'” This wouldn’t be the first time that Bernstein took up arms against what he perceived to be racist or “alt-right” influence in the media. Bernstein’s article that led to the controversy that resulted in the cancellation of Million Dollar Extreme cites an anonymous source “with knowledge of the network’s operations” that alleges Sam and the show’s creators attempted to sneak swastikas and other coded racist symbols into the Adult Swim program. This claim is vehemently denied by Hyde. After the publication of the article, a reddit post appeared with what seemed to be a fairly clear warning to Hyde that he was gunning for him. “I’ll make sure this show doesn’t get a Season 2. I’ll make sure all the contracts you’ve made are revoked. I’ll make sure this community of abhorrent, racist, and just downright offensive people is spread no further. I’ve had threats made against my life as well as my family’s. I’ve had more anti-semitic remarks thrown at me this week than all of my life. Your show reflects your racist and hateful beliefs. I am putting an end to this. According to your followers, I am nothing more than a ‘human toilet’ (not sure what I’m expecting from Trump supporters, anyway) for BuzzFeed. I am higher up than you think. This is the last you will hear from me on this platform. J Bernstein The claim that a Puerto Rican reporter, who is a former Bernie Sanders supporter and far left activist who even ran with Antifa for a time, is a white supremacist should be instantly laughable. The day after the article appeared alleging that the “OK” hand gesture that Cassandra and Cernovich were flashing was a white power code was nearly immediately debunked by the Anit-Defamation League. According to Cassandra in an interview June 3rd, she had never met, nor did she even personally know of, former New York Times writer and current Fusion senior reporter Emma Roller. Despite the ADL’s swift clarification and hundreds of Twitter users pointing out the fact that the gesture’s use as a white supremacy code had been debunked, Emma persisted “until the eve of this suit” as the libel suit asserts. “The pen is a sword, not a shield” as Robert Barnes writes in the civil suit, and weaponized words like “white supremacist” have a way of sticking like the setae on a gecko’s toes. Perhaps the greatest irony here is the fact that hate speech can be speech that “incites violence” toward a person or group. As such, Cassandra herself seems to be victim of a hate crime of sorts. [Featured Image by bigjom jom/Shutterstock]Counter Strike Global Offensive has been available to play in China since a long time. However Valve did not directly support the game and it’s players from the region. Considering China is one of the biggest esports markets in the world ( in a multitude of games), this decision is definitely something that Valve should have implemented long ago. Perfect World announces agreement with Valve. Perfect World announced on the 28th of July, 2016 that it has reached an agreement with Valve to introduce CS GO in China. CS GO was already playable in China, but Valve did not have direct servers in China. This prompted several players to play on third party servers which were not geographically suited for Chinese players. 5E was one of the most popular servers from the region. “Perfect World will spare no effort to promote CS:GO in China and further optimize the player’s gaming experience. We will continue to strengthen the competitive nature of the game. Together with Valve’s research and development capabilities, we are certain that we will make CS:GO a great success in the country.” Perfect World president Zhang Yunfan. This announcement coincided with the announcement of several tournaments for the Chinese region. With growing interest in the FPS game, many big esports organisations looked to invest in a growing community and business opportunity. CS GO will compete with CrossFire CrossFire is an online tactical first-person shooter by South Korean developer SmileGate. CrossFire was the world’s top grossing game in 2014 ($1.3 billion). That is a huge number considering the exchange rate and the popularity of some other esports titles over the world. There will even be a movie based on the game releasing in the near future. CrossFire has already established itself as one of the leading games in Chinese FPS scene. It’s popularity in the region proves yet again the interest of the Chinese population in FPS games. CrossFire filled the void left between low supply and a rising demand for quality FPS games in the region. It’s success is partly due to lack of competition by any recognisable developers. Previously we had CS Online as a part of the Chinese FPS scene. That particular game was also successful in it’s own way. Multiple instances have proven time and again that there is a big interest for such type of games from the region. China is a Big untapped market China is the biggest esports market in the world. Esports has developed in China in a major way and is listed as one of the 99 official sports in the country. The 2008 Olympics saw China feature celebrity Warcraft III player Zhang Xiangling as the official torch-bearer. It was the government’s way of showing solidarity and support for esports. By 2016, China has overtaken USA as the biggest esports market. With an annual revenue of $22.23 billion, China does not show any signs of stopping. There are an estimated 100 million esports fans in the world’s most populous country. The biggest change in the esports market is the level of acceptance that esports has gained in China. While most of the 1990ś saw Chinese players playing the game casually and as a hobby, the last decade has seen the rise of esports as a prominent career and opportunity..The Internet and online gaming have been viewed as electronic heroin.[1] Ofcourse as more people starting playing online games and making a career out of it, esports has gained widespread acceptance in the Chinese culture. CS GO will have strong security features in China Counter Strike Global Offensive has always been plagued by cheating and hacking accusations. We have seen several types of spinbots and wallhacks in the game even at the highest levels. This spoils the gaming experience for the other 9 players and causes a lot of distress amongst the community. The very nature of the relationship between hackers and anti-cheats means that any anti-cheat will always be at a disadvantage. While Game developers might add a new firewall or a new way to detect a hack, it will not be long before the cheat producers will be able to navigate their way around those firewalls. It is a constant tug of war between the two parties involved and anti-cheats inherently have to play catch-up. We do have third-party anti-cheats such as ESEA, FaceIT who have been regularly updating their anti-cheats in order to try to stay on par with the innumerable new cheats coming up every day. However the official matchmaking system has always been falling behind and has seen a plethora of hacks and cheats being implemented and used in the game. The Chinese version of CS GO will implement a new way of trying to ban cheat users. Instead of trying to stay ahead of cheat developers, Valve will be trying to hold cheat users accountable for their usage. Chinese CS GO will be linked to Alipay Alipay is a third party payment platform in China. Launched by the Alibaba group, Alipay forms the biggest payment platform in China with over 400 million registered users. CS GO in China will be linked to a Alipay account. Alipay accounts are linked with government issued ID´s. That means the accounts are limited to one per user. This system helps to identify the persons associated with the gaming accounts. Any person found to be associated with hacking or illegal gaming activities will have his Alipay CS GO account banned. The ban will be associated with his PIN ( Personal Identification Number) and his phone number. It will also lower the users Alipay rating. This will severely affect his rating with making real life financial transactions using Alipay. Disclaimer : Alipay is not a Social Security Number. Having your Alipay account / rating lowered will not result in having your credit rating for all banks lowered. Valve has plans to curb cheating in CS GO Linking the Chinese CS GO accounts to Alipay forms an almost foolproof way of ensuring that cheaters in Chinese CS GO will be minimised. the ratings being lowered relies heavily on cheaters actually being caught, but the severe lifetime punishment is harsh enough to deter any potential hackers. This system is difficult to implement internationally. It is mainly due to the ´international market´ being extremely vast and diverse. There is no single financial / other service which can affect a huge number of players from diverse countries and backgrounds. Valve has however mentioned that they have plans to curb cheating and unfair methods in CS GO internationally. The presentation mentioned an AI ( Artificial Intelligence ) which would hopefully be able to curb and modify itself according to the development of the Cheaters. This development should be able to catch a majority of the cheats and lower the manual workload for the developers. It would free up space and time for the developers to concentrate on other aspects of the game. Ofcourse an AI will not always be able to catch all the cheats in the game. But it should lessen the attention demanded from the developers on a individual basis. It will form the core of further development in esports as we can expect other esports genres to also follow suit. Source 2!!! Source 2 finally!!. Yes CS GO is getting Source 2 in the coming summer. The announcement has only been made in Chinese and Valve have not made any announcement yet for their English speaking fanbase. That being said, CS GO being ported to Source 2 engine is big news. The CS GO UI is one of the oldest ( to be honest it’s extremely bland) UI amongst esports. With little to almost no changes in the UI, it definitely can be improved a lot. There are no other details about what Source 2 will present to the fans. It might feature improved FPS and gameplay or it might just be an UI update for the game. Nevertheless the news is extremely exciting simply to see Valve putting so much effort into CS GO ( which for long has been neglected by the developers). New Operation is coming out in Summer CS GO operations have been loved by the community simply cause of the variety of the players. There have been seven operations so far in CS GO, each more loved than the previous one. The last operation was Operation Wildfire, which was released on February 17 and lasted till July 15, 2016. There have been no other operations since then despite repeated requests from the community. CS GO operations have a rich history of having several maps in the pool which have the potential to be added to the active duty map pool. The two most famous maps, which eventually did get added to the active duty map pool are Cobblestone and Overpass. Valve has announced the launch of an operation in Summer which is definitely going to excite a lot of fans in CS GO. Crates will reveal the drop rates in China The Chinese Government has passed a law requiring esports developers to reveal the drop rates of the crates in game. CS GO drop rates have been a closely guarded secret with no details being revealed of the exact chance of a person getting a knife / rare skin in-game. The regulation comes from China’s Ministry of Culture, via NeoGAF, and states that “online game publishers shall promptly publicly announce information about the name, property, content, quantity, and draw/forge probability of all virtual items and services. “The information on draw probability shall be true and effective.” Chinese organisations push into esports Chinese organisations are increasingly noticing the massive interest and player base in esports. It presents an opportunity for brands and organisations to make their presence known amongst casual players and fans. With esports still a relatively new sector globally, any dominance in the sector now will go a long way in establishing these organisations in esports as a big name. It will form the crux of future development in esports. We have seen big Chinese organisations such as IG, Newbee already invested into Dota2. With CS GO becoming increasingly popular as the face of esports ( already being televised and seeing significant investment from big brands), many of these organisations turned their attention to CS GO. Perfect World has been in talks with Valve since quite sometime and they reached an agreement in July 2016, which saw the announcement of addition of CS GO to China. Chinese CS GO will form a big part of the viewership numbers and potential investment into the esports in the future. China is already one of the biggest markets in the world. However we are equally excited about the Source 2 and New Operation announcement. What does this mean for the rest of the world? Although these announcements have been made specifically for the Chinese version to be released later, they are very well relevant for the rest of the world. There is no way Valve will not let features such as a new operation, Source2 be included in the western (international) version of CS GO. These changes should change the way CS GO looks and feels. It should make the game much smoother and provide a boost to FPS. However with no information to go upon officially, it is up to us to wait for the official announcement of these changes. We are on the verge of CSGO 2.0 and you can be sure that Valve will leave no stone unturned to make it a rousing success.The logo of Tesla is seen in Taipei, Taiwan August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Tesla (TSLA.O) fell from record highs on Tuesday after an analyst warned that the electric car maker may take longer than expected to become profitable. Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois launched coverage of Tesla with an “underperform” rating, helping send shares of the company headed by entrepreneur billionaire Elon Musk down 2.17 percent to $376.74 after closing at a record high the day before. “Achievements to-date and vision are impressive, but we don’t think Tesla’s vertically integrated business model can be scaled up as profitably and quickly as consensus thinks and valuation multiples imply,” Houchois warned in a research note. Houchois’ $280 price target was well below the median analyst price target of $337.50, according to Thomson Reuters data. Musk is counting on the recently launched Model 3, Tesla’s least pricey car, to make the Palo Alto, California company profitable and establish it as the leading electric carmaker ahead of BMW (BMWG.DE), General Motors (GM.N) and other long-established players. Wall Street’s confidence in Musk has sent Tesla’s stock up 83 percent over the past year to record highs. Skeptics believe Tesla’s aggressive production targets are unrealistic, that Musk is burning through cash too quickly and that the company’s electric cars will be overtaken by larger automakers. Eight analysts recommend buying Tesla’s stock, while another eight recommend selling, and eight others have neutral ratings, according to Thomson Reuters data. That makes Tesla one of the 10 most poorly-rated stocks in the Nasdaq 100 index.What's this all about? As we begin packing our bags for Hacker summercamp and get ready to see all of our virtual friends in person, I have one quick favor to ask: If you are heading to DEF CON, please pack one extra piece of clothing. Why, you ask? Well, when you venture out of Caesars Palace during the conference, you will notice that there are many people on the street who are less fortunate and struggling. And while at times it may seemt that there are a lot of people on the strip in need of assistance, it is only a small fraction of those that need help. I think that as a community, we can accomplish incredible things. We do more than just break things or get our lulz. We are creators. We are innovaters. We are makers. And we are doers. I firmly believe that we can create positive change in every community that we come in contact with. So as we descend upon Las Vegas this year, let's do a little something for the community that has been hosting us for 25 years. With that in mind, I have decided to organize a clothing drive to benefit Las Vegas homeless and domestic violence shelters. I've reached out to a few local shelters, and am making arrangements to have our donations delivered to them so they can distribute the clothes to those who need them. As of right now, I am coordinating with:ONE Christmas shopper may have been in a bit too much of a rush to get away. This picture shows how the dark green car backed up on to the silver Renault behind it. The fire service has said the prang in a retail park in Brooks Road, Lewes, was caused by one car reversing on top of another. Phill Law, 31, was visiting from his Brighton home when he took the picture. He said: "When the driver hit the curb the back end bounced up on to the bonnet of the other car. "I just thought, 'Oh no.'" Mark Whitaker, the manager of Topps Tiles, ran outside to see what had happened just after 11.30am today. He said: "I really don't know how it happened. All I can suss out from the lady who was driving is that it was an unfortunate accident and she's really sorry about it. "The guy [who owns the Renault] was really not that annoyed about it. "At the end of the day nobody was in the car and nobody was hurt, which is the main thing." A fire crew from Newhaven was sent to the scene but no major action was taken. A spokeswoman for East Sussex Fire and Rescue said: "The incident involved two private vehicles. "One vehicle was found to have reversed on to the second vehicle. "The crew cordoned off the scene and made the area safe. The incident was then handed over to the vehicle owners to await recovery."By Lucy Wang Part 1: shell - bèi" (贝) Some students find learning to read and write characters the most difficult part of learning Chinese, and they wonder if there are any rules to help them along. Fortunately for them (and you, perhaps), the answer is yes. Students sometimes remark that Chinese characters seem to be random pictures. Although some Chinese characters did in fact originate from pictures, they're not just a random arrangement of strokes. The part of the character known as the radical (or 部首/bùshǒu in Chinese) can aid language learners in deciphering a character's meaning or pronunciation. In paper dictionaries, they are also used to arrange the order of the characters, so being able to recognize radicals is an important part of knowing the language. Over the next few issues, I'd like to explain some of the more commonly seen radicals. This month, I'm focusing on 女 (nǚ), which is both a radical and a character. In oracle bone script, 女 is a pictograph of a woman crouched down with her hands crossed in front of her chest. From this, you can probably guess that 女 means female and thus many words related to female contain the radical 女. While the relationship to female is very clear in some characters, such as 妈 (mā/mother), others are less direct, such as 好 (hǎo/good). 好 consists of 女 and 子 (zǐ/child). A woman giving birth to a child is usually regarded as a good thing. Hence, the meaning good. 女 (nǚ) – female, girl, woman 她 (tā) – she, her 妻 (qī) – wife 妹 (mèi) – younger sister 妞 (niū) – girl, "chick" 妓 (jì) – prostitute One of the many ways Chinese words are formed is by putting a meaning radical with a pronunciation component. In the following words, 女 represents the meaning and the component on the right-hand side of the character reveals the pronunciation. It's worth noting as well that many of these characters are usually combined with other characters, rather than used on their own, to create words. 奶 (nǎi) – grandmother, milk, breast. Here, 乃 (nǎi) represents the pronunciation. 妈 (mā) – mother. The component on the right-hand side of this character is pronounced mǎ. 媚 (mèi) – beautiful, charming. 眉is pronounced méi. 妩 (wǔ) – beautiful, charming. 无 is pronounced wú. 姑 (gū) – aunt. 古 (gǔ) stands for the pronunciation. 姐 (jiě) – older sister. 且 stands for the sound and is pronounced qiě, which is not exactly the same, but similar to the pronunciation of the whole character. 婚 (hūn) – to marry (used without an object). 昏 is pronounced hūn. 嫁 (jià) – to marry (used when a male is the object of the verb). 家 is pronounced jiā. 娶 (qǔ) – to marry (used when a female is the object of the verb). Here, 女 appears at the bottom half of the character. 取 is pronounced qǔ. Stay tuned for part 3, when I'll introduce a "handy" radical. This article was first published in CHENGDOO citylife Magazine, issue 57 ("line2"),Italian rider Nicola Ruffoni failed test for growth hormone on the eve of the 2017 Giro d'Italia, and has been handed a four-year suspension Nicola Ruffoni has been suspended from competition for four years by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) after testing positive for growth hormone before the start of the 2017 Giro d’Italia. The Italian rider was due to have started the 100th edition of the Giro for the Bardiani-CSF team, but instead was sent home after he and team-mate Stefano Pirazzi both tested positive for GH-Releasing Peptides, growth hormones, on April 25 and 26 respectively. Ruffoni initially said that the presence of the banned hormone in his system could have been due to treatment for a prostate infection that he had suffered in March and April. >>> Nicola Ruffoni blames Giro d’Italia anti-doping positive on prostate infection With Ruffoni and Pirazzi sent home, the Bardiani-CSF team started the Giro with just seven rather than nine riders. The UCI confirmed Ruffoni’s sanction in a statement issued on Wednesday. “The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announces that the UCI Anti-Doping Tribunal has rendered its decision in the case involving Nicola Ruffoni,” said the short statement. “The Anti-Doping Tribunal found the rider guilty of an anti-doping rule violation (presence of GH-Releasing Peptides /GHRPs) and imposed 4-year period of ineligibility on the rider.” “In accordance with the Procedural Rules of the Anti-Doping Tribunal, the decision will shortly be published on the UCI website. “(*) GH-Releasing Peptides (GHRPs) are classified as “Peptide Hormones, Growth Factors, Related Substances and Mimetics” as per the Prohibited List 2017.” Ruffoni’s suspension will expire on May 3 2021. Pirazzi was previously handed a four-year ban, which will also expire on May 3 2021.(CNN) -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has long been known worldwide for its engineering programs, and a symposium at MIT this week will draw scientists from around the globe to focus on a hot facet of the field -- climate engineering. The title of the symposium itself underscores the questions surrounding climate-changing science: "Engineering a Cooler Earth: Can We Do It? Should We Try?" Climate engineering may sound a little Frankensteinian and worrisome, but it's not a new concept. Governments and militaries have tried over the years to control the weather for various reasons -- and have mostly failed. In the past decade, though, scientists have made major strides in developing technologies to cool the globe, and some of these processes are are gaining momentum among those who think drastic measures are needed to control the warming Earth. The subject is rife with controversy, including whether intentional climate engineering itself is even new. "Very broadly, we're already engineering the climate. The question now is whether we should do it on purpose," said MIT associate professor of environmental policy and symposium participant Judith Layzer. "That would involve taking action, inventing gizmos, and using them ideally to abate some of the warming that is expected to happen from global climate change." But not everyone agrees that, through decades of massive pollution, humans have already interfered with the climate on a global scale, albeit unintentionally. Jim Fleming is a professor of science, technology and society at Colby College in Maine, and a speaker at the upcoming symposium. "It's the inadvertent, 'engineering through pollution' argument, and I don't really agree with it," Fleming said. "I'm a historian of science, and I believe humans have been intervening on purpose for much longer than people will admit. So one of the lessons of climate engineering, I
beer. Virginia law also legalizes homebrew competitions, which are legal under federal law. TENNESSEE : Tennessee recently made some changes to its homebrewing laws. The state is now in line with the federal allowances for production. You can also serve your homebrew outside of your home. Competitions and tastings are also legal, so long as they are free. It currently only allows for up to 6.5% ABV, like SC. However, in 2017, that will change to 10% ABV. Can I sell my homebrew and go to festivals and club meetings? While everyone knows what I’ve probably already said, the more popular question is whether homebrew can be sold. To make this short and sweet, the answer is NO. Both Federal and South Carolina law are clear that you are not permitted to sell alcohol on which taxes have not been paid. Period. End of story. The government wants its money and you need to pay it. That’s why the licensing protocols can be so daunting. The government wants to use its police powers to watch over what is produced and what people are putting into their bodies. Untaxed and unregulated beer won’t fly with them. This is why the federal law puts the homebrewing statute in the tax code – because it is exempt from taxes.This to say nothing about how unfair that would be to brewers that are licensed. But what about state excise taxes? Well, remember that the states are in charge of regulating alcohol, so if a state wanted to make you pay excise tax on homebrew, then it could do so. South Carolina only taxes alcohol that is commercially produced, so homebrewers are off the hook. And what about festivals and club meetings? Again, South Carolina law is silent on these questions. However, federal regulations state that the use of homebrew at “organized affairs, exhibitions or competitions such as [homebrewing] contests, tastings or judging” is perfectly fine. Are you being watched? There was probably enough in this post to make homebrewers a little nervous. But, they shouldn’t be. Homebrewers are probably not being watched. But they need to be careful. I’m not aware of any homebrewer in the country or in South Carolina that is subject to a prosecution for producing more than 200 gallons of beer a year or for making beer beyond the ABV limits. That being said, please be smart. Don’t try to sell homebrew and don’t try to illegally produce beer. Getting licensed as a nanobrewery is much less expensive than paying the freight for the illegal production and sale of alcohol. BROOK BRISTOW Brook Bristow is a South Carolina-based lawyer, who primarily counsels companies in the alcohol industry on business and employment laws, as well as on compliance, licensing, and intellectual property. Brook represents numerous breweries and brewpubs in South Carolina, and is author and editor of the Beer of SC Blog. You may reach him directly at beerofsc@gmail.com AdvertisementsCome next year, Indiana will celebrate its 200th birthday by giving itself a party — complete with presents — with a total value of more than $55 million. And that’s just the state’s share. Throw in more than 430 locally funded events, and the price tag will be even higher. The biggest chunk of the state’s tab, $53.5 million, will be spent on birthday presents that include a new state archives building, an inn at Potato Creek State Park, a Bicentennial Plaza at the Indiana Statehouse and a learning center at the state library. Beyond those projects, the price tag of the Bicentennial grows with the running of a torch relay across all 92 Indiana counties, an event with an estimated $1.6 million cost to the state. The Bicentennial planning began under former Gov. Mitch Daniels who used his last State of the State speech to kick off a nature trust. When Gov. Mike Pence took office, he encouraged the state’s Bicentennial Commission to think even bigger, said Chris Jensen, a former head of the commission. The commission worked with the state administration to come up with a list of capital projects they felt would leave a lasting legacy. “Gov. Pence kind of encouraged that next level, that excitement, to get Hoosiers (thinking) what is the legacy we can leave in 2016 that will be permanent markers going forward,” Jensen said. During this year’s legislative session, state lawmakers approved a plan to raise the money by leasing out underutilized capacity among the 311 cell towers the state owns. The cell towers, which are mainly used for emergency communications, would be leased to companies such as Verizon and AT&T, and eventually to a third-party that would sublease to other companies. Budget officials say they are confident proceeds from those leases will cover the capital projects. NEWSLETTERS Get the Breaking News newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Urgent developments you should know now, not later. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-888-357-7827. Delivery: varies Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Breaking News Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters The most expensive of the projects is the $25 million state archives facility and the $24 million inn for Potato Creek State Park near South Bend. Projects around the Statehouse are lower at $2.5 million for the education center at the state library and the $2 million Bicentennial Plaza planned west of the building. Bicentennial organizers said the need for the state archives facility had been discussed for a while because temporary storage is now used to house historical documents. “There was a very broad consensus really that developed on the archives. I think there is a feeling that the archives are very important papers, and they haven’t been adequately protected. They are very vulnerable to bad weather,” said former Congressman Lee Hamilton, who chairs the state Bicentennial Commission along with former Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman. The projects received mostly bipartisan support in the legislature, but not all Hoosiers are on board. Indiana’s director of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group backed by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, said the cost for the Bicentennial is concerning. “While the state claims there will be no cost to taxpayers because of the leasing of underutilized state cell tower capacity, that is money that could have gone to other priorities or simply back to taxpayers,” Chase Downham said in a statement. An influential budget writer, state Sen. Luke Kenley, said while he’s never been as enthused as the governor about Bicentennial spending, he sees merit in the approved projects. “I’m comfortable with what we are doing,” said Kenley, a Noblesville Republican, explaining Pence made a “good play” in including the state archives project in the Bicentennial. One project Hoosier taxpayers will fund the cost of is the $1.6 million torch relay. The six-week relay planned for fall 2016 is being paid for out of state funds given to the Indiana Office of Tourism Development. The $1.6 million will cover the cost of the event, including the design and manufacturing of the torches used during the relay, said Jake Oakman, director of communications for the department. The state also is developing a mobile visitor center to travel with the torch that will include an interactive museum. The cost will include “logistical necessities,” Oakman said, such as route security, safety preparations and personnel, torch route staffing and promotional efforts. Overall, the projects are part of the broader Bicentennial celebration leading up to the actual statehood Bicentennial of Dec. 11, 2016. “We want to celebrate and make memories, of course,” Skillman said, “but more importantly we want to help prepare Indiana for the next 100 years of progress and change.” Call Star reporter Chelsea Schneider at (317) 444-6077. Follow her on Twitter:@indystarchelsea. Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/1S6zJO5Taxi drivers are hamstrung in their ability to compete with Uber. They don't control the major lever of competition, the ability to lower their fares. They aren't allowed to surge price either, which can boost the supply of cars when and where passengers need them. In many markets, they can't let riders pay by smartphone or order a car that way. But taxi drivers do control many aspects of the quality of a ride. And in one fascinating consequence of the rise of Uber, it looks — in passenger complaint data — as if taxi drivers under new competition may be trying harder to give you a pleasant ride. The Technology Policy Institute's Scott Wallsten, in research presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, finds evidence in New York that the number of complaints per taxi trip there has declined as Uber has expanded in the city. In Chicago, complaints about air conditioning, "broken" credit card machines and rude drivers have fallen as well with the recent rise of alternatives to taxicabs. Here Wallsten's weekly data from New York showing the number of complaints per 100,000 rides:Photo You can trace breakfast cereal back to gruel-eating ancient Greeks, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that the idea of eating cold cereal was embraced. In 1863, Dr. James Caleb Jackson, a health reformer who believed illness was rooted in the stomach, began experimenting with cold cereal to augment the mineral-spring treatments at his sanitarium in upstate New York. He baked graham flour into brittle cakes, which he then crumbled and baked again. It was not an immediate success; in fact, it was edible only when soaked in milk overnight. Even so, Jackson’s granula, as he called it, would soon have competition. It was not long before Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, a Michigan man with a sanitarium of his own, was also promoting a healthful cold cereal. Kellogg ran the Battle Creek Sanitarium, popular with luminaries like Amelia Earhart. He, too, was a digestive evangelist, and in the late 1870s or early ’80s, Kellogg combined wheat flour, oatmeal and cornmeal into a mixture that he also called granula. Jackson sued. Kellogg duly switched the “u” to an “o,” and by 1889, he was selling two tons of granola a week. Kellogg went on to invent the cereal flake, which led to the Kellogg’s cereal empire, which led to Froot Loops and Cocoa Krispies. Granola was revived in the late ’60s as a countercultural corrective to the new sugary cereals. The granola proselytizer of the era, Layton Gentry (known as Johnny Granola Seed), promoted his popular blend of rolled oats, wheat germ and sesame seeds. Like so many endeavors with utopian origins, it fast became a corporate gold mine. The first mass-market granola, Heartland Natural Cereal, was introduced in 1972. Today granola is fully mainstream, with countless flavor iterations and scales of production. Among the fastest-growing segments of granola at Whole Foods are the artisanal, small-batch varieties, like Milk & Honey and Nature’s Path Love Crunch. “It’s a slightly higher price point,” says Errol Schweizer, head of Whole Foods’ grocery department. “But much better quality.” Of course, the nutritional value has also evolved since 1863: a serving of Nature’s Path Love Crunch has more calories than Froot Loops. GRANOLA FOR CHANGE In 2008, two longtime friends, Geoff Gordon and Keith Cooper, started the Providence Granola Project, which provides international refugees with jobs: making artisanal granola. Here, the founders discuss their business plan. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Why granola? K.C.: Granola was an easy choice, because I’ve been making it for a long time, and everyone liked my recipe. And it was a convenient way to teach nutrition. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. How many refugees have participated in the program so far? K.C.: With us, 21. Almost all of them have gone on to find better jobs. I’m really pleased with that. There are so few opportunities for people who are not literate or culturally literate to enter the job market.The discovery of a theropod dinosaur with Tyrannosaurus rex-like arms suggests that these unusual forelimbs may have evolved multiple times, according to a study published July 13, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sebastián Apesteguía from the Universidad Maimónides, Argentina, and colleagues. The Patagonian region of Argentina has previously proven to be rich in fossils from the Late Cretaceous epoch, which can teach us about the dinosaurs living there in this period. The authors of the present study examined a new Late Cretaceous dinosaur skeleton from the Huincul Formation in northern Patagonia and conducted phylogenetic analysis to determine its evolutionary history. The dinosaur, which they named Gualicho shinyae, is a new theropod species which likely forms a sister taxon to the African dinosaur Deltadromeus. Although the skeleton was incomplete, the authors estimate that the dinosaur was likely a medium-sized slender predator weighing around a half ton, comparable to a polar bear. The analyzed skeleton shares many anatomical similarities with Deltadromeus. However, despite its overall size, the forelimbs were comparable in size to that of a human child's, and the claws had just two digits (thumb and forefinger). These unusual arms are much more similar to those of the distantly related Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) than more closely-related species and may indicate that the forelimbs evolved independently on two branches of the evolutionary tree, rather than arising from a common short-armed ancestor. Co-author Peter Makovicky notes: "Gualicho is kind of a mosaic dinosaur, it has features that you normally see in different kinds of theropods," says corresponding author Peter Makovicky, The Field Museum's Curator of Dinosaurs. "It's really unusual--it's different from the other carnivorous dinosaurs found in the same rock formation, and it doesn't fit neatly into any category." It is not known why dinosaurs such as G. shinyae and T. rex had such disproportionately small forearms. Whilst this newly discovered dinosaur does not solve the mystery, it adds to evidence that the trait may have evolved independently numerous times. "By learning more about how reduced forelimbs evolved, we may be able to figure out why they evolved," explains Peter Makovicky. ### In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper: http://dx. doi. org/ 10. 1371/ journal. pone. 0157793 Citation: Apesteguía S, Smith ND, Juárez Valieri R, Makovicky PJ (2016) An Unusual New Theropod with a Didactyl Manus from the Upper Cretaceous of Patagonia, Argentina. PLoS ONE 11(7): e0157793. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0157793 Funding: Fieldwork was supported by funding from the Field Museum of Natural History to PJM. PJM and NDS were supported by grants from the US National Science Foundation over the course of this work (EAR 0228607; ANT 0838925; PLR 1246379; and EAR 1349554). SA was supported by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.Hershey, Pa. — House Speaker John Boehner wouldn’t say if he believes the scientific consensus that humans contribute to climate change when asked here at the Republican retreat on Thursday. “Certainly we’ve had changes in our climate. I’ll let the scientists debate the sources in their opinion of that change. But I think the real question is that every proposal we see out of the administration with regard to climate change means killing American jobs,” the Ohio Republican told reporters. “The American people are still asking the question: where are the jobs? Jobs and the economy are still the number one issue in the country. And I just don’t understand why every proposal that comes out of this administration is just going to kill thousands and thousands of more American jobs.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was asked the same question and did not answer it.(CBS) poll finds. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed back the journey to Mars. Forty-three percent opposed it. In 2004, 48 percent said the U.S. should send astronauts to Mars, while in 1999 that figure was 58 percent. As the country marks the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, meanwhile, there is widespread agreement that landing men on the moon was worthwhile. Seventy-one percent said it was worth the time, effort and money that went into the endeavor, while 24 percent said it was not. (CBS) Yet many Americans say the space program has fallen short of their expectations. Thirty-two percent say the space program has accomplished less than they expected, while 27 percent say it has exceeded their expectations. Thirty-six percent say the program has accomplished about what they expected. The U.S. has sent spacecraft such as rovers to Mars, but humans have yet to set foot there. Men (62 percent) are far more likely than women (42 percent) to favor sending astronauts to the planet. In addition, Americans under age 45, who were less likely to have watched the moon landing on television in 1969, favor exploring Mars. Older Americans are opposed to the idea. NASA on Thursday unveiled refurbished video of the 1969 moon landing, in conjunction with its 40th anniversary. On Wednesday, space shuttle Endeavour launched on a flight to the international space station. NASA plans to retire the shuttle fleet after seven more launches. Read the complete poll (PDF)> Complete Coverage: 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.You know how pizza is awesome and you want to eat pizza every day but you’re worried you’re going to get sick of pizza, but in the end you don’t, so you just keep eating pizza? Well, that’s kind of what I’m going through with fans and players dancing at baseball games. Every time I see one, I think, “This will be my last one for a while.” And then another weirdo starts gyrating and making the people around him roll their eyes and here we are. Pizza again. This exuberant Royals fan (rumors that this is Jason Lisk’s oldest son are unconfirmed at this point) shake’d and shimmy’d to celebrate Eric Hosmer’s game-tying home run in the 8th inning of Wednesday’s Orioles – Royals game. Hosmer also homered in the first inning. Related: Tim Hudson Had His Ankle Stepped On By Eric Young Jr., Left Game On Stretcher [Video] Related: Watch This Minnesota Twins Bat Boy Spin a Batting Helmet On His Finger Like a Basketball Forever [GIF] Related: Fun-Loving Rangers Fans Were Thrilled to Be On TV During All-Star GameIf you’re a man aged anywhere from 21 to 35, I’ve got some sobering news for you. Your Grandmother is a better drinker than you are. Let me be more specific, your Grandmother is a manlier drinker than you are. Now, I’m not talking quantity, (I don’t think she’ll be beating you at a keg stand anytime soon) I’m talking about quality. I’m talking about the fact that she probably drinks bourbon or gin while you’re drinking a vodka and cranberry. Let’s face it, when it comes to drinking like men, our generation is a disgrace. But there is hope. The cocktail is currently enjoying a renaissance. The sun has set on the era of the wine cooler and the decade of peach schnapps. Real drinks are back. This is our golden opportunity to pick up the torch we dropped and learn to drink like men, so that one day we might pass that knowledge to our sons. But if we are to carry on the tradition of masculine drinking, we will need guidance. To that end, a widely read publication recently printed a list of “Ten Manly Drinks.” It spoke with authority on what you could proudly hold in your hand in public. A noble goal to be sure, but one that the list fell short of. Sure, the Manhattan was there, and the Martini, but so was the Sidecar. Really? The Sidecar? Sure it’s a classic cocktail and it tastes great, but most bars serve it with a sugarcoated rim. It’s a close cousin to the Lemon Drop, for God’s sake. I knew then that it was time for a real man to step forward to properly instruct the masses on the finer points of manly drinks. And until that man is found, I will do my best in his place. You see, I’m not a manly drinker. But I aspire to be one. I want to drink like my father drank. And like his father before him. I want to proudly shout my order to the bartender and see the nods of respect out of the corner of my eye. I want to trade my straw for a swizzle and my pink vodka slurry for something brown and congener-laced. But it won’t be easy. I have a confession to make. I don’t love the taste of booze. I know that some of you will now scoff and turn the page, but I know that there are others like me, and that they will keep reading. Together we can find a way to drink like men. I know that I am not alone because the American palate has changed. We have turned away from gin and bourbon and embraced vodka, the safe, colorless, tasteless friend of the amateur drinker. But we are not fulfilled. We drink a Sour Appletini with shame as the man next to us polishes off a scotch. We pray that the bartender won’t garnish our glass with an orange slice while the girls are watching. We look across the sea of bottles behind the bar and wonder “What will taste good and not leave me emasculated?” Join with me then, as we put down the hooter shooter and go in search of a manly drink. First, we must define our terms. What exactly is a manly drink? The definition is situation and location dependent. Think a martini is always manly? Try ordering one in a blue collar Rust Belt bar. See what kind of looks you get from the locals. The hard truth is that in some establishments, the only thing a man drinks is a shot or a beer. Or both in quick succession. So yes, you can always look like a man if you drink a beer, but a bottle of suds will never have the gentlemanly charm of a Manhattan. So let’s assume that you’re in bar where you can drink from stemware and still be a man. What now? Well, our definition still needs work. After all, there are two groups that you want to look like a man in front of, and they don’t have the same conceptions. I’m speaking of course of men and women. Think about it this way, a woman might be excited by a sports car with smooth European styling and not give a damn what’s under the hood. But a man will give more respect when you rev up an old Dodge Charger with two primered doors and a quarter panel missing. He respects that big block V8. So, by the same token, there are drinks that a woman thinks are manly, and those that will give you standing among other men, and they only partly overlap. The first factor is the drink’s appearance. Color and container. This will determine how your drink looks from across the room. A rocks glass looks great. So can a martini glass. But unless you’re in a Tiki bar, you don’t want to be the guy drinking out of a novelty glass with a kooky straw. And the color of your drink is perhaps even more important. There are really only two acceptable colors. Clear and brown. Clear could be vodka or gin. Brown could be bourbon or whiskey. Green and blue are probably colors you don’t want to run up the flagpole. Here’s a simple little rhyme that may help: If it’s brown, suck it down, if it’s pink, don’t you drink. The second factor to take into consideration is the drink’s name. Because inevitably, someone is going to hear you order it, even if it’s just the bartender. I don’t care if your drink is a mixture of bourbon, bitters and Tabasco sauce; if it’s called a Fuzzy Slipper it’s not manly and you don’t want to order it. You want a tough, classic, simple name. A Bronx. A Rusty Nail. A Boiler Maker. But just remember to steer clear of novelty names that are associated with frat boy drinks. A Scud Missile might sound tough, but it also sounds like you do your drinking at a place with a lot of crazy crap on the wall and waiters that wear striped shirts. Sure, it will get you messed up (it’s Bacardi 151 and cinnamon schnapps for any curious frat boys out there) but so will huffing paint. A name shouldn’t be too trendy, clever, or have sex references in it. It’s a cocktail, not a punch line. So we know what we’re trying to avoid, now let’s put it into practice with an example. You’re out at a bar and your girlfriend is drinking a Cosmopolitan. You sneak a sip and it tastes pretty good. You contemplate having her stealthily order one on your behalf, but then you’d still have that pink martini glass to deal with. Thinking on your feet, you step up to the bar prepared to order a Kamikaze. After all, it’s just like a Cosmo without the splash of cranberry to pinkify it. But just before the word escapes your lips you realize you’ll sound like a frat boy. They might even ask for your ID (which your little brother happens to be “borrowing” at the moment). Just as the bartender is about to give you the hairy eyeball (which isn’t a drink, but should be) you say, “I’ll have a vodka and triple sec. Rocks. And can I get a lime with that?” You’ve just ordered a basic version of a Kamikaze (the only difference is that most bars would put Rose’s lime juice in a Kamikaze so yours will be a bit drier). It’ll taste pretty similar to a Cosmo, be served in a rocks glass and looks just like a gin and tonic or any other such clear drink. What’s more, you asked for something simple and specific, which makes you look like a man who knows how to drink. Granted, the triple sec is not the most manly of ingredients, but you’re still a lot better off than you were ordering a Cosmo or Kamikaze. The previous example leads me to one final point — the special order. To have a manly drink that agrees with your palate, you may have to create it yourself. This is actually a good thing, as long as you do it right. For example, you ask the bartender, “Have you got any rye whiskey?” He says, “We’ve got Jim Beam Rye.” You answer “Great, I’ll have a rye and Coke.” Now you’ve got something the right color and in the right glass, but you just basically ordered a Jim Beam and Coke. Brother to the Jack and Coke. Cousin to the rum and Coke, favored drink of teen boys nationwide. But you’ll probably get away with still looking like a man. Why? Because you asked about rye whiskey. Something only real men drink. And that’s what will stick in their minds. Even better is to ask for a specific brand of liquor. After all, our parents and grandparents didn’t just drink their drink, they drank it with their brand. For my mom, it was (and still is) a Dewars and water. For my grandfather it was an Old Crow and soda. But don’t let it all go wrong. Take this exchange for example: a soon to be shunned fellow yells “Can I get an Electric Razzle Frazzle?” After getting a blank stare from the barkeep he decides to teach him a little something. “It’s Sour Puss raspberry liqueur with root beer schnapps and a float of cream.” Now, there are a lot of things that went wrong there, but let’s just hit the highlights. (To save time, we’ll ignore the spurious contents of this hopefully fictional drink). Don’t order a drink that you’re pretty sure the bartender has never heard of, especially if there is anyone one else waiting for a drink. (Not to mention that it’s probably a made-up drink that you got off of some chain restaurant’s table placard). And chances are, the bartender doesn’t care what it’s called anyway. Just tell him or her how to make it. And keep it simple. I’ll have an X with Y please (and maybe a dash of Z). The special order. Use it right and you’re the drinking man you’ve always aspired to be. Use it wrong and become the bane of every bartender’s existence. Now that I’ve cautioned you on all the things that can go wrong, get out there and do something right. Drink. Keep drinking. Make it your goal to find that one drink that fits you like a glove. And, uh, makes you look like a man that doesn’t wear gloves. As for me, I’m still looking. Still looking for the drink with the right color, container, contents and character to set me apart as a real drinking man. I started with the Black Russian. Decent sounding name, good color and glass, but too sweet — even for me. I’ve moved on to Meyer’s rum and ginger ale (a poor man’s Dark ‘n Stormy, since most bars don’t stock ginger beer or Gosling’s Black Seal). It still has the shame of a sweet soda in it, but I’m getting closer. Some day, maybe I’ll finally cultivate a taste for the Manhattan. And if all else fails, give me a beer. A domestic macrobrew straight-up, no chaser, please. —Jared ButlerVia Inside the Magic, Hogwarts After Dark will take place at the Studio Tour on October 28 and October 29. The evening will begin with smoking dry ice cocktails and canapés. I'm all for magical looking drinks, but my hype is focused on what happens next: dinner in the Great Hall! The area will be decorated for the season (like they did for Christmas last year) with 100 floating pumpkins hanging from the ceiling. The tables will be dressed with red apples, more pumpkins (you can't have too many), and cauldrons of lollipops. You'll get to feast upon a two-course dinner, then you'll follow the spiders (hopefully none are as big as Aragog) to the Forbidden Forest set. Enjoy your dessert with magical creatures before you head off into the Studio Tour, including a darker than usual Diagon Alley. Death Eaters will be roaming around for the entirety of the event in original costumes from the film, so be on your guard. Learn more and purchase tickets at Warner Bros. Studio Tour London. The packages are sold out as of right now, but keep checking. Maybe drink a Felix Felicis potion before you click refresh. Will you try to score tickets for this spooky dinner? Cast a spell to make your answer appear in the comments. Images: Warner Bros., Warner Bros. Studio Tour London Amy Ratcliffe is an Associate Editor for Nerdist. Follow her on Twitter and keep up with her Disney food adventures on Instagram. Accio more Harry PotterXiaomi unveiled earlier today its newest crowdfunding product and this time, it’s just for kids! Meet Xiaomi Qicycle, a children bicycle by Riding (Xiamen) Technology Co., Ltd, the same company that built the Xiaomi Qicycle foldable electric bicycle launched last year. This is a kids-only version and comes with a child-friendly design that boasts safety for youngsters. It comes with a highly ergonomic design, total lack of sharp edges, along with a soft seat and a body with protective cover made from foam. The Xiaomi Qicycle comes in two variants: one with pedals and one without for even younger kids. The latter should be used first in order to help children during development, learning them how to walk and when this happens, you can install the pedals for older kids. As you can assume, the pedals can be used or not, depending on the age of your child along with the chain that is always well protected to avoid getting in contact with the child’s body. The Qicycle is available through the Mi Home for $599 Yuan ($87) and will be ready for shipping after June 9. It looks awesome, don’t you think?Welcome to King of the Court, our daily celebration of the best performances in basketball from the night that was. We’ll be keeping track of the best player of every night of the NBA season, and tallying the results as we go along. King of the Court: Paul Millsap This is how Atlanta started 2017: On New Year’s Day, the Falcons beat the Saints at the Georgia Dome, securing the NFC’s 2-seed, and the Hawks scooted past the Spurs at Philips Arena 114–112 in overtime, giving coach Mike Budenholzer his first career victory over his mentor (and former boss) Gregg Popovich. The victory, the third in a row for the Hawks, brought the team to 18–16, placing them second for takeoff in the Eastern Conference runway traffic jam of Charlotte, Washington, Milwaukee, Indiana, New York, and Chicago (though the latter seems primed for a systemic meltdown any day now). The Philips crowd was awesome, Dennis Schröder handed out late Christmas gifts of high blood pressure and heart palpitations due to his decision-making, there was some deep-space Kyle Korver action, and Tim Hardaway Jr. tied his career high with 29 points and totally spun out this kid with his barrage of late-game 3s: And then there was Paul Millsap. There is always Paul Millsap. Through the rise and fall of that 2014–15, 19-wins-in-a-row cult team, through the last days of the Al Horford administration, to … whatever this Dwight-Dennis Hawks team is, Millsap has been there, averaging around 17 a game, playing two or three positions, guarding just as many, grabbing boards, and acting, along with Korver, as a kind of institutional memory to help the new Hawks retain some of the selfless malleability of the very recent Hawks. On Sunday, Millsap was the best version of himself. Few NBA players can lead the break, snuff out a David Lee shot at the rim, drill a 3 from the top of the key, or take Pau Gasol on the left block with a collection of low-post moves that belong in a museum alongside some Cons hi-tops and a Moses Malone Ten Commandments poster like Millsap can. And what’s so great about Millsap is how regularly he is the best version of himself. He had 32 points, including Atlanta’s final six points of the third and first 11 points of the fourth. He also hit three 3-pointers and grabbed 13 boards. There are a lot of mirror images between the Spurs and Hawks — the occasionally reckless Euro point guard (Dennis, Tony Parker), the sharp-shooting 2-guard (Korver, Danny Green), the collection of journeymen and bargains playing above their initial professional projections (Dewayne Dedmon, Jonathon Simmons, Mike Muscala, Kent Bazemore). But Millsap can be any Spur at any given moment. He can conjure LaMarcus Aldridge’s midrange silkiness, Kawhi Leonard’s stout defense, and Gasol’s post playmaking. Millsap’s utility is his gift and his curse. In November, Danny Chau observed how the face of the Hawks was Millsap, an anonymous star. Now it seems like that could change. The joy of the Hawks’ victory was tempered by an ESPN report that Millsap would be opting out at the end of the season, and so to avoid losing their All-Star forward for nothing (as they had with Horford), the Hawks had “begun listening” to trade offers. Hawks play-by-play man Bob Rathbun called Millsap “The Anchorman” Sunday night, and he obviously meant it as a compliment, but anchors also keep you rooted to one place. Atlanta is stuck in a midconference no-man’s-land, and Millsap is frankly the team’s only tradable asset. A trip to the playoffs and a subsequent second-round exit doesn’t get the Hawks anywhere. And if Millsap walks for nothing after the season, they are screwed. They need to get what they can for Millsap, no matter how much it hurts to rip the Band-Aid off. Every fake trade story starts with Boston, and a Horford-Millsap reunion under Brad Stevens, with Isaiah Thomas doing doughnuts in the parking lot, sounds like a lot of fun. But one of my New Year’s resolutions is to stop making Boston the first button I hit on the Trade Machine. What about Millsap to Toronto for Patrick Patterson, Terrence Ross, and Jakob Poeltl? How great would a Big Three of Millsap, DeMar DeRozan, and Kyle Lowry be against the Cavs? The Raptors could spread the floor around Jonas Valanciunas, and Millsap would link back up with DeMarre Carroll to form a misery-inducing defensive duo. If that team were healthy and hot, it could push Cleveland. If boosting an Eastern Conference competitor is too much for Atlanta to swallow, there are Western Conference partners like Denver or even Millsap’s old team, Utah, who might have the pieces to make a deal work, but the problem with trading for Millsap is re-signing him. I’m sure New Orleans would love to bring him back to his home state, but Bud would have to love Buddy Hield for that to work. Millsap is going to be a free agent, and so are the Hawks. This is the rub with
true for me as I tend to drink my beer fairly quickly and only have about 20-30 bottles in my beer fridge at any one time. But bigger fridges allow you to purchase multiple bottles of the same beer so you can see how they age over time. They also let you purchase six-packs, twelve-packs…even cases without concern. The fridge I bought is ample for my bombers, but a couple cases of beer would fill it up immediately. So if you can afford it, consider a larger fridge to give you more flexibility for your beer purchases. Looks matter: If the costs are comparable, spring for a better-looking model. Chances are you’re going to have your fellow Aleheads over from time to time to help you consume your beer collection. While the stuff INSIDE the fridge is the most important thing, there’s no harm in having a decent looking appliance to impress them when they stop by. Plenty of wine coolers are just ugly, black boxes. If you can, look for something with nice lines, a glass front, and a clean exterior. Good beer wants to be showcased. It’s vain like that. Avoid the super high-end models: Look, it’s just a box that keeps things cold. And it doesn’t even keep things as cold as a cheap-ass dorm fridge. So why spend thousands of dollars on the thing? I can understand why oenophiles plunk down cash to ensure that their $500 bottles of wine stay perfectly chilled. But do you really need to spend that type of money to cool down your $4 bottle of Pliny the Elder? So stay away from the Vinotemps and Avantis of the world and look for something a little less high-end. As long as you’re not getting the knock-off floor model from Crazy Ed’s Discount Appliance World, you’ll probably be OK. Test your fridge: OK…this is more of a tip for AFTER the purchase, but fridge thermostats aren’t perfect. Before you start stocking your new appliance with beer, toss a thermometer in the fridge and see how accurately the temp reading is. If it’s off by a couple degrees, adjust accordingly. Again, you’re generally looking to keep your high-gravity beer between 50-55 degrees (opinions vary). If you have a toddler, make sure your fridge has a lock: No explanation necessary unless you like broken glass and sticky floors. Follow all of these rules and your beer will thank you. Happy shopping, Aleheads!While Republicans and Democrats debate who has the broader feel for freedom, the Libertarian Party National Convention came to Orlando to debate the finer points, like how much liberty children ought to have. On Friday the Libertarian Party nailed down some of its 2016 platform that include broad strokes that most Republicans would reject, such as supporting a woman’s right to choose abortion; those that most Democrats would reject, such as opposing mandatory government union membership; and those that both major parties likely would reject, such as phasing out Social Security in favor of personal responsibility for retirement. The 695 Libertarian delegates and 53 alternates in attendance Friday did so sometimes with fervent debate, but usually that debate involved refining language to try to fight the image some hold that Libertarians think that almost anything goes in the name of freedom. The first full day of the party’s three-day national convention was colorful and tedious as the party strove for ways to make itself more relevant in an election year that could bring it attention, while refusing to give up any of its diehard mix of social and economic liberties. Friday night the party’s vice presidential candidates are to debate. The presidential candidates will debate Saturday night, and the party will pick its national ticket Sunday. One of the fiercest possible debates, over abortion, was settled once but faced another debate, which was pushed to Saturday. A proposal brought from the floor would have deleted language supporting a woman’s right to choose, but was resoundingly defeated. However, a second proposal, to revise the party’s language, was among proposals made by the party’s platform review committee, and that proposal was pushed to Saturday. At times, the platform debate got hot over topics that Democrats and Republicans might not even consider. At one point Libertarians debated for 20 minutes over whether to clarify its position on children’s rights. The party’s platform committee recommended language that declared people “do not begin life as fully autonomous beings capable of making rational decisions.” Those in favor wanted it clear that the party did not support parental abuse or neglect of children, but others argued the party should not adopt any language that suggests a distinction between the rights of children and adults. The proposal failed. At another point the debate heated up over whether to include language opposing using the military to secure oil. There was little disagreement among debating delegates that the United States does so, and they opposed it, but there was concern that issue was already implied by other language.Standing in line at Starbucks, customers are presented with an array of options beyond just flavors and foam: They can pay with cash, credit, debit, a Starbucks card or with their mobile phone in two different ways. That list is expected to grow in the coming years, not only at Starbucks but also at retailers around the country, and an enormous hacking of customer data at Target that was revealed five months ago has only intensified the pace of change in the way Americans pay for goods. Usually, the conversation about where to go from here is presented narrowly, either in terms of the security of new cards or perhaps the convenience of paying by phone. But behind the scenes, there are other issues in play, including the jealous guarding of customer data. And there is an enormous amount of money to be made, especially for businesses catering to the cash-free consumer. “There is money at stake all around the room, whether it’s the banks and payment processors or the retailers,” said Suzanne Martindale, a staff lawyer at Consumers Union who specializes in payments. “It’s a battle between the two parties.”Anxiety: We worry. A gallery of contributors count the ways. The series is featuring occasional works of fiction. This is one. ~~~ When the world ends, you and the handful of other survivors are going to fight each other for what’s left. There’s going to be a little food and potable water, and a bit of inhabitable space. Maybe people speak the same language, or maybe they don’t, but words don’t matter anymore. It matters who is lucky and cunning and ambitious and strong. People eat things that you, here and now, would never dream of touching. Ultimately it doesn’t matter because the world is about to end, but if nothing else, you have a strong survival instinct. This is why, when you see something that appears to be edible, you don’t know whether to starve to death or risk being poisoned. They’re two means to the same end. It’s not that you want to die. But to disappear would be so nice. That’s what every meal feels like to you. Someone offers you a cracker and all you see is processed flour and cancer. They offer you fruit, and all you see are pesticides and E. coli. And forget about organic. Everyone lies. Everything is tainted. A few months of this obsessive compulsive thinking has you wearing the J.C. Penney pants you wore in ninth grade. You’re tiny. Everyone tells you that you look skinny and you don’t know how to respond. Thank you seems inappropriate because it’s not a compliment, but what else are you supposed to say? There’s poison in my food and we’re all dying? The doctor keeps telling you that starvation can stop your heart. This fascinates you. It’s not that you want to die. If you wanted to die you’d fill your stomach with high fructose corn syrup and blue dye. You don’t want to die. But to disappear would feel so nice. At night you lie in bed and touch the empty space between each rib. You feel how far under your ribcage your hand goes. You imagine reaching all the way in. Your fingers clasp around your heart. Your arm disappears inside of you, and then your shoulder and your head. Your body sucks up your body black-hole-style. Then this thought starts to disturb you, but now you can’t get it out of your head and it sticks there like it’s the only image you’ve ever seen in your life. Photo You begin to feel angry with everyone else, because it’s easier to feel angry than to feel sad. You don’t express these emotions, but you think about them constantly. You begin to resent your Jewish upbringing. Why are the Torah’s laws piety and yours insanity? One set of rules says chicken and cheese can’t go on the same plate and another set forbids any food from touching a blue plate. The rabbis debate whether giraffe is kosher, and you debate whether it’s O.K. to eat two foods of the same color in one day. That kosher is dedication; yours is absurdity. And so you feel angry, but you know that’s not productive. Waiting to feel better yields different results than you had expected. You aren’t sure what you expected, actually. You still can’t stop thinking about your body digesting itself through your ribcage and you can’t remember the last time you ate sauce. But you realize that there is so much healing to be done, and no more. Tomorrow you will still be skinny. The next day you will still be obsessive. The day after that you will still be compulsive. No amount of therapy or medicine or patience is going to change that, but somehow you will find a way to coexist with your neuroses. Related More From Anxiety Read previous contributions to this series. When the world ends, you’re going to be oxygen and carbon and calcium, just like you are now. That’s what you’ve always been and always will be. You were a bunch of elements. The world was a bunch of elements, hydrogen and helium and some other things, it was Pangaea, it was single-celled organisms, it was volcanoes and erosion and pollination. And from that: Light bulbs. Pyramids. Jury duty. Castles. Bombs. Libraries. “Macbeth.” Farms. Cemeteries. The Bible. The Internet. Sewage systems. Cigarettes. Surgery. We built this, and all we are is oxygen and carbon and calcium. We’re just ingredients, and we built this. The sun will get too hot and oceans will rise. The earth will go away and everything we built will go away too. Everything will be gone. In the meantime, it’s a sad, amazing little place you inhabit, and the world hasn’t ended yet. We’re here, you’re here, and tomorrow might be good, tomorrow can be good, tomorrow has to be good, because otherwise, what are you doing here? (Anxiety welcomes submissions at anxiety@nytimes.com. Unfortunately, we can only notify writers whose articles have been accepted for publication.) Elyse Pitock is a sophomore at Barnard College. She has been a recipient of the Blank Theatre’s Young Playwrights award, Stephen Sondheim’s Young Playwrights, Inc. National Playwriting award, and others.Reuters ’Some people jokingly refer to [President Obama] as the salesman of the year for the industry.’ The stock market has been flat this year, but one sector has had a notably different experience in 2015. If you’re into gun stocks, then Merry Christmas to you: Smith & Wesson US:SWHC has more than doubled in market value, while Sturm, Ruger & Co. RGR, -1.60% has jumped two-thirds. Both saw sharp gains last week in the wake of President Obama’s speech on terrorism, a good chunk of which was devoted to guns. Which leads me to the following statement: Barack Obama is the best friend the American gun industry has ever had, and it is going to miss him when he’s gone. With Obama as a lightning rod, the gun industry has profited like never before during his presidency. By now, the pattern is familiar: A terrible shooting. A movie theater. A schoolroom full of children. A church. The president comes into the briefing room, and we scribble down his words of sorrow, of indignation — and pleas for Congress to do something. He goes back to the Oval Office. Gun sales surge. A few weeks, or even days later, the cycle repeats. Don’t miss: 10 things the gun industry won’t tell you Each time, the president reaffirms his support for the Second Amendment. One typical comment, from 2011: “The Second Amendment in this country is part of our Constitution, and the president of the United States is bound by our Constitution,” he said. “So I believe in the Second Amendment. It does provide for Americans the right to bear arms for their protection, for their safety, for hunting, for a wide range of uses.” But the firearms industry doesn’t buy it. Manufacturers and the industry’s powerful lobbying arm, the National Rifle Association, are convinced that Obama’s secret strategy — even with just a year to go in his second and final term — will still emerge: to somehow take away the very guns he says we have a right to own. NRA chief Wayne LaPierre has warned for years that “lip service” to gun owners “is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term.” And: “With no more elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms’ freedom, erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights, and excise it from the U.S. Constitution.” Dismantle and destroy? With both the House and Senate dominated by Republicans, Obama would be lucky to get a resolution honoring the Girl Scouts through Congress. After the Sandy Hook school massacre in 2012, he couldn’t even get the Democratic-controlled Senate to support expanded background checks. LaPierre knows this, of course, and her also knows that spreading fear about what Obama will do is good for business. Seven years of fear mongering has rallied the nation’s gun base, spurred huge sales, resulting in record profits for the industry. How good for business? Some data from the pro-gun National Shooting Sports Foundation: •When Obama was sworn in seven years ago the economic impact of the U.S. firearms industry was $19 billion. Last year: $42.9 billion. •Full-time jobs in the gun industry have increased 58% to 263,000. •More than 100 million guns have been sold in the United States since Obama was first elected. •“Some people jokingly refer to [Obama] as the salesman of the year for the industry,” NSSF Senior Vice President Lawrence Keane once quipped. No question: There’s big money to be made vilifying Obama, and the gun industry should thank its lucky stars that he’ll be around for another year. But, not to worry, another villain is waiting in the wings: Hillary Clinton. “What is wrong with us, that we cannot stand up to the NRA and the gun lobby, and the gun manufacturers they represent?” Clinton raged after nine people were murdered at an Oregon community college in October. “This is not just tragic. We don’t just need to pray for people. We need to act, and we need to build a movement. It’s infuriating.” Her vow: “We’re going to take them on.” Them’s fightin’ words for the gun lobby, and if Clinton is elected 11 months from now, she’ll fight for expanded background checks for gun buys. The NRA is gearing up. “She’s been coming after us for decades,” LaPierre warned this spring. “Hillary Clinton hasn’t met a gun-control bill that she couldn’t support.” But the NRA has never met a gun-control advocate it couldn’t profit off of. If Clinton wins, the gun industry will continue to do well — as it has since Obama came to town. The real fear for the gun industry, if you can believe it, is that a pro-gun-rights advocate wins the White House next year. There won’t be anyone to scare the gun base, no one to rally around and raise money off of. A friend? When it comes to guns, that’s bad for business. See: Friend of shooters charged with providing guns used in San Bernardino attackBreaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. July 22, 2016, 1:55 AM GMT / Updated July 22, 2016, 6:29 AM GMT By Brittany Bremer WASHINGTON — All eyes were on Cleveland for the final night of the Republican Convention, a grand spectacle. But here, a smaller, somber affair took place just blocks from the halls of power at Dubliner's, an Irish pub and Capitol Hill mainstay. Past politicos, many dressed in black, gathered for an "Irish wake." They were there to mourn the death of the Republican Party. A memorial wreath with "RIP GOP" written on it and a guestbook welcomed attendees. Related: Trump Takes America on a Journey to the Dark Side A black-draped coffin at the back of the bar serves at the display for photographs of past presidents: Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan. The Guinness on tap flows for those drowning their sorrows. A 'funeral wreath' at Dubliner's Bar in Washington, D.C. Brittany Bremer/NBC Andrew Weinstein, wake co-host and former spokesman for ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the 1996 Dole/Kemp presidential campaign, said the idea grew out of conversations with friends commiserating over the direction the GOP is taking with Donald Trump at the helm. “There’s a consensus that this election cycle has brought an end for the Republican Party that we knew and worked for,” Weinstein said. “A lot of people who signed up for the party in the era of Reagan and Gingrich believe they can no longer move ahead.” And so they have gathered tonight to mourn the “unnatural and premature passing of the Grand Old Party,” as described in the Facebook invite. Cause of death: the nomination of Donald J. Trump. While the theatrics of the wake were tongue-in-cheek, the sentiments of the attendees are real and representative of the GOP establishment’s reluctance — and in some cases, refusal — to accept Trump as the party standard-bearer. "A lot of people who signed up for the party in the era of Reagan and Gingrich believe they can no longer move ahead" After a primary process rife with party infighting, the Republican National Convention, traditionally a moment for party unity, has been marked more by discord — from Monday’s last-ditch effort of the Never Trump movement to Wednesday night’s non-endorsement by former rival Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on the prime-time stage. Trump, who takes the stage tonight to formally accept the now-official nomination, called the public snub "no big deal." Related: Ted Cruz Reopens Party Wounds on Dramatic RNC Convention Night But in other cases, it’s silence that speaks volumes. Many of the bigwigs of the GOP establishment are noticeably absent. Both former presidents Bush, along with former 2016 hopeful Jeb Bush, are skipping the convention this year. And among former Republican presidential nominees, only former Sen. Bob Dole is attendance. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, the party’s two most recent presidential candidates, also opted to stay home. In a NBC/WSJ poll conducted earlier this month, 85 percent of voters polled said that the Republican Party is not that unified or only somewhat unified, compared to 48 percent who said the same of the Democratic Party. Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, right, and his son Donald Trump, Jr., watch as Eric Trump addresses the delegates during the third day session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Wednesday, July 20, 2016. Matt Rourke / AP Heading into the convention, Trump’s favorability numbers — 27 percent positive and 60 percent negative — made him the most unpopular presumptive presidential nominee in the history of the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Only 38 percent of GOP voters polled said that they were satisfied with Trump as their nominee, according to the same NBC/WSJ poll. Roughly 60 percent said they would have preferred someone else as the Republican candidate. While there have been highly polarized party conventions before — the 1976 Republican National Convention and 1980 Democratic National Convention among them — this one is definitely much worse than usual, according to Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. Related: Mike Pence Strikes Unity Notes in Acceptance Speech The discord, he said, is deep-seated and unlikely to be settled any time soon. “The split is both stylistic and ideological, and not possible to resolve during the Trump candidacy... If Trump wins, the GOP will never be the same. Trump will have years to reshape the party," said Sabato, who was in Cleveland for the convention. "If Trump loses, Republicans are going to have a titanic battle for control.” And while some may be looking hopefully to 2020 already, the GOP’s problem may be larger than Trump. “America is changing rapidly, and the GOP doesn’t represent the changes — demographic or philosophical," Sabato said. "As the slogan goes, change or die." Of Trump's big speech, many said they would watch. "I'm watching because you watch a trainwreck," said attendee Alex Bopp, an attorney. Bopp says he will be voting for Hillary Clinton come November 8 — an admission several wake attendees also shared. He and others agreed that there would be nothing Trump could say in his address to the RNC to change their minds. Cameron Kilberg, who served as an adviser to Chris Christie's presidential campaign, said that even had Christie been selected as Trump's running mate, she wouldn't vote for him. "He could have picked my own mother and it wouldn't change my mind." But beyond the lament and nostalgia, there is hope and talk of rebuilding the party. All raised a glass to Weinstein's toast, "To a brighter future in these troubled times."hello Across the suburbs, communities are becoming more friendly to bicyclists by establishing designated bike routes, promoting bicycling safety and adding bike lanes to busy streets. Then there's Barrington Hills, where residents and cyclists are in a nasty battle over access to the town's scenic, tree-lined roads. Residents say their roads are being clogged by unlawful, unsafe riders of the "professional biking community, clad in spandex." Bicyclists, they say, flout the rules of the road, block vehicles from passing and, in some cases, have been caught urinating in yards. Cyclists say Barrington Hills residents have driven them off the road, harassed them and even pelted them with objects as they ride by. The long-simmering feud came to a head this summer amid talk of adding bike lanes along a village thoroughfare, a proposal quickly shot down by town leaders and upset homeowners. If there is one thing the two sides have in common, it is an appreciation for the scenery of Barrington Hills. The affluent community of about 4,200 residents features thousands of acres of open space filled with forest preserves, horse farms, riding trails and rolling hills. Homes are built on lots no smaller than 5 acres, and village leaders have fiercely defended the town's borders against encroachment by development that doesn't meet their standards. "Barrington Hills has character and has always been a place of great enjoyment," said Robert Abboud, the former village president. "It doesn't matter if you're walking, biking, driving your car or riding your horse. It is one of the most beautiful and pristine places certainly in Illinois, and arguably all the Midwest." Abboud acknowledges that to outsiders it may seem odd that bicycling has become such a big deal. But if residents don't speak out the issue could have a larger impact on the character of the community, he said. Abboud referred to the character of the village as a fabric made up of many threads. A tear in one thread could unravel them all. "Biking is an issue because it's a tear in one of those threads," he said. Bill Gotfryd, a former Barrington Hills resident and the manager of the Barrington Bicycle Club, said the underlying problem is that drivers and bicyclists have to get used to sharing the road. While some blame must be put on bicyclists who don't follow the rules of the road, Barrington Hills residents are particularly bad at adapting to the growing number of bicyclists in their community, he said. As a club leader he hears all the reports from members when they get yelled at, are run off the road or have things thrown at them. "(Barrington Hills residents) have difficulty coming to grips with that they are no longer a community that exists just in farmland," said Gotfryd, who now lives in Lake Barrington. "They want to be treated like a gated community without putting any gates up." Quiet feud gets loud On July 6, a group called Don't Change Barrington Hills started a website and began offering residents yard signs saying NO BIKE LANES IN BARRINGTON HILLS. The group was started by Mary Naumann, a resident who declined to be interviewed for this story. But the group's position on cyclists is laid out on its website, which is hosted on a server owned by Abboud. He said he supports the group's message but is not involved with the website's content. "We have no obligation to a professional biking community, clad in spandex, who are regularly abusive to our residents and drivers, and urinate on our property," the website reads. "We have no obligation to out-of-town traffic speeding through our community. It is time we stood up and said NO MORE TRAFFIC!" Although there have been confrontations between residents and cyclists for the past several years, the catalyst for Don't Change Barrington Hills' formation was a public hearing about renovations to Haeger's Bend Road, a two-lane through road on the northwest side of the village, near its border with Algonquin. Village Administrator Bob Kosin said a recent traffic study found that between 2,500 and 5,000 vehicles travel on the road daily, which he said is a level at which the Illinois Department of Transportation says to start separating traffic by type, such as vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian. Kosin said the village called the public meeting so officials could hear residents' input and act appropriately. Numerous residents shared their experiences with cyclists, saying they often rode en masse, blocked roadways and cursed at drivers as they tried to pass in their vehicles. One resident said it had gotten to the point where she dreads sunny weekend days because it means there would be more groups of cyclists on the roads. Residents brainstorming ways to enforce the rules of the road on large groups of cyclists suggested -- mostly tongue-in-cheek -- stopping them on the road with a police barricade, herding them into a waiting truck, catching them with a giant net or funneling them into a big, deep hole. "You are talking about people's backyards and personal spaces," Kosin said. "You are not going to get clinical, unemotional answers from them." As a result of the input, the village chose not to pursue outside money to renovate Haeger's Bend or add bike lanes. Only getting worse? The decision, however, has done little to end the bad feelings between residents and cyclists. Don't Change Barrington Hills urged residents to keep their yard signs up, and cyclists say they still encounter hostility when riding through the village. Michael McGehee said he rides in Barrington Hills often and has noticed more encounters between residents and bicyclists since the signs went up in July. The Palatine man thinks the signs, which feature a crossed-out bicycle, may be emboldening residents to become more confrontational. "The next thing you know people begin to think that it's all right to harass or confront bikers because their neighbors are doing it," he said. Steve Roberts, a Barrington resident who said he rides his bike in Barrington Hills about once a week, said he was confronted recently when he rode up behind two vehicles stopped in the middle of the road, blocking his way. "The driver asked me if I lived there," Roberts said. "I said 'Yes, I do live in Barrington.' He said, 'Well, I own four houses here and I pay a lot of taxes.' I replied that I didn't (care) how much he paid in taxes, it didn't give him the right to block the road." McGehee said he has been run off the road while cycling in Barrington Hills three times and confronted by residents on several other occasions. Among the more memorable was when he and some cycling companions were forced to make an emergency stop when a resident behind the wheel of a golf cart suddenly sped out in front of them and blocked their path. "The thing is, I don't know why he did it because if I wouldn't have been able to stop in time, I would have crashed right into him," McGehee said. "It's getting worse, and I think it's going to continue to get worse until something gets resolved."DENVER – They say they were cheated out of some of their regular wages and cheated out of all overtime. Now, 150 workers who helped hang drywall in the luxury SkyHouse Denver high rise, will share in an $800,000 settlement from two of the four companies they sued in U.S. District Court. One of the workers, Cesar Salazar, told Denver7 that he went through two previous Christmases without some of those wages. He said he decided to step forward and become one of the nine faces of a class action lawsuit after his teenage son asked him why he was gone so much, but couldn’t afford to buy him McDonald’s. “It was bad,” Salazar said, “It was crazy.” The single father said he worked 12 to 16 hour days, 7 days a week, but didn’t get paid for some of those hours and never was paid overtime. “We were robbed,” he said. “The only thing I could think of was (they were) holding our money hostage to (make us) come and work on Sundays.” “In this city alone, workers are denied millions of dollars in wages and other benefits every year, unlawfully,” said David Seligman, an attorney with “Towards Justice,” a legal services nonprofit that represented the workers in their class action case against allegedly abusive employers. The workers sued The Circle Group, LLC, based in Georgia; L.A.G. Drywall, Inc. based in Florida; Javier Martinez Drywall, LLC, based in Colorado; and Gulf Coast Construction, Inc., a George based company that filed for bankruptcy in 2016. They allege that the companies not only failed to pay wages they owed, but misled employees about rates of pay. The lawsuit stated that one plaintiff said he agreed to come to Colorado because a Mr. Mendiola promised him a “particular rate of pay,” but when he got to Colorado he was paid at a lower rate. Another plaintiff said he was told when he was hired that he would be paid $17/hour. Instead he was paid $15/hour. Later, a Mr. Musto told him that his “pay was being cut down to $12/hour and that if he didn’t like it, he could leave.” The lawsuit also alleges that some of the workers who complained had their wages lowered and that others had their employment terminated. The lawsuit alleges that when Salazar complained about wages owed, “Mr. Musto grabbed a tool he was using and threw it down the hall, while cursing at Salazar and threatening to kick and beat him.” Several of the supervisors reportedly treated the Latino workers with contempt, berating them and calling them derogatory names. Workers reached a settlement with two of the four defendants. They will divvy up an $800,000 settlement based on how long they worked on the SkyHouse project. Towards Justice Executive Director Nina DiSalvo told Denver7 that The Circle Group agreed to pay $700,000 in back wages, while L.A.G. Drywall agreed to pay just over $100,000. “All the workers in this case will get just about all the wages we alleged were unlawfully denied,” Seligman said. DiSalvo said neither company admitted to wrong doing. Denver7 reached out to The Circle Group but has not heard back from them.George Osborne today vowed to fight off a European bid to force the British public to contribute almost £1billion towards any bailout of Greece, branding the plan a 'complete non-starter'. The Chancellor arrived in Brussels for talks with EU finance ministers insisting countries within the eurozone must 'foot the bill' for stopping Greece leaving the single currency. It came after sources close to Jean-Claude Juncker, the arch-federalist European Commission president, say he wants the UK to release the funds as part of emergency loans to the country. But this would break an agreement made by David Cameron in 2010 that Britain would not have to pay, because it is not a member of the eurozone. Commission officials say this deal was nothing more than a 'political' accord with no legal force. Scroll down for video George Osborne, pictured in Brussels today with Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, vowed to fight off a European bid to force the British public to contribute almost £1billion towards any bailout of Greece The Chancellor arrived in Brussels for talks with EU finance ministers insisting countries within the eurozone must 'foot the bill' for stopping Greece leaving the single currency There was anger in Greece following the country's bailout agreement as demonstrators burned the flag of the ruling party, Syriza, on the streets of Athens. It came as it emerged Britain could be forced to contribute £1bn Arriving in Brussels this morning, Mr Osborne made clear his opposition to the plan. He said: 'It's in the interests of economic stability across Europe that this Greek deal is now signed and sealed. 'But let me be very clear. Britain is not in the euro, so the idea that British taxpayers are going to be on the line for this Greek deal is a complete non-starter. The euro zone needs to foot its own bill.' Last night Greece's Left-wing leaders were forced into a humiliating climbdown as the eurozone cobbled together a last-minute deal to avoid the country's expulsion from the single currency. Alexis Tsipras was said to have been 'crucified' by European leaders in marathon late-night talks in which he was forced to accept severe austerity measures and hand even more control to creditors as the price of remaining in the euro. There was anger in Greece at the capitulation. Last night demonstrators burned the flag of his party, Syriza, on the streets of Athens. Now Mr Tsipras faces the difficult prospect of getting the deal through his parliament. Creditors have said they will only agree to release further funds to help the near-bankrupt economy if the reforms are agreed by MPs by tomorrow night. Prime Minister David Cameron and Mr Osborne welcomed the deal, but warned the risk to the UK economy remained unless a lasting solution is hammered out. The Chancellor will use the meeting of European finance ministers today to argue that any demands for the UK to pay as much as £850million are a 'non-starter'. The idea that British taxpayers' money is going to be on the line in this latest Greek deal is a non-starter Treasury source Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chief of the Eurogroup, confirmed yesterday a bailout 'involving all member states' will be considered. Britain has no veto, with approval instead requiring the consent of 85 per cent of states, weighted for population – presenting the risk that the UK could be out-voted. In telephone calls with European finance ministers last night, Mr Osborne said the 2010 deal must stand. A Treasury source said: 'Our Eurozone colleagues have received the message loud and clear that it would not be acceptable for this issue of British support for Eurozone bailouts to be revisited. 'The idea British taxpayers' money is going to be on the line in this latest Greek deal is a non-starter.' Under Mr Juncker's plan, the Commission will use the EU budget as collateral against 8.6billion euros of short-term bridging loans to Greece – opening the prospect that the UK will need to pay out. Bailout: David Cameron (left) has hit back at the suggestion from sources close to Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured right), the arch-federalist European Commission president, that he wants the UK to release almost £1billion as part of emergency loans to Greece Greece has been told to find 12billion euros to service its debts by the end of next month, or suffer a banking collapse. This includes 4.2billion euros to repay the European Central Bank on Monday. To cover this, Mr Juncker wants to revive the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM), a loans facility used to rescue Ireland and Portugal. It works by borrowing money on the international markets, using the EU's own budget as collateral, and can release billions with the nod of EU finance ministers. Britain pays around 14 per cent of the EU budget – meaning lending Greece 8.6billion euros would leave UK taxpayers exposed to the tune of around £850million. The risk of default is high. Mr Cameron secured a binding agreement with his counterparts in Brussels in 2010, explicitly prohibiting such a deal. Last night think-tank Open Europe said: 'There is no good reason why the UK should participate. This is entirely a problem of the eurozone and Greece's own making.' Banks remained shut in Greece yesterday, with the European Central Bank vowing not to release any cash until austerity reforms are approved. Mr Tspiras' agreement has alienated so many of his left-wing Syriza MPs and their allies that he looks set to have to rely on the votes of pro-austerity opposition parties to get the deal through. Following all-night talks in Brussels with the leaders of the 19-nation eurozone bloc, the embattled leader claimed he had managed to fend off the'most extreme measures' demanded by creditors. One Eurozone official said: 'They crucified Tsipras in there. Crucified.' Mr Tsipras may pay a high price for the deal. His party was swept to power on an anti-austerity platform. But he appears to have calculated that with most Greeks determined to remain in the euro he had little choice but to accept the terms. Ukip leader Nigel Farage called on the Greek parliament to vote down a deal which had been rejected by the Greek people. 'This conditional deal shows that national democracy and membership of the eurozone are incompatible,' he said.This is a simplified table of Japanese kanji visual components (graphemes) that does away with all the archaic forms found in the Japanese version of the Kangxi radicals. The 214 Kanji radicals are technically classifiers as they are not always etymologically correct,[1] but since linguistics uses that word in the sense of "classifying" nouns (such as in counter
begins at a different place in the song after each death. There's a moment at one minute forty seconds into the track Courtesy that's all I need to beat my best time. 72%. Wednesday's review: There's a surprising amount of nuance in the design. The lovely way your ship slightly sways in the direction you're turning, or how your sides can safely graze surfaces so you're always surfing the edge of failure. Even the female voice that announces the game's name is canny, making it feel like you're plugging yourself into an entrancing futuristic machine. 78%. Thursday's review: Super Hexagon has three controls: left arrow, right arrow, and your brain. My leaps in ability, small though they are, all feel like I'm hacking my brain rather than improving my dexterity. I've learnt to use my peripheral vision, so I can start each turn earlier. I've discovered I play better when I'm in conversation with someone at the same time, so I start chatting to whoever's nearby while I play. When my times begin to plateau, I skip up to higher difficulty levels, play those for 15 minutes, and then return back down. Everything looks slower, because I've wired my brain to run faster. When I turn away from the game now, the real world keep spinning. 84% Friday's review: Super Hexagon is about reaching escape velocity from your own feeble reflexes. It's about defeating a never-ending, corporeal chiptune. It's a game you dance to, as much about surfing music as AudioSurf. It's a puzzle game, about memorising routines and overcoming mental blocks. It's the ludological purist's answer to Hotline Miami. It's about momentum, speed, grace under pressure. When I play it, I don't blink. When I die, I'm never frustrated. In moments when it has me in rapt attention on its dancefloor, it's the greatest game in the world. 96%. Saturday's review: The sobering light of the morning always brings perspective. Super Hexagon is fun, focused, elegant and compulsively challenging. For some, it'll be an intense months-long relationship. For most, it'll be more like a single life in the game itself: thrilling, a worthwhile learning experience, and over quickly.Drinking melon soda and feeding my expensive cake habit. As you might have guessed, I have a penchant for cooking, and recreating food that I loved in Osaka is usually my top target. One thing that I've managed to duplicate recently with some success has been melon soda. As you might have guessed, I have a penchant for cooking, and recreating food that I loved in Osaka is usually my top target. One thing that I've managed to duplicate recently with some success has been melon soda. If you've lived in Japan for any amount of time, you understand the ubiquitousness of melon. It's a favourite flavour, and one that I think might have even met with more success in the western world if it were properly marketed. Alas, it is not - the amount of hassle I had to go through to make a satisfactory melon soda (and it's far from perfect) from the materials I could find here is proof enough. But surely, you might say, if this'melon soda' thing is so popular, it's been imported? Actually, it has. A company called Sangaria markets their aluminum-bottle melon soda in the U.S. and Canada, including, occasionally, select grocery stores here in Toronto. I paid a hefty $5 USD each to buy these at North Market in Columbus, OH last year and came away extremely disappointed. You might recognize Sangaria as the producers of those cheap aluminum-bottle Ramune drinks in Japanese vending machines...and if you've ever drank one of these, you know they do not hold up to the real thing. The soda goes flat within 5-10 minutes, seems to warm abnormally quickly, and has a distinctive tinny taste. I haven't noticed the carbonation or taste issues with Fanta's aluminum bottles, so I can only conclude that it's something about the 'cheap' variety that Sangaria and other 100-yen soda makers provide. As I've mentioned before, Coca-Cola has importing issues when it comes to their Japanese products, so it's unlikely we'll see Fanta Melon or Fanta Melon Cream over here at any point. So what's a girl to do when she has only sub-par melon soda to tide her over? Well...first, hit eBay, if you value authenticity as I do, and then when the prices scare you away, try your hand at making it yourself. As with Italian sodas and any fountain drink, you'll need to start with a concentrated syrup. This was tough, because the big-name brand that's easy to find in Canada, Torani, does not have a melon flavour - only watermelon. Apparently, Starbucks used to sell under their label and use a Torani'melon' syrup in their matcha drinks (...what?) but it's now discontinued and the only Torani type I can find is watermelon. You're definitely going to need a cantalope or rock melon flavour! kakigoori melon flavouring; that is, the concentrate that is used to flavour shaved ice. If you have access to this from a local Asian grocery, it's a great idea. In the end I settled on a Monin syrup because I could net a 1-litre bottle from Amazon for less than $15. The colour is not right - melon syrup is supposed to be green - but the taste is extremely close. I also picked up somemelon flavouring; that is, the concentrate that is used to flavour shaved ice. If you have access to this from a local Asian grocery, it's a great idea. "Cream" soda - melon soda with vanilla soft serve That's enough rambling - on to the proportions! That's enough rambling - on to the proportions! Homemade Melon Soda - 1 Serving 500 ml club soda/soda water 2 tbsp melon syrup 5-6 ice cubes Muddler (chopstick or a long spoon will do) A few drops of green food colouring (optional) Pour the soda water into your glass and add the syrup, stirring gently to mix well. You can add a few drops of food colouring (2 is often enough) to get the authentic colour. Add ice until your glass is full. For a cocktail look, add the syrup first and do not stir until serving - this recipe can be used with melon liqueur as well. Prefer melon cream soda to the original? Just add a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and enjoy!House with Rotating Rooms There is a unique house Sharifi-Ha in Tehran, designed by Nextoffice. The house changes its configuration with just the push of a button, creating a cooler and shade shelter in summer, and increasing the amount of sunlight in winter. Given that the width of the building is quite narrow, the designers have found an unusual solution to the problem. Unusual House with Rotating Rooms in Tehran Sharifi-Ha house in Tehran by Nextoffice The house has three huge rooms that resemble wooden cubes. Depending on weather conditions and the desire of owners, they may be turned to the street at 90 degrees. The facade turns from two-dimensional to three-dimensional state. Three mobile wooden blocks are mounted on special rotating platforms, which are also used on theater stages and road shows. Applying this technology in the construction of the house, the architects have modified it a bit, eliminating the possibility of vibration during rotation of the walls of rooms. These units contain a variety of accommodations: a guest room, a home office and a dining room, which can be aligned with the fixed front of the house or telescopically extended and rotated to the desired angle. Sharifi-Ha house in Tehran by Nextoffice In the extended position the blocks open terraces on each level, resulting in more natural light, which enters the rooms, located in the back of the house. In cold, snowy winters the rooms, on the contrary, are closed, creating a minimum opening and complete absence of broad summer terraces. Also, the house adapts to the functional needs of its users. For example, depending on whether there is a guest or not, the guest room can be used for various purposes. Or office and dining room can change their functions in accordance with the wishes of the house residents. The house consists of six floors, two of which are underground. In the basement there is a gym and relaxation area. On the first and second floor there is a living room, kitchen, and a mini-cinema. On the other floors there are bedrooms, bathrooms and an extra room for guests. The house has a built-in elevator. Total floor area is 15000 square feet. Leave a ReplyPlay Stop Popout X Daniel McAdams and I discuss yesterday's speech by Benjamin Netanyahu. Show notes and mp3 below. Subscribe To The Tom Woods Show iTunes Stitcher What are we to make of Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress yesterday? Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute joins me to discuss the speech, its claims, and the neocons’ record in the Middle East. Guest’s Website Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Guest’s Twitter @DanielLMcAdams @RonPaulInstitut Guest’s Facebook Ron Paul Institute Articles Mentioned “Netanyahu and the Crumbling Israeli Lobby,” by Jon Basil Utley “Factchecking Netanyahu: An Annotated Guide to the Israeli P.M.’s Speech to Congress” Video Series Mentioned Ron Paul Liberty Report (click here for a recent episode) Episode Mentioned Ep. 341: Why Iraqi “Regime Change” Was Doomed to Failure (Michael MacDonald) Related Episodes Ep. 329: Iran War Threatened Again? (Scott McConnell) Ep. 138: The Manufactured Iran Scare (Gareth Porter) Ep. 73: Iran Sanctions? (Daniel McAdams) Ep. 36: What’s Up with Iran? (Daniel McAdams) Special Offers Learn the history and economics they didn’t teach you, from professors you can trust and in courses you can listen to on the go at my Liberty Classroom. Plus live Q&A sessions, recommended readings, and more. Join us, using coupon code SHOW (all caps) for a special discount. Here are 26 reasons to adopt Ron Paul’s homeschool curriculum today (and 4 not to). I am producing courses for this curriculum. Sign up through this link and I’ll send you a FREE 10-lesson bonus course on the foundations of liberty, in time for the 2015-2016 academic year! Just drop me a line once you’ve signed up and I’ll get it to you.Leonardo suffered his first defeat as Inter manager as Udinese dominated the majority of the game. Francesco Guidolin made one change from last week’s side which defeated Genoa. Andrea Coda was left out, with Maurizio Domizzi coming in on the left of defence. Leonardo replaced Marco Materazzi with Ivan Cordoba, and Diego Milito’s absence meant Goran Pandev pushed forward, as did Dejan Stankovic, with Thiago Motta returning on the left of the midfield. This was an open, exciting game with some very good goals. Although Inter took the lead through Stankovic – and nearly doubled their advantage with another long-range shot from the Serbian international – it was the home side who were better throughout. Rather than being about small factors in the game, this was a good battle between two contrasting systems, with one coming out on top. Wing-backs important When one side plays wing-backs, it is generally those two players who are the key to the game. When fielded as the only players on the flank (in other words, not in a 3-4-3 or Chile-style 3-3-1-3), they are naturally expected to cover an entire wing by themselves, which means that their positioning is extremely important – specifically, how far forward they are allowed by the opposition. Inter’s 4-3-1-2 formation meant a complete lack of attacking width, and therefore both Mauricio Isla and Pablo Armero were allowed to storm forward down the flanks, often becoming the most advanced players after the Udinese forwards. They were able to join the attack without worrying about the situation at the back, where Udinese had a clear 3 v 2 situation, with Christian Zapata sweeping up behind two man-markers, and Gokhan Inler staying goalside of Stankovic. The system, therefore, was a 3-1-4-2 when Udinese were attacking, which provided plenty of midfield runners. Sanchez the key player The second key to the game was Alexis Sanchez, probably man of the match. His pace and dribbling are renowned as his main attributes, but equally important here were his work rate and his positional discipline. He was the key to the nature of the game and played in between the midfield and Antonio di Natale, the main striker, hence the description of the formation as 3-5-1-1 rather than 3-5-2. This was key because he had two separate jobs. When Udinese lost the ball, the wing-backs retreated and kept an eye on Inter’s full-backs (Maicon got forward more, and was covered by Javier Zanetti) whilst the situation at the back remained the same. Where Udinese may have had a disadvantage, however, was in the centre of midfield, where they had a theoretical 3 v 4 disadvantage. Sanchez dropping in on Esteban Cambisso meant they were outnumbered in this zone, however, and Udinese were defending well with nine men. Attacking drive Sanchez had the pace and energy, however, to storm forward and become a second striker when Udinese regained possession, meaning that Inter no longer had a spare man at the back (2 v 2), whereas Udinese always did (3 v 2). The logical problem for Udinese would then be that they had a numerical disadvantage in midfield (3 v 4) but this wasn’t an issue because of the fact their wing-backs were always free on the flanks, available for an easy pass. Of course, it was up to Inter’s full-backs to stop Isla and Armero. This caused its own problems, though, for two reasons – (a) because the full-backs needed to be covering the centre-backs to a certain extent, as there was no spare man and (b) because when the full-backs moved high up the pitch, Sanchez and di Natale (both players comfortable being used as wide forwards) drifted to the flank and drew Inter’s ageing centre-backs out of place. Therefore, the full-backs had to stay relatively deep, and Isla and Armero had plenty of time on the ball. Udinese energy The game wasn’t all about the numbers, of course. Sanchez’s trickery caused the Inter centre-backs problems when he got the ball, but the main benefit of Udinese’s system was their combination of movement from the forwards and energy from the midfielders. The forwards created the space and the midfielders expolited it, constantly getting into the box to provide a goal threat from various players. There was also frequent overloading of Inter’s left side – Giampiero Pinzi shuttled out to the right and combined with the Chilean duo of Isla and Sanchez, finding a way past Motta and Christian Chivu. In all, Udinese were by far the better side and could have won by more than two goals. Conclusion Some suspect that Leonardo is not the greatest tactician – this game added weight to that theory, as he was completely out thought by Guidolin, a manager of far more experience. Leonardo could have caused Udinese more of a problem by playing Stankovic and Pandev wide with Eto’o upfront, meaning the home side would have been forced to either (a) subdue their wing-backs or (b) bring two of their centre-backs out to wide areas, stretching their backline, but the lack of any real change meant Udinese were comfortable. Guidolin seems to have found a good system to suit his squad, and the bravery and energy of his side when in possession was very impressive. Related articles on Zonal Marking:Wins, losses, and the manner in which a professional record is compiled usually determine a fighter's standing in mixed martial arts circles. But these barometers fail to measure a fighter's internal makeup. For more than a year, UFC middleweight Dan Miller has battled difficulties few human beings will ever experience. He and his wife, Kristen, lost their first child at birth last year. It's an emotional ordeal from which neither parent has yet recovered. The death of their daughter came days before Miller was scheduled to face Chael Sonnen at UFC 98 in May 2009. Miller could have pulled out of the bout but opted to fulfill his contractual obligation and provide for his grieving wife. He gave everything he had against Sonnen but lost by unanimous decision. Nine months later, Miller would re-enter the Octagon against Demian Maia. Tough break: Dan Miller, left, dislocated his thumb in the first round against Demian Maia at UFC 109. Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com The fight with Maia at UFC 109 would take place a few weeks after the birth of the Miller's second child, Daniel. While most new fathers are filled with excitement over the birth of their child, Miller's joy has been temperate. Daniel has not had an easy transition into this world, and he is fighting for his life. Caring for an ailing son and comforting his wife has been tough for Miller, who will face Michael Bisping in the co-featured bout Saturday night at UFC 114 in Las Vegas. It's been an emotionally draining year for Miller, who has lost two fights in a row during that span. Despite his setbacks in the cage, Miller (11-3-0, one no-contest) won't point to difficulties at home as contributing factors. He refuses take anything from his opponents' successes. "[Sonnen and Maia] were two good fights," Miller told ESPN.com. "Chael basically came out and mauled me. He came out and just outwrestled me. It was a close fight with Demian." If the death of one child and ongoing struggles of another weren't enough, Miller faced more adversity in Round 1 against Maia. He dislocated the thumb on his right hand -- his power-punching hand. With his power compromised, Miller turned to his younger brother, UFC lightweight Jim Miller, for help putting the thumb back in its socket. Despite his efforts, Jim was unable to resolve the problem. Dan was forced to fight the final two rounds of that bout basically one-handed. The pain was excruciating, but at no time did Miller consider quitting. There is no quit in Dan Miller.EA is undecided on whether or not Need for Speed should be annualised. EA did not release a Need for Speed game in 2014, a first in a long time. This year, the developer is rebooting the franchise and going back to the series roots and taking inspiration from games Underground and Carbon. Does this mean that 2015 will be the start of another annualised series? EA is not sure, according to COO Peter Moore. “I don’t know if it will be, it’s an interesting question,” Moore told MCVUK in an interview. “We will see how this game goes. You can only bring it out annually if you can come up with real fresh ideas. It is the same thing we’ve been going through with golf. “It is golf… is there enough innovation and creativity that you can go in there with and do something different every year?” This year’s Need for Speed is due in November on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.On some level, my game is going to be about fucking with people. When you get down to it, the reason I like Deus Ex isn’t because I have the choice of using a multitool or shooting a guy. It’s that I can trick the guy into doing what I want. If I don’t have the key to a door with a guard on the other side, I can just shoot a wall, and he’ll unlock it for me when he comes to investigate the noise. People coming to investigate, in fact, seems to be the core rule in the most enjoyable deceptive play – whether it’s in Deus Ex, Thief or Hitman. So that was my one requirement for Gunpoint AI: you must be able to knowingly misdirect the AI. The fact that investigating suspicious noises is also semi convincing, semi effective behaviour for a guard is just a nice bonus. I had a feeling this would be hard, and I knew it was probably a little too involved for a first project. But I was looking forward to trying, because AI is one of those nice juicy problems that’s too big to tackle. You have to break it down, and breaking things down in ways that make sense is one of my favourite things to do. I took philosophy and maths at university, so it’s about the only common thread in my voluntary education. I wanted guards in office blocks to head to the source of suspicious noises, like gunshots or glass breaking, even if they weren’t on the same floor. It sounds dangerously like pathfinding, a famously sticky area, but I didn’t think it would come to anything like that. I can just break it down into a) how do I get to somewhere on my floor? and b) am I going to the sound itself or the stairs? What I’m learning, increasingly, is that conceptual stuff is not the hard bit. Every high-level idea you have for how to translate a design concept into chunks of algorithmic code will probably work, and in fact is pretty easy to write. The hard part is a part I didn’t even realise was a part: order. “I wanted guards in office blocks to head to the source of suspicious noises” – really? Did I want dead guards to respond to suspicious noises? Did I want guards to walk right past the player himself on his way back from breaking a window, in order to investigate the breaking of the window? Did I want guards who are being blown out of a window by the force of an explosion to stop, mid-air, and tell the others: “Oh hey, I’m closest to that broken window I was just flung through, I’ll go check out what caused it”? Did I want the guard who just shot you to run to your dead body and try to solve your murder? Actually I kind of do, but that’s probably another game. It’s easy to code what you want. But you don’t really know what you want until you’ve tried to explain it to a very, very stupid person. That was Socrates’ thing, in fact: he acted like an idiot to make people explain themselves to him on the most basic level, which usually revealed they didn’t truly understand their own beliefs. These days we have silicon hyperidiots to explain things to. They’re able to be much more stupid, many more times a second, than Socrates ever was. Coding is the Socratic method as an extreme sport. Because the concept behind my AI system was simple, scripting it was getting increasingly complex. Every time I said something like, “Set this guard’s state to ‘alert’,” I had to first check that he wasn’t dead, or stuck, or in a lift, or being punched. And it wasn’t going to get any less fiddly: every time I added a new situation, I’d had to go back and add new exceptions to every line of code it could influence. The only way I could make it simpler to code was to make it more complex to think about. It turns out that the nitty gritty of how an idea works in practice is a much more unwieldy beast than the high concept of what you want it to achieve, and it’s the former you really need to simplify. So now I have an intricate system of connected timers, tracking five or so independent properties of the AI’s mental and physical state, and it’s a mess to think about. But in code, it’s remarkably straightforward. I’ve turned every sub-problem into a separate function with a human-readable name, replacing stuff like: if ((sprite_index=sGunman && oPlayer.x > x) or (sprite_index=sGunmanLeft && x > oPlayer.x)) With: if HesInFrontOfUs The top level code is now just this – the pink things are functions I’ve written that call in other chunks of code: And after a lot of tinkering, and a few maddening variable-definition errors I never really got to the bottom of, it actually works. You can lure guards from their posts, hide the other side of the stairs and jump them when they come out. Or you can make a noise on one floor, then travel to another while the guard there runs to the one you just left. It’ll get more interesting once you have more of a toolset: right now all you can do in Gunpoint is jump on people and whale on them. But it’s already actual fun to screw with the AI, so I’m pretty excited about what I can do with it from here. By the way, Spelunky creator Derek Yu put up a great guide about what stops people finishing games, and how to avoid it. Since he inspired me to start this, it’s nice of him to also inspire me to try and finish it. Lastly, I need opinions: man-sized air vents are a cliche. But are they an annoying one, or just a tool that ultimately makes a game more fun? In some ways they’d fit with Gunpoint’s movement system, since they wouldn’t have to be floor-level for you to get to them. But I don’t know how sigh-worthy people find them these days.In the modern world, magic is ostensibly relegated to a ghetto of cheap, non-durable paperback books read by gullible teenagers in the midst of a rebellious phase. “Magic,” like “myth,” is usually used as something of a derogatory word denoting barbaric superstitions best forgotten. This shouldn’t be surprising. Our modern, mechanistic worldview, which likes to explain phenomena purely in terms of linear, deterministic cause and effect relationships, has no place for magic. Magic has been expelled from the modern world so thoroughly – at least in theory – that very few people even understand what magic is anymore. Most people think of magic as being a sort of deus ex machina (“god in the machine”) that miraculously contravenes the “laws” that govern matter and energy. This is, after all, precisely what magic is portrayed as being in popular culture, such as in the Harry Potter series, for example. It makes perfect sense that people whose only (mis)information concerning magic is that which is spoonfed to them by modern culture would think of it as being whatever these sources tell them it is. When one looks to other, more knowledgeable sources, however – and the Norse Eddas and sagas are as good a place as any to start – one finds that magic is something very different from what it’s usually claimed to be nowadays, and that, within the framework of some worldviews that are very different from our own, magic is an entirely comprehensible and even, in a sense, ordinary thing. A Definition of Magic What, then, is magic? The best definition to date is almost certainly that of one of the twentieth century’s leading writers on magic, Dion Fortune, who defined magic as “the art and science of causing change in consciousness in accordance with will.”[1] Magic produces change by working directly with consciousness. Its effects often spill over into the physical world, but this occurs only indirectly. This is, in an important sense, the exact opposite of what modern science does. Science causes changes in the physical world in accordance with the “laws” of the physical world. Magic and science not only work by different means; they also work toward different ends, and, in fact, this difference in ends accounts for the difference in means. This is why practitioners of magic don’t conduct laboratory experiments, and why scientists don’t intone chants before altars inscribed with emotionally powerful symbols. The apologists for the conventions of our own age often claim that magic is a “primitive,” immature groping toward science, and now that science has arrived, magic is obsolete. But science and magic are different enterprises altogether. Neither can entirely supersede the other. Indeed, as will be discussed below, magic is as alive and well in the modern world as it’s ever been – it’s just been brilliantly disguised. The final clause of Fortune’s definition is “in accordance with will,” which refers to both the will of the person or people working the magic and the person or people upon whom the magic is worked. The elucidation of this principle in the 1590 work On Bonding in a General Sense by the Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno remains the most thorough to date. In this treatise, Bruno details the role of bonds – simultaneously in the sense of “relationships” or “closeness” and “fetters” or “constraints” – in magic. His central thesis is that in order to bind another – that is, to transform the desires of another so that they aid the fulfillment of one’s own desires – one must work with the other’s existing desires. To get someone to believe or to do something in accordance with one’s own will, one must present the belief or action in such a way that the person feels it to be in accordance with his or her own will, thereby satisfying the desires of both the enchanter and the enchanted.[2] Whether this ends up helping or harming the person upon whom the magic is worked is beside the point here; either can be the case depending on the context. The point is that magic can only be successful if it satisfies the desires of all involved in the working. The historian of religion Ioan P. Couliano has rightly discussed On Bonding in a General Sense as a broader, more existential, and ultimately more ambitious counterpart to Machiavelli’s The Prince.[3] Magic in the Pre-Christian Germanic World You’re likely thinking at this point, “Okay, but that only works on humans, right? What about influencing the weather and the behavior of animals and plants, activities with which sorcerers, shamans, and the like from all over the world are credited?” It’s a perfectly valid question, and it can be answered by pointing out that this sort of magic typically takes place in a cosmological context that’s very different from our own. The pagan Norse and other Germanic peoples believed that spirit could be found in countless things throughout the world, rather than exclusively belonging to mankind. This included even things that we today would consider to be nonliving, inanimate objects. And if something has a spirit, then in some sense it is conscious and has a will of its own. Thus, humans weren’t the only beings who could be influenced by magic. Inasmuch as a storm, or a cat, or a ship partook of spirit, it, too, was subject to the workings of magic. For the ancient Germanic peoples, magic was a fairly normal part of the fabric of everyday life. The practitioner of magic worked with the basic principles that were thought to underlie the workings of the cosmos rather than against them. If he or she was set apart from other people in any way, it was in his or her level of knowledge concerning the cosmos in general and those upon whom he or she was working. It’s worth pointing out that this is something Bruno emphasizes as well: the person who binds most successfully is the person who knows the beings to be bound and their desires the most thoroughly.[4] The Old Norse vocabulary of magic revolves around conceptions of knowledge. As Professor Catharina Raudvere, a specialist in Norse magic, explains, “the verb kunna, meaning both ‘to know, to understand, to know by heart’ as well as ‘to have insight in the old traditions and lore’…is at the core of this semantic field.”[5] The most common and general word for “magic” is fjölkyngi,[6] which is derived from kunna and means “great knowledge.” In addition to the knowledge of magical techniques and knowledge of the beings involved in the working, another form of knowledge at the heart of traditional Germanic magical practice is the knowledge of fate. In Raudvere’s words: The importance of destiny must not be understood to mean that the Norsemen held purely fatalistic beliefs. Rather it must be understood in terms of knowing the future, in order to keep it under some kind of control. Divination rituals and the performance of seiðr [a type of Norse magic discussed below]… were expressions of ways of finding the keys to hidden parts of reality and measuring what was given. The results of divination marked the limits of individual free will and after the divination ceremony strategies could be made for acting within these limits. Hence, prophecies, dreams and dream interpretations, and curses were treated with the greatest concern. … They reveal a tension between freedom and dependence. Nevertheless, there can seem to be a contradiction in terms: the conceptions of destiny could also be viewed as a definition of personal freedom. On the one hand, the limits are set and it lies within the human condition to identify them and act within the given space; on the other, choices and their consequences over a longer period of time is an important theme in the sagas. … Destiny was in one sense given, but there were still opportunities for developing different strategies… in connection with the fundamental structure of the perception of time.[7] Magic, therefore, is (amongst other things) the ability to discern fate and work with it to accomplish one’s purpose. When modern people speak of magic, they often make a distinction between “white magic” and “black magic,” the former being “good” magic and the latter being “evil” magic. This is as common in anthropology as it is amongst the general populace. Such a taxonomy, however, is nowhere to be found in the conceptions of magic held by the pre-Christian Germanic peoples, who had radically different moral standards than those of what we today call “morality.” Were there any truly indigenous categories or divisions within Germanic magic, then? There were, but we know frustratingly little about them today. The only type of Norse magic that is clearly marked off from other kinds of magic in Old Norse literature is seidr, a form of “high” ritual magic practiced only by women and “unmanly” men such as the god Odin. Men who practiced magic typically delved into the amorphous complex of “warrior shamanism” practiced by initiatory military societies. The Old Norse word galdr, derived from galan, “to crow,”[8] denotes magic that centrally involves the use of runes and incantations, and may have referred to another particularly organized magical system, but, due to the absence of sufficient evidence, this must remain an intriguing speculation. Magic in the Modern World Magic was an integral part of the Western world up to and including the Renaissance. However, that “Rebirth” of Classical culture, arts, and sciences was crushed beneath the boot of the fearfully pious and reactionary elements of the European society of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which included the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the Inquisition, and the Witch Trials. Out of understandable concern for their own safety, philosophers and scientists – formerly among the most likely to be avid practitioners of magic – stripped their crafts of anything that might seem “magical,” rebranding them as the study of inert, mechanistic phenomena. This brought their disciplines into harmony with the dominant strains of Christian theology, wherein the visible, tangible world is an unthinking, unfeeling artifact created by a god who is utterly separate from his creation. Consciousness was dismissed from the world – except, conveniently, from the human mind, but even the workings of the human mind were reframed in mechanistic, as opposed to animistic, terms. Magic had been banished from the world – and, it should be noted, for purely ideological reasons.[9][10] Or, at least, polite society demands that we speak as if this revolution had actually been successful in removing magic from Western civilization. Politeness aside, however, the “mechanistic philosophy” of René Descartes, Isaac Newton, and their ilk has utterly failed to erase magic from the modern world, or even to diminish its influence. Magic occupies as prominent a place in modern society as it ever has. We just prefer to call it things like “psychology,” “sociology,” “advertising,” “marketing,” and “personal development” rather than “magic.” Looking for more great information on Norse mythology and religion? While this site provides the ultimate online introduction to the topic, my book The Viking Spirit provides the ultimate introduction to Norse mythology and religion period. I’ve also written a popular list of The 10 Best Norse Mythology Books, which you’ll probably find helpful in your pursuit. References: [1] Greer, John Michael. 2012. The Blood of the Earth: An Essay on Magic and Peak Oil. [2] Bruno, Giordano. 1998. On Bonding in a General Sense. In Giordano Bruno: Cause, Principle and Unity: and Essays on Magic. Translated and edited by Richard J. Blackwell and Robert de Lucca. p. 143-176. [3] Couliano, Ioan P. 1987. Eros and Magic in the Renaissance. Translated by Margaret Cook. p. 89. [4] Bruno, Giordano. 1998. On Bonding in a General Sense. In Giordano Bruno: Cause, Principle and Unity: and Essays on Magic. Translated and edited by Richard J. Blackwell and Robert de Lucca. p. 143-176. [5] Raudvere, Catharina. 2002. Trolldómr in Early Medieval Scandinavia. In Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 3: The Middle Ages. Edited by Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark. p. 88. [6] Price, Neil S. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. p. 65-66. [7] Raudvere, Catharina. 2002. Trolldómr in Early Medieval Scandinavia. In Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Volume 3: The Middle Ages. Edited by Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark. p. 96-97. [8] Eliade, Mircea. 1964. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Translated by Willard R. Trask. p. 98. [9] Abram, David. 1991. The Mechanical and the Organic:
Moab for ~150 miles. Unfortunately, it looks like I am going to just miss the November 1st closing date for the Needles Outpost. That stop would have been a convenient place to resupply and break up the stretch between Hanksville and Moab. Call it seven days of food as the terrain is more difficult through that stretch. The area is isolated and there are no other resupply options without a major amount of hitching. Not an ideal situation, but not insurmountable either. EDIT: Wow..pre-trail magic already! Chris H. lives in the area and generously offered to help with the stretch between Hanksville and Moab. That’s huge and makes that stretch easier esp with the raft for Spanish Bottom (see below in Issues and Concerns). THANK YOU! Additionally, I am going to have a pair of shoes mailed to me in Escalante, UT at about the halfway point. Map packs will be mailed to me at points along the way, too. Issues and Concerns There are a few key issues for this trip versus a more defined route. Among these issues and concerns: Fewer daylight hours means I have less time to hike of course. I’ll need to be disciplined to make the most of the daylight. Navigation: I need to make sure my navigation skills are on point. Nothing I have not done before. But one thing to navigate through Utah doing some well-known areas with my car waiting for me. Another thing to make a mistake and cost me a half-day in an area where few people go. Good maps, experience, and a nudge from the Gaia GPS app when needed should address this issue on the macro level. Scramblings: I’ll be going into and out of canyons, scrambling, and will need to make micro navigation decisions. Again, nothing I have not done before. However, one thing to research the heck out of a place from my home days before I get there. Another thing to look at topo map and my brief notes when I arrive. Being solo and in remote areas, I’ll be more conservative and take an honest stock of my abilities and comfort level. Alternate routes may be done if I decide if something looks too hairy. Water: Utah, or rather this route, is mainly red rock desert Naturally, making sure water is available is imperative. The largest carry seems to be about 35 miles. Based on the time of the year and my water consumption, that’s about six liters of water I’ll need to carry. Not terrible by any means. Water sources are marked on my topos, of course. I also have water waypoints loaded up in Gaia GPS. I do not plan on caching water. Permits: For routes of this type, permits can be hard to get as I am on foot. But I am going to do my best to legally procure a permit when needed. I may camp at front country sites that I walk into, be just outside of the NPS borders at night and walk through during the day, make use of the interagency offices in such places as Escalante, or simply call and politely explain when I am in the town before I enter any NPS units. I’ve found that the words “Please”, “Thank you”, and politely asking for things rather than demanding something goes a long way in resolving issues. My colorful five-foot-tall mother made sure her boys understood this fact of life very well. 😉 Crossing Spanish Bottom: There is a crossing of the Colorado River at Spanish Bottom. It is a flatwater crossing that friends familiar with this stretch said is very mellow. I could wait and hope for some friendly rafters to give me a hitch. With the time of the year, and services slowing down, a bit of a gamble. Instead, I’ll be taking what some people have referred to as the “poor man’s pack raft” for flat water use only. Unfortunately, I’ll be schlepping this raft between Hanksville and Moab due to the Needles Outpost (probably) being closed by the time I get there. Ha! Update: I have not even stepped on the trail yet and someone offered to help with this stretch. Thank you!!! Like all experiments, this experiment will either work well, or I’ll be eating crow. I’ll have a good story either way. And for this person who loves to spin a good yarn, that may be the most important part. 😉 Speaking of which… Gear I am going on an amazing trip through some of the most gorgeous and remote terrain in the American West. However, if past presentations are any indication, many people will be the most curious about what fabric my shelter is made of, what type of spoon I use, the brand of sock I will be wearing, and whether I take a zero drop shoe or not for some reason. Anticipating that question, I will more or less be taking this gear kit posted earlier. That 150-mile carry will be at the upper end of the CDT capacity, but I should manage. I can always just eat more food at once if the pack is too heavy. 😉 Misc I plan on posting updates about once a week. Some updates will be more frequent, some less so. I’ll have one or two photos per update. The bulk of my photos will be uploaded when I am finished. I’ll have a larger post-hike overview entry similar to this pre-hike entry. This post-hike entry will include more detailed notes about the resupplies, trail vs x-country vs jeep road miles, permits and other pertinent info. Finally, though this route will only be about five weeks, I expect this journey to be a memorable one. Utah is one of the most striking places in North America. And to walk across the state at the peak of red rock country Autumn? Well, it is a gift I will savor. Naturally, this type of trip could not be done without help from others on some level. First, thanks to Jamal Green for the overall route concept and info. He has spent years researching where I am about to walk. The info from Amy and James on their website has proven to be invaluable. When I was working full-time, I do not think I would have the time bank funds to research to the level of detail they have done. Their meticulous research and notes proved to be an excellent base to start my planning since I quit work about a month ago. The friends, former colleagues, family and the greater outdoor community who have supported the not only this trip but my overall plan for the next several months. I have received many offers of places to stay, assistance, and so on. I continue to be amazed. Thanks to the Carr family for letting me park my vehicle at their place for the next few weeks. It will be waiting for me when I return and start the next phase of this sabbatical. Markhamm and I have enjoyed some memorable jaunts on the Colorado Plateau together. And many thanks to the Zapin family for being my quartermasters for this trip! The Zapin boys are becoming quite the experienced outdoors enthusiasts and I am happy they are an important part of my trip. Onward! All the entriesWhen the Coffeeneuring Challenge first began, I had no idea who would participate and what cities would be represented. Over the years, Pittsburgh has consistently emerged as the city with the most participants. Last year, Pittsburgh coffeeneurs put together a poster announcing the challenge, and also worked with a local bike shop to coordinate both a kickoff and a closing event. Curious about the Pittsburgh cycling scene and why Pittsburgh has embraced coffeeneuring so, I reached out to Emma and Q – coffeeneuring regulars – to learn more. In today’s post we talk coffeeneuring, community, Pittsburgh cycling and infrastructure, and the Great Allegheny Passage. All photos appearing in this post are courtesy of Emma and Q. Many thanks, Emma and Q, for touring us through your coffeeneuring town! Pittsburgh has become an avid coffeeneuring city. What is it about Pittsburgh and coffeeneuring? Q: I would cite three primary reasons: 1. A pretty strong and connected bike culture. Pittsburgh hasn’t always been a bike city. 15-20 years ago if you biked in the city there was a good chance you knew most of the people you saw biking around the city. Our bike advocacy group BikePGH has done great work on both advocating for infrastructure as well as simply supporting a culture that supports many aspects of bike culture from purely recreational to daily commuters. So even though you might not recognize all the people you see biking in the city anymore, I still think there is a tight camaraderie amongst Pittsburgh bicyclists. 2. Climate. Pittsburgh can be a grey, depressing city at times, especially as winter nears. I think a lot of us recognize that as autumn descends and the days get shorter and the air gets cooler, it is important to force ourselves to get out and get on our bikes. Coffeeneuring gives a good structure for continuing to get out and avoid going into hibernation mode too early. 3. Pittsburghers love a good challenge. We are the City of Champions after all. I think we often see ourselves as the underdog who wants to overcome the odds. So we see bigger cities with strong cycling communities like D.C., New York, and Portland, and want to prove that we can overcome the odds and be the best coffeeneuring city. Emma: I think there’s a bit of a big-fish-in-a-small-pond thing that can happen in Pittsburgh. We’re a city on the smaller side, but big enough to count as a “real” city — that sweet spot where if you want to do something, there are lots of people to say “yes!” and few people who’d shut you down because it’s “their” project. There’s an interesting kind of engagement without territorialism for a city that also has an undercurrent of love-it-or-leave-it! But for sure Q is right — the gray of winter in Pittsburgh is brutal and people dread it, even beginning in our beautiful golden autumn, so convincing yourself to just keep going outside has a survival-mechanism appeal to it. You-all made posters announcing the Coffeeneuring Challenge that you hung in local businesses, and also organized a coffeeneuring kick-off event at a local bike shop, Thick Bikes. Tell me about how you set up the challenge in Pittsburgh in 2015, and what it was like to have a place like Thick Bikes actively support the Coffeeneuring Challenge? Q: The posters and the kickoff event both happened separately on their own. I think here in Pittsburgh we take the grassroots idea of Coffeeneuring seriously. Vannevar and RustyRed were the ones behind the posters and Emma and I were behind the kickoff event. They both just came from us saying “We like this thing. It’s fun. How can we get more people involved and increase the community effect of the challenge?” Originally the intent was to have the kickoff event be a “coffeeneuring in the wild,” but the day ended up being the epitome of a cold, grey, rainy Pittsburgh autumn day. Seeing the weather forecast I contacted Thick, who had recently just expanded into their new larger storefront and asked them if they would be down to host the event. Chris and the Thick crew are great and super supportive of the Pittsburgh bike community and were totally down for having us do it there. It probably didn’t hurt that we were offering to bring them coffee and baked goods on a Saturday morning. Emma: Q and I are both what you might call reluctant leaders – the sort of people who like to see fun stuff happen around town, and so we make some of it happen! I think sometimes there’s an idea that there’s a barrier or too much work or investment to make, to set things in motion, but all Q and I did was send a few emails! It often takes so little to bust out of inertia and make something happen! Plus the stakes are so low: What if nobody comes?! Oh, well, I guess we’ll eat donuts at a bike shop. HOW TRAGIC. As Q said, the day of the kickoff event was gray and rainy and blahhhhh. If I hadn’t told people to meet me anywhere, I might have stayed home. But I hopped on my bike with panniers full of homemade donuts, and had what turned out to be a lovely ride in weather that was not bad at all. That was such a good reminder of why I like coffeeneuring — forget your dread! Nothing’s really ever as bad as your imagination is capable of making it out to be. I got in the door dripping wet and this ten year old kid said in astonishment, “Did you ride your bike in the RAIN? Why??!!” to which I got to reply “DONUTS!” It seemed to satisfy her curiosity. I love a good de-centralized project! A fun thing that happened this year, via the BikePGH messageboard, was a more empowered-to-organize and more social aspect. You’d see posts like “Hey, I’m gonna be doing my Coffeeneuring ride from this starting point at this time if you wanna join me!” Here’s a link to a snap of the poster, from Vannevar’s post on the BikePGH messageboard. How does Pittsburgh set up as a cycling town? Also, how does being at the north end of the GAP trail shape Pittsburgh’s cycling identity? Q: The goods: As stated before, I think the biking community here is great. Really supportive. Great diversity of different types of bikers. Great institutions like Bike Pittsburgh, Dirt Rag/Bicycle Times, Kraynicks and FreeRide (community bike shops), great network of trails, bikelanes, etc that continue to grow. The hills. The bads: Also the hills. Seriously we’re big fans of hills. We love climbing and bombing down hills, but sometimes it makes getting around a challenge. Being Pennsylvania and the rustbelt we have our fair share of potholes and other crumbling infrastructure that provide for a variety of hazards. Streets here are crazy, judged from many standpoints. Lots of one-ways, narrow streets, tight curves, etc. Mix in some aggro/distracted/shitty drivers and biking in Pittsburgh is not without its dangers. I think having the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) trail heading out of Pittsburgh is a huge thing. It is great to ride right out of town and connect with this mostly traffic-free route all the way to D.C. Local people can take the GAP out of town and there are places to camp out 30, 40 and 50 miles out. There are some pretty easy options for overnighter trips to just get away or for people new to bike touring to try out their setup. Being able to do these little trips are one of the things that I think help convince people that they can do the whole trip to D.C. The route is so accessible and makes bike touring such an easy option for so many. You can go fully loaded and camp out or you can go super light and eat at restaurants and stay in hotels. The D.C. trip via the GAP is the easy option in what I see as the triumvirate of Pittsburgh bike challenges. The other two – the Dirty Dozen and Crush the Commonwealth – are unsanctioned races that veer toward the obscene end of the bike challenge spectrum Dirty Dozen climbs up 13 of Pittsburgh’s steepest streets. Crush the Commonwealth is a Pittsburgh to Philadelphia race that winners complete in around a day and a half’s time. Bicyclists in Pittsburgh like to ask themselves “Could I do that?” but the trip to D.C. via the GAP/C&O is accessible to the average city biker. Emma: I haven’t lived anywhere else as a cyclist, so it’s tough to compare from a daily commute perspective, but I’ve ridden in lots of places, and Pittsburgh is not without its shortcomings. I slid out on some wet trolley tracks in Toronto once, and I was never in any danger because the drivers all gave me tons of room. I remember thinking, while on the ground, “If this happened at home, I might be dead.” That’s a dark sentiment, but overall, drivers are not confident around cyclists in Pittsburgh and wind up doing a lot of dangerous maneuvers to get around us and get to what they perceive as a “safer” position on the road, including too-close passing and not giving us much buffer when they’re behind us. Pittsburgh’s got a lot of old, narrow, blown out roads with street parking on both sides, so it’s tough for cyclists and for drivers, frankly. And heaven help the bus drivers! There’s so much good stuff here, but the best best best best best absolute best thing is the terrain. Hills and rivers and bridges and sidewalks that are staircases! I wouldn’t trade it for anything! This is the most wonderful, fun terrain for riding! It’s varied — keep it flat by hugging the rivers, or huck yourself up over some big old hills to go across town the shorter way. Being at the end of the GAP trail has been great for Pittsburgh. It means we’re a destination city for people from all over the place, and that is so special for a smaller city! I love reading impressions of Pittsburgh in GAP/C&O trip reports! It’s easy to take it for granted here, because you can just roll out your front door and ride to another city in a few days without interacting with cars at all, but without the necessary experience for a true wilderness experience. It also means there is this greater acceptance of the notion of bike touring here, because it’s something people hear about a lot, due to the GAP. Instead of “You know you can drive a car there, right?” you hear “Cool! I want to do that trip someday!” From the outside looking in, there seems to be a lot of camaraderie among the Pittsburgh cycling community. How would you describe it, as well as the coffeeneuring community within that? Q: There definitely is a lot of comeraderie. I think a lot of it comes down to Pittsburgh being a relatively small city. We saw this in our music scene too, maybe more 15-20 years ago, but where there was a lot more intermingling of different scenes. You’d have metal bands playing with emo bands playing with pop punk bands. Straight edge and drunk punks hand in hand. The same could be said about biking here. You might not be into racing or mountain biking or commuting, but the city is small enough that you have a sense of what is going on in those communities and you appreciate what they do. You see the work and events that BikePGH do; they explore the whole spectrum of biking and bring these folks together. Look at the list of our BikeFest events or look at the people who come out for the BikePGH fundraiser and you have spandexed folks on expensive bikes and crusty kids on dumpstered bikes hanging out together. I did an interview for my old zine awhile back with some “punk librarians.” We were talking about our music scene and one of them said “Even our hipsters aren’t so hip.” I think that relates back to our bike scene. There isn’t too much attitude here. People are having a good time riding bikes and want more people to enjoy riding bikes and riding different bikes in different ways. Regarding coffeeneuring here, I think the people who actually complete the challenge tend towards the scrappier, commuter end of the biking spectrum. I mean, on a nice day you can ride by a local coffee shop like Tazo D’Oro and you’ll see a group of spandexed riders chilling out front drinking fancy coffee drinks, but I don’t think too many of them actually take part in Coffeeneuring. The spirit is within them but I think coffeeneuring speaks to a certain element who enjoy not only the ride and the hot beverage but also enjoy the documentation and the sharing. Emma: Pittsburghers have a tendency to glorify underdogs, and the cycling community is not immune to that tendency! For a long time, there was a sense of cyclists being hard-as-nails, and ten years ago, you’d know or recognize all the other cyclists. Pete Jordan wrote a book called In the City of Bikes, and when he came through Pittsburgh on his book tour, he read a segment about his time living here. He described seeing no other bikes at all, all winter long, and then one day, seeing another tire tread in the snow. He excitedly tried to find the other cyclist, only to discover that it was his own track from the previous day. Pretty representative of Old Pittsburgh. It’s not like that anymore. There are so many cyclists out on the streets and in the woods! BikePGH, our wonderful, amazing advocacy group, has been around long enough now that we are seeing the fruits of their labors, including some separated bike lanes. We got a bike share program last year. We have an indoor bike park now (the Wheel Mill). Finally got all the public transit fitted with bike racks. We have amazing mountain biking in this area. There are so many ways to ride and so many riders now that there’s not a lot of cohesiveness around one cycling “culture,” but I do think that most cyclists respect the other cyclists. There’s this sense that we’re all in it together, because we’re nuts. No matter how much infrastructure and safety initiatives and support there is, topographically speaking, riding here is always going to be hard and awesome! I don’t want to speak for my fellow coffeeneurs, but I do think we’re all pretty sweet on each other. There’s this fondness that develops when you’re all doing something together, even if you’re doing it separately! What is the coffee shop scene like in Pittsburgh and how bike-accessibility are they? Are there any in particular that you think cater to cyclists? Q: I’m not a coffee drinker, just a tea guy… but the options for tea are expanding in Pittsburgh in recent years. More places having interesting options, not just the same old handful of standard options. I think Tazza D’Oro is the only cafe that explicitly caters to cyclists, but thanks to the work of Bike Pittsburgh and the city, you can usually count on their being bike racks to lock up to around most of the neighborhoods where cafes are prevalent. Emma: Pittsburgh’s coffee scene has grown tremendously in the last ten years! The standards have been raised! There’s always room for diner coffee, but there’s also now room for multiple places that make amazing espresso, and shoot, there’s a Pittsburgh Specialty Coffee Week now, with events like the Latte Art Throwdown! It even coincides with the Coffeeneuring Challenge! I think most cafes have figured out that they’ll get more business if they make it easy to park a bike there! There are a few that are super accommodating. Tazza D’Oro is an example — they’re a meeting spot for club rides and sell spare tubes at the counter! Coffeeneuring has brought rideability and parking onto the radar of a lot of cafe owners, especially for cafes that are a little further out from the center of town. What’s next for the Pittsburgh coffeeneuring? Q: I hope we can keep up the kickoff event and maybe even try to arrange some more meetups throughout the coffeeneuring weeks. I think this was the year that it really started catching the eye of the cafes and the bikeshops, so I just imagine it will continue to grow. Maybe there will be some Pittsburgh-specific coffeeneuring mini challenges such as at least one cafe in the Northside, Southside, East End, West End and Downtown? Maybe some Pittsburgh-centric reward to compliment our coffeeneuring patch? Emma: I think it’ll keep growing here. It’s the kind of project that is somewhat contagious in that if you see a friend complete the challenge, then you make plans to tackle it the next year. I organize the Pittsburgh fun-a-day project, which is a month-long daily art practice, and it definitely sees that kind of exponential participation growth, because each year, a participant’s pal comes to the exhibition and is totally amped for the next year. Then they do it along with their pal, and another friend says “Oh man, I’m totally doing it next year!” On top of that, come on, we are the City of Champions. We have a title to keep! There’s a t-shirt folks wear around here that says “Ice or grass, we’ll kick your ass!” It refers to hockey and football, but maybe it’s time to amend it to include something about wheels! What question did I forget to ask you? Q: What should someone completing the GAP do once they roll into Pittsburgh and make it all the way to Point State Park? Assuming it is summer, I suggest continuing on across the Fort Duquesne bridge. There’s a trail right out of the park leading to the bike/pedestrian sidewalk along the bridge. There are the “water steps”, a big sculptural water fountain next to PNC Park that you can wade in and look out across the river towards downtown and around at the surrounding hills. Refreshing and enjoyable on a hot day, especially after putting in a bunch of miles on your bike. It’s even better after dark. Emma: Should you guys ride from D.C. to Pittsburgh and come hang out? Yes! Yes you should! We’ll show you all the best views of this town! Categories: Coffeeneuring, Coffeeneuring Rewind, We Love CoffeeneuringAbbott’s RAAF gaffe. Queensland “dirty players” in Parli State of Origin. Game of Thrones piracy panic. Mayne on civic service. ISIS explained. The Oz lectures Media Watch on ethics. Family visas dumped. Milne finds a dinner date. And is Tim Blair Australia’s craziest right-wing nutjob? You decide. They thunder, they stomp, they rejoice, they lament, they shout, they cackle, they cry! There's never a non-emotional moment in the lives of Australia's right-wing old man brigade, whose sense of restraint lost all capacity during the last decade. Only one of them, however, can reign as our leading harbinger of doom. Only one can stand above all others as the king of the crazies, while the others look on and ask, "when was he retiring again?" In the search for this nation's most unhinged agitator, let the CrikeyPoll decide! ( With thanks to Tim Blair.)Here is a nice article i found about the influence of prenatal and saliva testosterone (that is post puberty levels of testosterone) on male facial dimensions. Visualizing Facial Shape Regression upon 2nd to 4th Digit Ratio and Testosterone Katrin Schaefer1, Bernhard Fink2, Philipp Mitteroecker1, Nick Neave3 and Fred L. Bookstein1,4 A B S T R A C T Sex steroids are supposed to moderate the differences between male and female facial characteristics. Studies on women’s preferences for male faces reported increased preferences for facial architecture developed under the influence of testosterone as this may indicate masculinity, dominance and social status. Recent research demonstrates that facial sexual dimorphism does not only develop at puberty but may be organized much earlier in ontogeny. However, the actual cause and timing of variation in facial shape due to sex-steroids remains speculative. This study uses data from Neave and colleagues1 who measured digit ratio (2D:4D) as a proxy to prenatal testosterone and also salivary testosterone samples in order to study differential effects of androgens on perceived male facial shape. Male facial shape was regressed upon 2D:4D ratio and circulating levels of testosterone by means of geometric morphometric methods. We found some evidence for opposite effects of early androgen action (via 2D:4D ratio) on the upper and the lower face respectively (i.e. low 2D:4D ratio results in a relatively robust and prominent lower face), whereas circulating testosterone seems to cause a rather uniform elongation of the face. Local deformations primarily show pronounced and medially tailed eyebrows for the shapes associated with increasing salivary testosterone. These preliminary results suggest that prenatal and pubertal testosterone have differential effects on male facial shape that should be considered in future studies on women’s preferences towards male facial appearance.JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office has arrested a man and charged him with animal cruelty after he allegedly set his dog on fire. According to JSO's Facebook page, detectives said 21-year-old Devron Quarterman was arrested Sunday after his mother called police. The mom told them she was inside cooking and her son was with the dog outside when she heard the dog crying. When she went outside, the mother saw the dog rolling around in the dirt and hooked to a chain in the front yard. When she grabbed the dog its fur fell off. She said the fur also smelled like gas and was burned. Police said they obtained a lighter from Quarterman's pocket. Copyright 2014 by News4Jax.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Many people often wonder why mailboxes are federal property. There is actually a careful balance of legal policy that establishes the ownership and property rights of your mailbox. To be sure, the process starts with the resident’s purchase of an up-to-code mailbox. (You can visit usps.com to find out about all the necessary specifications). However, once a mailbox is properly installed and ready for use, it is effectively considered Federal Property. According to federal law (Title 18, United States Code, Section 1705), it is “a crime to vandalize mailboxes (or to injure, deface or destroy any mail deposited in them). Violators can be fined up to $250,000, or imprisoned for up to three years, for each act of vandalism.” This law puts your mailbox under Federal jurisdiction in order to protect you (the resident) from any harm or vandalism that may occur from a mailbox’s misuse. (Aside: vandalism and even mail theft are rarely prosecuted as federal crimes, but that’s a topic for a separate blog post). But, that is just the first half of the story. Once you install your mailbox, and it is ready for the receipt of mail, you effectively lease your mailbox to the federal government for the service of mail delivery. Let’s not forget that, as long as you have an up-to-code mailbox, receiving mail is a free service. Sending mail isn’t free (stamps, shipping, postage, etc). Because you lease your mailbox to the Postal Service, they require that your mailbox meet certain criteria regarding placement, design, and usage in order to maintain your service. If you do not meet these criteria in any way, you break the lease and the Postal Service will no longer use your box for mail delivery. For more information on USPS Approval specifically related to locking mailboxes, check out these useful posts.MELBOURNE, Australia — Thailand has taken another step in a burgeoning arms trade with China, with the Thai government approving the purchase of more Chinese-built tanks. According to Thai government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd, the cabinet has approved the acquisition of 10 more VT4 main battle tanks designed and built by China's Norinco. This batch of tanks, reportedly costing $58 million, will be the second batch of VT4s ordered by Thailand after an earlier batch of 28 tanks was ordered in 2016. The VT4s will replace the elderly M41 Walker Bulldogs currently operated by the Royal Thai Army. The Southeast Asian kingdom has an outstanding requirement of 200 tanks and had originally turned to Ukraine for its T-84 Oplot tanks, with 49 acquired in 2011. However, delays meant that only a small handful had been delivered by 2014, and the continuing conflict in eastern Ukraine means it will be unable to fulfill the Thai order, leading to Thailand tapping China for its VT4s. The VT4 is a 52-ton main battle tank developed by China specifically for overseas export. It incorporates technology from the Type 99A currently fielded by the Chinese People's Liberation Army. It is armed with a 125mm smoothbore cannon also capable of firing guided missiles, has a remote weapon station on the turret armed with a heavy machine gun and can be fitted with an active protection system. The fire control system has hunter-killer capabilities, laser rangefinder, panoramic sight and a third-generation thermal imaging system. This most recent order is the latest in a series of defense articles Thailand has acquired from China, and it serves as an example of strengthening ties between the two countries, with some recent examples being a trio of Type 039 Yuan-class diesel-electric attack submarines in late 2016 and VN1 eight-wheel drive infantry fighting vehicles announced in March. The Royal Thai Armed Forces already operate several types of equipment of Chinese origin, including frigates and offshore patrol vessels of the Royal Thai Navy. While the comparatively low prices have undoubtedly been a major factor in Thailand's increasing predilection for Chinese arms, Tim Huxley, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Asia division, told Defense News that Thailand increasingly turning to China as its arms supplier "does of course have geopolitical undertones." He noted that "the Western response to the armed forces' political role since 2014 has evidently undermined relations with Bangkok, including the latter's previous predisposition to buy arms from U.S. or Western sources and provided an opportunity for China to intensify its all-round relations with Thailand." Thailand is a key security ally of the United States in Asia. In December 2003, Thailand was designated a major non-NATO ally. However, ties were strained since the 2014 coup that saw the current military junta led by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha come to power, with the United States freezing $4.7 million of security-related aid and canceling some security agreements in response, although military ties have since been mostly restored. In contrast, China was the first major power to acknowledge Thailand's ruling junta following the coup, and has since then become Thailand's leading trading partner and second-largest source of foreign investment that has included substantial investment in infrastructure projects.YOU’VE BEEN WARNED………. Remember when undertaker had a mask? Here he is with a mask and some gold chains….. gold chains you ask? Yeah, lets get into that…. The Undertaker was in a feud with… “THE SUPREME FIGHTING MACHINE” KAMA…. KAMA stole the urn at Wrestlemania 11 while The Undertaker was fighting KING KONG BUNDY! He melted it down into some stellar gold chains…. The Undertaker and KAMA fought at Summerslam 1995 in a CASKET MATCH….. Undertaker won the match, however for some reason he did not reclaim the the gold chains, instead The Undertaker continued to gain the powers from the “creatures of the night” (his fans). The gold chains stayed in KAMAs possession… The end…. Wait… you want more? You want to know why The Undertaker had a mask?!?!?!! You want a happy ending where The Undertaker and the urn are reunited!?!?!?!?! We need to rewind for a moment to King of the Ring 1995…. The Undertaker is in a quarter finals match with Mabel, KAMA interferes and The Undertaker ends up loosing the match! Mabel become ‘King Mabel’ Flash forward after The Undertaker beats KAMA at Summerslam… (Remember The Undertaker never took the gold chains back from KAMA) Sometime in the fall of '95 The Undertaker injured his Orbital Bone (in real life) To write The Undertaker off TV, On the October 9th 1995 episode of RAW, Mabel interfered in a six man tag match that The Undertaker was apart of. King Mabel attacked The Undertakers head over and over again. After some time off for surgery The Undertaker was set to return at Survivor Series 1995 in a match. “The Darkside” (The Undertaker, Savio Vega, Fatu and Henry Godwinn) vs. “The Royals” (King Mabel, Jerry Lawler, Isaac Yankem and Hunter Hearst Helmsley) Due to the fact that a lot of WWF wrestlers were jumping ship to WCW, WWF wanted to bring back The Undertaker early from his recovery, so they came up with THE MASK… The Undertaker Returned with a mask to protect his face from further injury. “The Darkside” ended up winning the match after King Mabel got scared of The Undertaker and got counted out. On the November 27th edition of RAW The Undertaker was set to face KAMA once and for all for the posession of the gold chains! However KAMA came out on crutches and said he was unable to compete. The million dollar man (KAMAS manager) Said that he had a replacement…. SIR MO! (King Mabels humble servant). The match would be The Undertaker vs Sir Mo… The Winner would get possession of the golden chains! After some outside interference (including a PERFECTLY HEALTHY KAMA) The Undertaker won the match! Yokozouna ended up coming out and wanted to challenge The Undertaker. The Undertaker handed the gold chains to Paul Bearer. But King Mabel snuck up behind him and attacked him! King Mable is now in possession of the golden chains! The Match was set…. The Undertaker vs King Mabel in a CASKET MATCH at In Your House The Undertaker ended up winning this match by putting both King Mabel and Sir Mo into the Casket…. But before closing it, the undertaker grabbed the gold chains! The Undertaker has finally been reunited with the remnants of the urn… The end… wait a second…. you want…… more? well of course we do, when did The Undertaker stop wearing the mask?! Thats easy… Remember the Royal Rumble poster that said “You’ve Been Warned?”…. It was at THAT event! the 1996 Royal Rumble Bret Hart was wrestling The Undertaker and at one point in the match Bret Hart tore the mask of The Undertakers face! That was the last time we would see The Undertaker in THAT mask… One time The Undertaker dressed up as Kane for a goofIf running a half marathon is one of your goals this year, allow this dog to be your new inspiration. Meet Ludivine, a two-and-a-half-year-old hound dog, who was let out of her house in Elkmont, Ala., on an average Saturday morning. She managed to sneak out of her backyard and into the starting area of the local half marathon, Runner’s World reports. Then, she proceeded to run the race. All 13.1 miles of it. The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now “All I did was open the door, and she
’s note: This is a guest post from Todd Kuslikis. Men strive for efficiency. We are creatures that look for ways of getting the maximum amount of benefit from the least amount of time invested. We look for the straightest path to achieve our goals. That’s why I am always confused why so many men wake up hours before work to fight traffic to get to the gym, elbow people while looking for a locker, and wait for others to get off exercise machines…Ugh! No thank you. I prefer to stay at home and do a short and intense workout before heading off to work. But as I mentioned above, men care about efficiency AND results. We want the big biceps and chiseled chest and we know that doing a bunch of no-weight push ups and squats just ain’t gonna cut it. We need to do exercises that challenge our muscles in new ways and force them to fatigue in low rep ranges (which is the key to muscle growth). If you don’t have the resources to shell out $1,000 for a Bowflex or other home gym system I have the perfect solution for you. A complete home gym made out of PVC. There is nothing manlier than building your own piece of fitness equipment. I am going to lead you step-by-step through the process of creating your own PVC home gym. And it will cost you less than $150. Also at the end of the article I will give you a full 3-month routine that you can follow on your new PVC home gym. Stay tuned towards the bottom of the post as well for a video that shows how to do the various workouts, as well as vocal directions on building the gym. You might be thinking to yourself, “I could never build something like that. The last thing I built was a mangled bird house in high school shop class and even a freezing bird in a hail storm wouldn’t step foot in it.” Let me tell you that I am much more like Tim Taylor than Bob Vila. I have never built a deck, fixed a leaky faucet, or even assembled a model airplane. If I can do it you can too. What Equipment Do I Need? Here is a full list of everything you need: PVC Fittings (everything below is 1.5 inches wide) Eight elbow pieces (one end needs to be male and the other female) One cross piece One connector piece 25 “T” section pieces PVC Pipes (everything is 1.5 inches wide; if you weigh more than 180lbs, I recommend getting 2-inch-wide PVC pipes) 10 1-foot PVC pipes 1 1-foot 1-inch PVC pipe 18 2-foot PVC pipes 2 2-foot 3.5-inch PVC pipes 6 4-foot PVC pipes 1 4-foot 3-inch pipe 2 4-foot 8.5-inch pipes 1 5-foot 3.5-inch pipe Other Important Materials Rope (you’ll use this for hanging rings) 2 1-inch-wide, 6-inch-long metal pipes (or you can use 6-inch PVC pipe pieces which is what I ended up using) PVC Cement and Primer (You use this to chemically bond the pieces together. In the video near the bottom of this post, I’ll show you which pieces to bond together and which ones to keep separated so you can still transport the gym if you decide to put it in another room. Also, before you cement the pieces together make sure that you know how to put everything together properly.) PVC Gym Blueprint Guide How to Build Your PVC Home Gym Full Video On How To Build The PVC Home Gym and 27 Exercises To Do On It What Exercises Can I Do On The PVC Gym? To learn how to do the below exercises, watch the video above. Shoulder Exercises: Handstands Handstand Push Ups Supported Iron Cross L Sit To Half Handstand on Parallel Bars Bicep Exercises: Traditional Chin Ups Close Grip Chin Ups Wide Chin Ups Pole Climbs Tricep Exercises: Dips Hanging Dips Parallel Bar Dips Half Muscle Up Ab Exercises: Hanging Dragon Flag L Sit Reverse Ab Crunches Oblique Crunches Sit Ups Back Exercises: Traditional Pull Up Wide Pull Up Front Lever Chest Exercises: Parallel Bar Push Ups Decline Push Up Stretch Push Up Leg Exercises: Squats Pistol Squats One Legged Hops Two Legged Hops The 3-Month PVC Training Plan Month 1 – The PVC Prince This month will get you used to working out on PVC pipes. The exercises aren’t too advanced but you’ll see some major benefit when the week is over. Weeks 1-3 will be your active weeks and Week 4 will be an active recovery. This means that you will NOT do any type of weight training or bodyweight exercises. Use this week to jog, play tennis, swim, or any other activity you like to do. This is important! Don’t break this rule. Your exercise sessions will be 3 X per week. For example: Mon/Wed/Fri or Tues/Thurs/Sat. Once you are done with Month 1, move on to Month 2. Exercise Schedule Week 1: 3 X Per Week Week 2: 3 X Per Week Week 3: 3 X Per Week Week 4: Active Rest Period Exercise Routine Do each exercise until you reach full fatigue. Don’t rest in between sets. Beginners will only go through the cycle once. If you are more advanced you can go through it two or three times. 5 Upper Body Exercises Handstand Holds Decline Push Ups Traditional Pull Ups Traditional Chin Ups Dips 2 Lower Body Exercises Hindu Squats Two Legged Hops 2 Core Exercises Hanging Leg Lifts L Sits (tuck your knees if you can’t get your legs out) Month 2 – The PVC Conqueror Month 2 is really intense. I hope you enjoyed your active recovery week; you will be glad you did it now that the plan is starting up again. You will be working out three times per week just like Month 1 but you will be adding some exercises to the plan. Again, this month you will get an active recovery week. Exercise Schedule Week 1: 3 X Per Week Week 2: 3 X Per Week Week 3: 3 X Per Week Week 4: Active Rest Period Exercise Routine Do each exercise until you reach full fatigue. Don’t rest in between sets. Beginners will only go through the cycle once. If you are more advanced you can go through it two or three times. 7 Upper Body Exercises Handstand Holds Supported Iron Cross Parallel Bar Push Ups Decline Push Ups Traditional Pull Ups Traditional Chin Ups Dips 4 Lower Body Exercises Hindu Squats Two Legged Hops Pistol Squats Falling Tower 3 Core Exercises Hanging Leg Lifts L Sits (tuck your knees if you can’t get your legs out) Sit Ups Month 3 – The PVC Master This is where you become a PVC Master. You will be doing the below exercise routine 4 X per week. For example: Mon/Tues, Thurs/Fri. Make sure you get through all the exercises. Weeks 1-3 will again be the training weeks and Week 4 will be your active recovery. Exercise Schedule Week 1: 4 X Per Week Week 2: 4 X Per Week Week 3: 4 X Per Week Week 4: Active Rest Period Exercise Routine Do each exercise until you reach full fatigue. Don’t rest in between sets. Beginners will only go through the cycle once. If you are more advanced you can go through it two or three times. 9 Upper Body Exercises Handstand Push Ups L Sit To Half Handstand on Parallel Bars Wide Chin Ups Pole Climbs Hanging Dips Half Muscle Up Front Lever Wide Pull Up Stretch Push Ups 4 Lower Body Exercises Hindu Squats Pistol Squats Falling Tower One Legged Hops 4 Core Exercises Dragon Flag L Sits (tuck your knees if you can’t get your legs out) Reverse Ab Crunches Oblique Crunches ______________________________ Todd Kuslikis is the founder of a popular body weight exercise blog called AShotofAdrenaline.net. He is also the creator of the The Complete Bodyweight Training System which can be downloaded for free from the site.Spanish GENEVA (25 February 2019) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Monday called for “courage and vision” from State leaders to advance both the interests of humanity and the national interest of their own countries, stressing that human rights-based policies deliver better outcomes across the social and economic spectrum – and beyond borders. At the opening of the 40th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in the presence of high-level officials from around the world, Bachelet drew on the lessons she learned during her two terms as President of Chile, prior to taking up the post of UN Human Rights Chief. “In my service as a Head of State and Head of Government I learned many things, but there are two lessons that I would like to share with you this morning,” said Bachelet. “One was very simple: there was rarely a serious gap between the interest of humanity, and the national interest of my country. If a policy seems in the short term to advance a narrow interest, but hurts the future of humanity, that policy is surely counter-productive. Today, we sometimes hear human rights being dismissed as supposedly "globalist" – as opposed to the patriotic interest of a sovereign government. But how can any State's interests be advanced by policies that damage the well-being of all humans?” “The second lesson…in my capacity as a Head of State; as a government Minister, a member of non-governmental organisations; and a refugee myself, I saw many human rights measures being debated, enacted, updated and upheld. And I watched these measures work. It can be done. I have seen it done.” Bachelet stressed that human rights-based policies prevent grievances, conflicts, inequalities, and suffering and discrimination of all kinds. “Policies that build social justice also help to develop stronger economies. They drive more inclusive political systems, better frameworks for education, health-care, and other basic services. They build confidence and social harmony. They deepen trust. They build hope,” she said. The High Commissioner emphasised that there “cannot be optimal, sustainable or inclusive development when the voices of civil society are absent”, calling on authorities to engage in respectful dialogue with civil society. “Public policy is complex: I know this. Achieving good human rights outcomes in the real world of government requires the balancing of many issues. It is not – or very rarely – about perfection. It is about progress. And it can be done by all countries. One just needs courage, and vision,” Bachelet told the gathering of dignitaries. “Where leaders have the foresight to see the advantages of human rights-based policies, and the political will to advance them, we will be eager to bring practical assistance. Our technical cooperation programmes and policy guidance – which benefit from careful human rights monitoring and analysis – will have powerful effect.” Bachelet acknowledged that in the current political landscape, the will is not always there, and that in some countries, important human rights advances are being dismantled, while in other countries, States drag their feet on crucial issues like climate change. “In today's currents, in this uncharted storm of heavy winds and rising seas, careless leadership could carry our countries into catastrophe. Or we can use fundamental principles to steer our vessels to safety in more peaceful waters,” she said. Bachelet also called for an end to the violence in Venezuela and for a solution grounded in human rights.* The High Commissioner’s full speech to the Council is available here: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24203&LangID=E ENDS * The High Commissioner’s statement on Venezuela, issued on 24 February 2018, is available here: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24205&LangID=E For more information and media requests, please contact: Rupert Colville - + 41 22 917 9767 / rcolville@ohchr.org or Ravina Shamdasani - + 41 22 917 9169 / rshamdasani@ohchr.org or Marta Hurtado - + 41 22 917 9466 / mhurtado@ohchr.org Stand Up for Human Rights: www.standup4humanrights.org. Tag and share - Twitter: @UNHumanRights and Facebook: unitednationshumanrightsBy Express News Service CHENNAI: The Mysuru-based Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) is planning to prepare food for India’s Human Spaceflight Programme that will carry a two-member crew to a low earth orbit, according to Rakesh Kumar Sharma, director, DFRL. Indian Air Force’s Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM) is researching the physiological and psychological needs for Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) human spaceflight crew. Speaking on the sidelines of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) fifth edition of Foodcon 2016, Sharma said trials were being conducted on G Suit (a flight suit worn by aviators and astronauts who experience high levels of acceleration force, g). It is designed to prevent black-out and g-LOC (g-induced loss of consciousness) caused by blood pooling in the lower part of the body when under acceleration against gravity, thus depriving the brain of blood. “We are developing the food keeping in mind the requirements of aviators using the G-suit so that flow of blood to the brain is not blocked,” he said. Talking of the space food, he said it would be more like toothpaste. “It will hold all solids converted into a paste,” said Sharma. Asked how long would it take to develop the food, he said it was at an inception stage. ISRO has an MoU with IAM to conduct basic research on the physiological and psychological requirements for human space mission as a pre-project R&D. ISRO also has agreements with a Bangalore-based third party to develop spacesuits. Apart from the planned space food venture, DFRL is coming out with bitter gourd chips that are green in colour for soldiers defending the borders at high altitudes. Sharma said the soldiers serving at high altitudes required more spicy and more colourful food. “We are developing food which provides more energy to the soldiers to survive in high altitude areas,” said Sharma.Keeping the dream of smart, planned growth in East Austin alive. AFFORDABLE HOUSING • JOBS • A GROCERY STORE • A PHARMACY • IMPROVED TRAFFIC FLOW • OBSCURED PARKING • ACTIVE ADULT 25 years ago, community advocates, city planners and developers had a dream. The dream was to manage growth while reinvigorating the heart of Austin through smart planning. The city leaders and residents wanted a mixed-use community that kept tax revenue in the city and avoided the suburban sprawl that has plagued cities like Houston and Los Angeles. They wanted to help the people who live here to live well. The idea was to give the community places to live, shop, work, eat and spend quality time together. This dream is being realized on East 12th Street. With the additional build for One Two East, Austin's ever-vibrant Eastside community will be adding a wide range of services while making sure the neighborhood stays a neighborhood. It's an opportunity to add value and it's the right thing to do. All that is needed is an additional 35 feet. We are committed to preserving Austin's history. To assist in this effort we'll solicit input from community organizations and Huston-Tillotson College to commission an artistic sculpture that commemorates African American history on the site. We plan on contributing $15,000 towards this endeavor and will showcase this notable piece, in a public plaza, at the intersection of 12th and Branch Streets.David: As a retired OB/GYN with over 5000 deliveries during my 30+ years of practice, I had a number of patients with whom the issue of abortion was discussed. Abortion is a term for a pregnancy that ends with a non-viable product of conception and falls into one of two categories: "spontaneous" which is nature caused, and "induced" which is human caused. Our lawmakers address the issue of induced abortion. Some refer to this as "termination of pregnancy". The two terms are similar but not entirely synonymous. In my years of practice, women desiring termination of pregnancy were almost entirely in their first trimester (13 weeks or less). Most were in extreme emotional turmoil over making this decision and each was individually counselled regarding this decision. This was done in the setting of a private, doctor - patient setting without the intrusion of those with a legal or ethical axe to grind, and I had no objection to referring those who elected abortion on to a place where they could have further counselling and then the procedure performed. Bottom line: at this stage of pregnancy it is no one else right to involve themselves in how this woman decides to use her body. Now, "late term abortion" is a different concept as presumably the fetus (baby) has the potential for life out of the womb. Many times this is not what actually happens and more accurate is the term "pre-term induction of labor." A late term abortion means the fetus is dead before delivery while pre-term induction of labor will usually result in the fetus being live born. In my years of practice I advised this procedure once. The specific issue was an anencephalic fetus (a condition where the developing infant has no brain and basically no skull formation above the eye level, and is incompatible with life more than a very few days). These pregnancies typically last well beyond term (40 weeks) if left in the uterus and continue to grow so that the significant anatomy they present to the mother's birth canal is their shoulders. More often than not their delivery is complicated and ends up as an operative procedure. So I advised induction of labor at 36 weeks after a great deal of counselling to the parents. The baby was delivered and allowed to pass, but without any heroics other than hydration. I don't think Mr. Trump probably understands any of this nor do I feel our legislators with their various agendas should interfere with the already highly emotional decisions those who are so directly involved have to make.Sources are available from github All code and material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. You can test your installation before the tutorial using the check-installation.py script. Tutorial can be read at http://www.labri.fr/perso/nrougier/teaching/matplotlib/matplotlib.html See also: pyplot provides a convenient interface to the matplotlib object-oriented plotting library. It is modeled closely after Matlab(TM). Therefore, the majority of plotting commands in pyplot have Matlab(TM) analogs with similar arguments. Important commands are explained with interactive examples. IPython is an enhanced interactive Python shell that has lots of interesting features including named inputs and outputs, access to shell commands, improved debugging and many more. When we start it with the command line argument -pylab (--pylab since IPython version 0.12), it allows interactive matplotlib sessions that have Matlab/Mathematica-like functionality. matplotlib is probably the single most used Python package for 2D-graphics. It provides both a very quick way to visualize data from Python and publication-quality figures in many formats. We are going to explore matplotlib in interactive mode covering most common cases. In this section, we want to draw the cosine and sine functions on the same plot. Starting from the default settings, we'll enrich the figure step by step to make it nicer. First step is to get the data for the sine and cosine functions: import numpy as np X = np.linspace(-np.pi, np.pi, 256,endpoint=True) C,S = np.cos(X), np.sin(X) X is now a numpy array with 256 values ranging from -π to +π (included). C is the cosine (256 values) and S is the sine (256 values). To run the example, you can download each of the examples and run it using: $ python exercice_1.py You can get source for each step by clicking on the corresponding figure. Using defaults Documentation plot tutorial plot() command Matplotlib comes with a set of default settings that allow customizing all kinds of properties. You can control the defaults of almost every property in matplotlib: figure size and dpi, line width, color and style, axes, axis and grid properties, text and font properties and so on. While matplotlib defaults are rather good in most cases, you may want to modify some properties for specific cases. import numpy as np import matplotlib.pyplot as plt X = np. linspace ( - np. pi, np. pi, 256, endpoint = True ) C, S = np. cos ( X ), np. sin ( X ) plt. plot ( X, C ) plt. plot ( X, S ) plt. show () Instantiating defaults Documentation Customizing matplotlib In the script below, we've instantiated (and commented) all the figure settings that influence the appearance of the plot. The settings have been explicitly set to their default values, but now you can interactively play with the values to explore their affect (see Line properties and Line styles below). import numpy as np import matplotlib.pyplot as plt plt. figure ( figsize = ( 8, 6 ), dpi = 80 ) plt. subplot ( 111 ) X = np. linspace ( - np. pi, np. pi, 256, endpoint = True ) C, S = np. cos ( X ), np. sin ( X ) plt. plot ( X, C, color = "blue", linewidth = 1.0, linestyle = "-" ) plt. plot ( X, S, color = "green", linewidth = 1.0, linestyle = "-" ) plt. xlim ( - 4.0, 4.0 ) plt. xticks ( np. linspace ( - 4, 4, 9, endpoint = True )) plt. ylim ( - 1.0, 1.0 ) plt. yticks ( np. linspace ( - 1, 1, 5, endpoint = True )) plt. show () Changing colors and line widths Documentation Controlling line properties Line API First step, we want to have the cosine in blue and the sine in red and a slightly thicker line for both of them. We'll also slightly alter the figure size to make it more horizontal.... plt.figure(figsize=(10,6), dpi=80) plt.plot(X, C, color="blue", linewidth=2.5, linestyle="-") plt.plot(X, S, color="red", linewidth=2.5, linestyle="-")... Setting limits Documentation xlim() command ylim() command Current limits of the figure are a bit too tight and we want to make some space in order to clearly see all data points.... plt.xlim(X.min()1.1, X.max()1.1) plt.ylim(C.min()1.1, C.max()1.1)... Setting tick labels Documentation Working with text xticks() command yticks() command set_xticklabels() set_yticklabels() Ticks are now properly placed but their label is not very explicit. We could guess that 3.142 is π but it would be better to make it explicit. When we set tick values, we can also provide a corresponding label in the second argument list. Note that we'll use latex to allow for nice rendering of the label.... plt.xticks([-np.pi, -np.pi/2, 0, np.pi/2, np.pi], [r'$-\pi$', r'$-\pi/2$', r'$0$', r'$+\pi/2$', r'$+\pi$']) plt.yticks([-1, 0, +1], [r'$-1$', r'$0$', r'$+1$'])... Moving spines Documentation Spines Axis container Transformations tutorial Spines are the lines connecting the axis tick marks and noting the boundaries of the data area. They can be placed at arbitrary positions and until now, they were on the border of the axis. We'll change that since we want to have them in the middle. Since there are four of them (top/bottom/left/right), we'll discard the top and right by setting their color to none and we'll move the bottom and left ones to coordinate 0 in data space coordinates.... ax = plt.gca() ax.spines['right'].set_color('none') ax.spines['top'].set_color('none') ax.xaxis.set_ticks_position('bottom') ax.spines['bottom'].set_position(('data',0)) ax.yaxis.set_ticks_position('left') ax.spines['left'].set_position(('data',0))... Adding a legend Documentation Legend guide legend() command Legend API Let's add a legend in the upper left corner. This only requires adding the keyword argument label (that will be used in the legend box) to the plot commands.... plt.plot(X, C, color="blue", linewidth=2.5, linestyle="-", label="cosine") plt.plot(X, S, color="red", linewidth=2.5, linestyle="-", label="sine") plt.legend(loc='upper left', frameon=False)... Annotate some points Documentation Annotating axis annotate() command Let's annotate some interesting points using the annotate command. We chose the 2π/3 value and we want to annotate both the sine and the cosine. We'll first draw a marker on the curve as well as a straight dotted line. Then, we'll use the annotate command to display some text with an arrow.... t = 2*np.pi/3 plt.plot([t,t],[0,np.cos(t)], color ='blue', linewidth=1.5, linestyle="--") plt.scatter([t,],[np.cos(t),], 50, color ='blue') plt.annotate(r'$\sin(\frac{2\pi}{3})=\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}$', xy=(t, np.sin(t)), xycoords='data', xytext=(+10, +30), textcoords='offset points', fontsize=16, arrowprops=dict(arrowstyle="->", connectionstyle="arc3,rad=.2")) plt.plot([t,t],[0,np.sin(t)], color ='red', linewidth=1.5, linestyle="--") plt.scatter([t,],[np.sin(t),], 50, color ='red') plt.annotate(r'$\cos(\frac{2\pi}{3})=-\frac{1}{2}$', xy=(t, np.cos(t)), xycoords='data', xytext=(-90, -50), textcoords='offset points', fontsize=16, arrowprops=dict(arrowstyle="->", connectionstyle="arc3,rad=.2"))...Wednesday night, the battle against the potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act will get an unlikely ally: the clergy. The grassroots advocacy group Rise and Resist is holding a 24-hour vigil to protest the Senate’s still-secret Republican health care bill at New York City’s Columbus Circle. Two of those hours — from 10 pm to midnight on Wednesday — will be devoted to “prayer and testimony” from faith leaders and congregation from a variety of faith traditions. "We are people shaped by our respect for life and the dignity of each human person, how can we not be at the front lines of health care reform?” wrote pastor Alistair Drummond of West End Presbyterian Church and Laura Jervis, parish associate at Rutgers Presbyterian Church, in a mass email to various faith leaders forwarded to Vox, encouraging colleagues to join the protest. The note quoted from both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and the Quran. Much media coverage on the role of faith and health care has focused on religious groups’ opposition to elements of the ACA, also known as Obamacare. Prominent religious figures in the ACA debate have included companies like the Christian-owned Hobby Lobby. Organizations like the Roman Catholic religious order Little Sisters of the Poor objected to the idea that ACA-mandated, employer-sponsored health insurance might cause these organizations to direct funds toward contraception or abortion, or to be complicit in the funneling of governmental funds toward that end. (The Supreme Court ultimately ruled 5-4 in favor of Hobby Lobby and punted the Little Sisters case, Zubik v. Burwell, back to lower courts for consideration). But in recent months, many representatives of faith communities have become vocal supporters of the ACA or, at the very least, opponents of any political program that would put an undue burden on their congregations. Just last week, at the annual meeting of Catholic bishops in Indianapolis, a number of bishops spoke in opposition to the potential ACA repeal, according to America Magazine. Bishop George Thomas, of Helena, Montana, said, "If left unchallenged or unmodified, this budget will destabilize our own Catholic health care apostolates, take food from the mouths of school-age children and the homebound, and deny already scarce medical resources from the nation’s neediest in every state across the land.” Several religious leaders Vox spoke to reaffirmed Thomas’s sentiments. "As clergy, while we do not engage directly from the pulpit, we do consistently preach about caring for the poor, the hungry, the refugee, the immigrant, and all of those on the outside of power,” Rev. Elaine Ellis Thomas, associate rector of St. Paul's Memorial Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, told Vox. "Caring for basic needs such as health is a gospel imperative.” She also pointed out the particular threat the ACA repeal might hold for women: "ACA repeal at the same time that Planned Parenthood is under threat can mean no recourse for [women]. The stress over health care, including reproductive health, is high.” Rabbi Jill Jacobs, executive director of the advocacy organization Tru’ah, told Vox that a similar sense of obligation is vital to the Jewish tradition. "This starts in the Bible, with the insistence that every human being is an infinitely valuable creation in the divine image, and the command therefore not to stand idly by the blood of one's neighbor,” she said. “The Talmud and later... teachings highlight the importance of doctors, insist on the obligation to save a life if one is able to do so, and that even prohibit selling medicine at too high a price.” ACA repeal could further pass the responsibility for lower-income members onto the shoulders of faith communities Many of the religious leaders who spoke to Vox pointed out that the financial and pastoral burden of health care can often falls on a religious community — a burden that may only intensify if the repeal goes through. “For many people, faith communities represent trusted, accessible community spaces — often far more so than the hospitals and clinics where we practice as physicians,” Dr. Altaf Saadi, a neurology resident at Harvard involved in community organizing and interfaith outreach, told Vox. Faith communities, therefore, are often on the front lines when it comes to seeing firsthand the necessity of medical care for the needy. As Rev. Carol McVetty, interim executive minister of the American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago, told Vox, this care can take a variety of forms. "The congregation I pastored for many years worked hard to give rides to the doctor when needed. Well-established refugees helped newer ones navigate the medical system and translated at doctor appointments.... Hours and hours of volunteer effort,” McVetty said. “Church members take meals to the sick and visit in the hospital. We often host or conduct health education events (wellness, cancer awareness, etc.) But prayer, pastoral care, and loving friends can't replace medical care” — especially when that care costs money. McVetty also pointed out that in many smaller Christian communities, pastors themselves are often beneficiaries of ACA subsidies: "The ACA was an enormous boon to our pastors. Many of them currently get their health insurance from Illinois's ACA marketplaces. The churches can't afford employer-provided insurance, and pastors' salaries are low enough that many would be receiving some subsidy to help pay for it” — a subsidy she does not necessarily trust a Trumpcare plan to maintain. Complicating the issue further is the undue strain many religious communities will face, as demand for financial help for needy members will likely rise after repeal. In some Jewish communities, the gemach — a community-administered, interest-free loan — proliferated beyond its roots in more insular Orthodox communities in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. The repeal of the ACA may intensify that need further. As Laura Turner reported in an excellent BuzzFeed article, Christian communities have often turned to health care sharing ministries, a religiously motivated alternative to traditional insurance structures, which work by pooling and redistributing the monthly contributions of members, and which are not bound by legal regulations about preexisting conditions or other forms of membership discrimination. (A loophole in the ACA allows members of such ministries, which often cost less than traditional insurance plans, to be exempt from the individual mandate.) But as Turner points out in her piece, these community structures can often prove tricky for members to navigate, particularly if medical needs conflict with religious maxims. For example, in addition to not covering medical expenses relating to birth control or abortion, many do not cover expenses relating to self-injury or self-harm. "On their face, these ministries are much more affordable than traditional insurance, but there are hidden costs, like caps on how much can be shared per incident and lack of sharing for preexisting conditions,” Turner told Vox. “Religious communities can and do unite in this way in partial fulfillment of the biblical command to ‘bear one another's burdens,’ but they have a long way to go before all burdens are shared.” Wednesday night’s protest by faith leaders in New York may do little to change the outcome of the ACA repeal efforts. But it’s worth noting that in today’s climate, the GOP’s commitment to courting religious voters might hinge on more than just the traditional “hot-button” issues of LGBTQ rights and abortion. For many leaders from a variety of religious communities, access to health care is a religious issue as well.Sportsmail can reveal the contents of the email sent by Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis to Gunners staff confirming Arsene Wenger’s new two-year deal. In the email, Gazidis thanks staff for their focus during what he calls an 'unsettling time' whilst also stressing his belief that Wenger remains the right man to take the club forward. In his email, Gazidis wrote: 'I am writing to you to let you know that we've agreed a two-year extension to Arsene Wenger's contract as our manager. Arsenal executive Ivan Gazidis sent an email to staff confirming Arsene Wenger's new deal In the email, Gazidis (right) thanks staff for their focus during what he calls an 'unsettling time' Gazidis (right) stresses his belief that Wenger remains the right man to take the club forward 'I know there has been significant speculation around this over the past 24 hours but it is important we do things in the right way which is why we have not commented until now. 'I want you to know this is a decision that has been taken in the best long-term interests of the club. We are clear that Arsene is the best person to help fulfil our ambition to win the Premier League and other major trophies in Europe. 'Arsene and I have conducted a full review of our on and off pitch activities to identify areas for improvement to build a sustained title challenge. Wenger has extended his 20 year stint as manager of Arsenal by signing a new two-year deal 'We will be working on this during what will be a busy summer and look forward to another exciting season starting in August. 'I recognise this has been an unsettling time for many of you and thank you for the way you have maintained your focus during the period. 'It underlines the importance of always being together and staying true to our principles and values. 'Enjoy the summer and thanks again. Ivan Gazidis, Chief Executive.'Most digital currencies exist in a sort of twilight state just beyond the grasp of federal regulators, but the U.S. tax authority is starting to get savvy to this whole bitcoin thing. On Wednesday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Coinbase must supply the IRS with identifying information on users who had more than $20,000 in annual transactions on its platform between 2013 and 2015. After noticing that the number of tax returns claiming gains from virtual currency didn’t line up with the emerging popularity of digital currencies like bitcoin as an investment vehicle, the IRS asked Coinbase to hand over a broad swath of information on its users. Coinbase pushed back, and now the court has landed on a compromise that the company is calling a “partial victory.” “Coinbase itself admits that the Narrowed Summons requests information regarding 8.9 million Coinbase transactions and 14,355 Coinbase account holders. That only 800 to 900 taxpayers reported gains related to bitcoin in each of the relevant years and that more than 14,000 Coinbase users have either bought, sold, sent or received at least $20,000 worth of bitcoin in a given year suggests that many Coinbase users may not be reporting their bitcoin gains,” the court documents read. While cryptocurrency users who value the relative decentralization and privacy afforded by digital currencies won’t be happy, Coinbase succeeded in limiting the government’s initial request for information on all Coinbase users who made transactions from 2013 to 2015 to the smaller subset of high-value users. The IRS initially requested nine kinds of user data, including “complete user profiles, know-your-customer due diligence, documents regarding third-party access, transaction logs, records of payments processed, correspondence between Coinbase and Coinbase users, account or invoice statements and records of payments.” Rejecting some of those requests, today the court narrowed the scope of documents that the IRS can request from Coinbase to taxpayer ID number, name, date of birth, address, transaction logs and account statements, deeming the rest of the documents “not necessary.” Again, these personal data requests will only apply to accounts that have bought, sold, sent or received more than $20,000 in any of those types of transactions between 2013 and 2015. As the court documents specify, the narrowed IRS request “applies to far fewer, but still more than 10,000, Coinbase account holders.” You can read the court decision in full below. Disclosure: The author holds a small position in some cryptocurrencies, mostly because it seemed like a fun idea back in 2013 and then she forgot about it.Authorities in Mexico City announced new rules Wednesday that will require cars to remain off the road one day a week in a move to address the region’s worst air pollution in a decade. The measure, which begins next week and will continue through the end of June
3134–3723000) * 15 / 60) See here for more specific details of how they plan to use the money and its vesting schedule, etc. How’d I do it? This was all done using Project Jupyter notebooks and the Pandas package. The transactions were retrieved using my Python bindings to the Etherscan.io API (tagging Matthew Tan). The methodology is very similar to my previous articles on Gnosis and TokenCard, and the jupyter notebooks of all of it can be found in a new Github repo. In particular, I retrieved all transactions from the AragonContract address from Etherscan.io, and parsed out the ones that had an error or had a value of 0 ETH. This is my dataset. All conclusions and numbers are derived from that. That being said, the plots include all transactions, included the ones that had an error. I find it interesting to see the behavior of the contract with those that try and interact with it. The Data! Ok, from the dataset, we have the following: Total ETH raised: 274,989.993538 Total Transactions: 6593 Total non-zero txs: 2915 Total zero txs: 1830 Total error txs: 2093 Total unique addresses: 2616 Total out of gas txs: 651 ( worth 30509.78876345497 ETH ) No need to do a token breakdown, because they only accepted ETH. Other tokens were pushed through ShapeShift.io first if someone desired to use them. In fact, there were two addresses that showed an abnormally high number of zero value transactions calling the transfer function of the Aragon contract, listed below: address: num_txs: 0x5e575279bf9f4acf0a130c186861454247394c06 139 0xfbb1b73c4f0bda4f67dca266ce6ef42f520fbb98 134 (Bittrex) The second address listed is the Bittrex exchange, and the first isn’t listed on Etherscan. It is plausible to assign this address to another exchange, my bet would be Shapeshift. A more detailed analysis would show what portion of people invested through these two addresses, I didn’t look much further than what you see here.Are you browsing the web with your Android smart-phone/tablet and suddenly you see that your favourite distro just release the ISO you are waiting? Do you want to tap on “download” and start the torrent but… do you want to use your PC instead of the current device? OK here KDE Connect and KTorrent are your heroes. Let’s see how to setup all. KTorrent: 1) open KTorrent > move to add-ons tab > activate the scan folder one 2) open KTorrent’s settings > move to scan folder tab > set a path and check open-without-warnings option KDE Connect (from the device will download the torrent): 1) KDE Connect settings (from your PC) > obviously pair your devices 2) check the file sharing service and open its settings > set as destination folder the one scanned by KTorrent Now let’s try it: 1) download a.torrent file from your phone 2) share it with KDE Connect app (or open the app, select your destination, tap on “send a file” and select it) The torrent should start on your PC without other inputs Useful if you have a download-device without monitor and input devices. Maybe this could work also from Plasma Desktop to Plasma Desktop. Currently I can’t try, comments if you know it and let me know too 😉 And what about starting a.torrent when you are not at home and your PC s there? You could apply the same idea using for example Syncthing or ownCloud client (or any other thing that let you put a.torrent file from your phone to a folder of your PC). Now you know KTorrent can scan folders and KDE Connect can put files into a folder, I’m sure you are smart enough to find other ways to use these two feature 😉 Ciao and see you around!Ontarians have elected a Liberal majority to lead the province. What does this mean for Hamilton? The biggest change will be oversight of City Hall by Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin if the Liberals pass Bill 179 as they promised prior to, and during, the campaign. On LRT, we’ll need to watch who Minister of Transportation and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing are. If Glen Murray remains Minister of Transportation or Ted McMeekin becomes Municipal Affairs Minister, the funding formula will quickly become clear – instead of the wishy-washy promises of Liberals past. Murray promised – if reappointed – to attend a meeting of City Council. Welcome Andre Marin, better disinfectant than sunlight [![](http://joeycoleman.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Ontarios_sixth_Ombudsman_André_Marin-140x140.jpg)](http://joeycoleman.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Ontarios_sixth_Ombudsman_André_Marin.jpg)Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin (Handout) The Liberals promise to reintroduce [Bill 179](http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/bills/bills_detail.do?locale=en&Intranet=&BillID=2962) soon after the election. With the majority, they can quickly make it law – meaning the Ontario Ombudsman will have jurisdiction over the MUSH sector and Hamiltonians will be able to get redress when the municipality fails in its responsibilities. If a complaint is filed to his office, for example, Andre Marin could launch an investigation into the culture problems at City Hall that saw 25.7% of City staff self-reporting in a survey they’ve been pressured to compromise their ethics and values, less than half of staff saying their can report wrong-doing without fear of retaliation, and the majority saying code of conduct concerns are not properly addressed by senior management. The culture at City Hall is so poisonous that a recent arbitration ruling regarding sexual harassment in the Transit division found qualified women were not applying for management out of fear of losing union protection against sexual harassment. (There are no women in management in this division) The City’s own “investigation”, which was lacking in any rigor, into the matter didn’t look at harassment against other women who were advancing up the ladder – one of whom it was claimed decided to leave because of the poisoned work environment. I often focus on Marin’s ability to force City Council to open meetings to the public, but the Ombudman’s office is most effective with dealing with systematic failings and shortcomings of government culture. Glen Murray, LRT, and Hamilton [![Glen Murray (Shaun Merritt, CC-BY, via Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/7vd6dH)](http://joeycoleman.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/4268677893_dd10825cd6_z-336x223.jpg)](http://joeycoleman.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/4268677893_dd10825cd6_z.jpg)Glen Murray (Shaun Merritt, CC-BY, via Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/7vd6dH) We need to watch where Glen Murray lands in Cabinet. The former Winnipeg Mayor, and current Toronto Centre MPP, is one of the biggest believers in Hamilton’s economic growth potential and a huge advocate for the economic development uplift that LRT promises for Hamilton. If Murray is returned to Minister of Transportation, expect Hamilton to get upfront LRT capital funding. Murray becoming Minister of Municipal Affairs will have the same effect. However, with a majority government, the Liberals will be expected by Bay Street to rein in spending. Ontario is facing a credit downgrade, which will increase the interest costs of the provincial debt – decreasing the fiscal flexibility of the government, and funding available for the full capital costs of LRT. Watch for LRT to be funded with an alternative funding strategy with Hamilton expected to contribute to the capital cost via a recovery from future increases to assessment value along the B-Line corridor: tax-increment financing. McMeekin, Social Services, and Housing [![A concept rendering of a Hamilton LRT line (City of Hamilton / Handout)](http://joeycoleman.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/hamilton_rapid_transit_rendering-336x167.jpg)](http://joeycoleman.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/hamilton_rapid_transit_rendering.jpg)A concept rendering of a Hamilton LRT line (City of Hamilton / Handout) Ted McMeekin returns to Queen’s Park by a comfortable margin for what will likely be his final term of public service. The former Hamilton Mountain City Councillor and Mayor of pre-amalgamation Flamborough has served in public office for decades – it is legacy time for him. If there is a cabinet shuffle, McMeekin could move from Community and Social Services. Premier Kathleen Wynne may wish to place one of the new Liberal MPPs who defeated long-standing Toronto NDP MPPs in this high profile portfolio. McMeekin was an early supporter of Wynne in the leadership race, and a key confidant to Wynne prior. An astute observer of municipal government who still attends Hamilton City Council meetings to observe, he can request the municipal affairs and housing portfolio. Affordable housing is an issue McMeekin spoke about frequently during the campaign, it’s a provincial crisis that needs a solution, an issue the Premier says she believes in, and an opportunity for legacy. For a politician with a Master’s Degree in social work, and former executive director of the Burlington Social Planning Council, there isn’t a better portfolio in the Cabinet. McMeekin in Municipal Affairs and Housing, with Murray in Transportation means an acceleration of provincial investment in Hamilton’s urban renewal. Horwath, the Hamilton Centre result, and her future. [![NDP Leader Andrea Horwath campaign in Bramalea-Gore-Malton in 2011 (NDP photo / CC-BY / https://flic.kr/p/anGdGB)](http://joeycoleman.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/6152704531_577a0bc391_b-336x224.jpg)](http://joeycoleman.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/6152704531_577a0bc391_b.jpg)NDP Leader Andrea Horwath campaign in Bramalea-Gore-Malton in 2011 (NDP photo / CC-BY / https://flic.kr/p/anGdGB) What happens to NDP leader Andrea Horwath – the person who forced the election that lead to a Liberal majority government, ending the power of her party over provincial policy for the next four years. Horwath told reporters she doesn’t see her leadership of the party at risk. The NDP marginally increased its total votes this election, and increased its percentage won from 22.7% to 23.8%. There were a close second in many Toronto ridings, but lost two long held seats with long-time steward of the party’s left Rosario Marchese being defeated in Trinity-Spadina and NDP moderate Michael Prue losing in Beaches-East York. They entered the election with 21 seats, and return with 21 seats. They are, however, in rough shape with their Toronto losses. What does this all mean for the provincial NDP and Horwath’s leadership? The answer to that question will come in time. Horwath lost support in her home riding – undermining her ability to influence City Council and the upcoming municipal election – a rarity for an opposition party leader. Despite an increase in voter turnout in Hamilton Centre, Horwath’s vote count tdropped from 20,586 in 2011 to 18,699. The Liberals increased from 5861 to 8450. Green Party candidate Peter Ormond jumped his total from 1,249 to 3,078. Peter Ormond [![City Hall at Night (Joanna St. Jacques, used with permission)](http://joeycoleman.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/City_Hall_By_Joanna_StJacques_night-336x223.jpg)](http://joeycoleman.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/City_Hall_By_Joanna_StJacques_night.jpg)City Hall at Night (Joanna St. Jacques, used with permission) Watching the results released by Elections Ontario, Peter Ormond’s support was inconsistent riding-wide. It appears, EO doesn’t release poll-by-poll locations in real-time, Ormond enjoys concentrated pockets of support in the Hamilton Centre riding. Depending on where those pockets are, 3078 votes is enough to get elected to City Council. Ormond’s name recognition can make him a viable candidate in Wards 1 to 3 if he chooses to run for Council – something he hasn’t done previously. Let the Municipal Election Begin With the provincial campaign out of the way, the City’s political operatives will now focus upon the municipal race. Let the race begin and the discussion of Hamilton’s future made clear by Liberal majority government in Queen’s Park.Arthur Darvill as Rip Hunter, Ciara Renee as Kendra/Hawkgirl, Victor Garber as Professor Martin Stein, Caity Lotz as White Canary, Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer/Atom, Wentworth Miller as Leonard Snart/Captain Cold, and Dominic Purcell as Mick Rory/Heat Wave. Photo: Jordan Nuttall/The CW The expansion of the superhero universe on both the big and small screen continues with "DC's Legends of Tomorrow," premiering on Thursday, Jan. 21. The series is a spin off of the CW's successful "The Flash" and "Arrow," as well as the latest in super-producer Greg Berlanti's DC empire (also featuring "Supergirl" on CBS). The CW superhero shows also all share one supersuit designer, Maya Mani, who — fun fact — designed costumes for the pilot of "Pretty Little Liars." (Zoom, Damien Darhk, A... Villains are menacing no matter the universe, right?) ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website Mani didn't necessarily start out with the goal of creating all the superhero (and mega-villain) costumes for CW's DC portfolio; Oscar winner Colleen Atwood actually designed the original suits for the "Arrow" and "The Flash" characters. But by season four of "Arrow" and season two of "The Flash," Mani debuted a new short-sleeve version of Oliver Queen's (Stephen Amell's) Green Arrow suit and a tweaked scarlet speedster onesie for Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), respectively. So how does one score the superlative designation of supersuit designer? "I just started chipping away [at the original Arrow suit] and they kept throwing me more and more to do," she said. "It certainly didn't happen overnight." ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website Mani's super-work will next be seen in "Legends of Tomorrow," which follows a ragtag squad of maybe-heroes already introduced on "The Flash" and "Arrow:" the resurrected Sara Lance/White Canary; unemployed billionaire inventor Ray Palmer/A.T.O.M.; perpetually reincarnating couple, Hawkman/Carter Hall and Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders; and mechanic turned transmuting metahuman Firestorm/Jefferson "Jax" Jackson. A nattily dressed Time Master Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) assembles the skeptical group to battle the immortal Vandal Savage (Casper Crump), who's out to destroy the world. So that means a season of time travel, masterfully choreographed fight scenes, quippy one-liners and a profusion of superhero and super-villain suits. (Lovable baddies Captain Cold, played by Wentworth Miller, and Heatwave, played by Dominic Purcell, remain in their sporty outerwear developed by "The Flash" costume designer Kate Main.) "While I can't tell you the names of the heroes and villains that will be showing up, I can tell you that this season, between the three shows, I have designed 15 characters so far [by December 2015]," Mani hinted. While you parse that sentence and do the math, the supersuit designer takes us through each of the characters' world saving, butt-kicking costumes. Like my new lewk? Photo: Jeff Weddell/The CW WHITE CANARY/SARA LANCE (CAITY LOTZ) After sister Laurel took over the patent leather-outfitted Black Canary persona (and that whole return to life via the Lazarus Pit thing), Sara Lance takes on the White Canary alter ego — and new look. As with all of the characters, Mani looked to the original comics for inspiration and "extrapolated" from there. The full outfit is a combination of leather-looking matte jersey and true leather, which can "take a beating." The final product was then airbrushed for a "dirty white" effect. "I still wanted her to have that worn-in, tough look even though she was in white," Mani said. The designer did bring over some elements from Sara's original Black Canary jacket and quad-hugging pants. "Although, we wanted to not go with the bustier idea, partly because White Canary doesn't wear one, but also because it gets really chilly [in Vancouver]," Mani laughed. At first glance, Sara's high-halter neckline makes sense as compared to her previous cleavage-bearing ensemble — intensive fight scenes and all (and Lotz does a lot of her own stunts). But Mani had her (literally) covered. "Nothing ever fell out, I have to tell you," she said. "The corset kept her hammered down." "I might need to call my dressers now." Ray Palmer, third from left. Jeff Weddell/The CW A.T.O.M./RAY PALMER (BRANDON ROUTH) After his accidental shrinkage and miniaturized imprisonment by Damien Dahrk, the exo-suited Ray Palmer solves his career crisis in the new series. Mani says there aren't any major changes to his costume, save "alterations and enhancements" on the elbow and hip joints needed after those ravaging action sequences on the "Arrow" and "The Flash." A.T.O.M.'s two-part ensemble — the exo-skeleton outer layer and a flexible undersuit — does indeed come with electronic components. "There are two buttons on the suit that you push and you see the lights on his back go up," Mani said. "It's kind of neat." Also functional: There's room in his gauntlet (or his gloves, in comic book speak) for his iPod Nano. For "when a superhero just needs to calm down," she said. While fitting actor Routh into the layered suit does require a dresser, the routine is now down to a streamlined "10-minute affair." And if nature calls during shooting? "Then they take him out of it. It's not a big deal," assured Mani, answering the question we all wanted to ask. Hawkman and Hawkgirl get matchy-matchy. Photo: Michael Courtney/The CW HAWKMAN/CARTER HALL (FALK HENTSCHAL) AND HAWKGIRL/KENDRA SAUNDERS (CIARA RENÉE) During one of the always welcome "Arrow" and "The Flash" crossovers, Hawkman aka Carter Hall aka Egyptian Prince Khufu reunited with love interest Hawkgirl aka Kendra Saunders aka Princess Chay-Ara — it's hard to keep track of names when they keep reincarnating after being continuously offed by Vandal Savage. Mani again went off of the original comic book characters, saying, "I wanted them to look a little less street-y and a bit more warrior." (Their helmets were designed by special effects makeup artist Bill Terezakis, who did "The Flash" cowl.) Hawkman and Hawkgirl are two of four flying characters on the show, so Mani thought strategically to make allowances for the stunt equipment. "The challenge was to figure out a harness suit where you can comfortably fit a harness and not make them look like the Michelin Man," she said. So the designer added subtle zippers in the back of the pants for the rings to connect to the wires. "They can open those up, pull those out and it's not a big deal." Also, spoiler: The hawk wings are CGI, so Mani's costumes had to allow for special effects to be added during post-production. She made the back of Hawkgirl's top lower so the wings could seamlessly pop out. "Otherwise, she's bursting through her costume right?" Mani said. For Hawkman, she added overlapping leather on his jacket with a gap allowing for feathers. While Mani continued the Hawk costumes' color palette, which originated on "Arrow," she did have to be careful with the verdant tones. "You have to make sure the green doesn't interfere with the green screen," she said. Photo: Jordon Nuttall/The CW FIRESTORM/JEFFERSON JACKSON (FRANZ DRAMEH) We first saw auto mechanic turned one-half of flying atomic particle rearranging Firestorm in a starter supersuit on "The Flash." But for his move over to "Legends," Mani upgraded his black bomber jacket and trousers look to a sleek red and orange ensemble closer to the comic book iteration. "I wanted him to be a bit more armored," she said. Mani also made a tweak with the "quantum splicer" — that four-pronged spotlight on the jacket — which was more of a detachable accessory on "The Flash." "We sunk it into the chest so that it was a bit more flush and it wasn't this appendage sticking out," Mani explained. And yes, there is a real light in the splicer — and it's not CGI. "There's a little battery pack in the back — you can switch it on, and bing!" Idris Elba's coming for your coat, Rip Hunter. Photo: Jordon Nuttall/The CW RIP HUNTER (ARTHUR DARVILL) In the comics, superhero wrangler and time traveling Rip Hunter wears an orange and green onesie, but British actor (and "Doctor Who" veteran) Arthur Darvill's version has more of a rakish, "Luther"-esque overcoat situation — popped collar, check. On "Legends," Hunter travels back to the present from 2116, but Mani wanted to forgo a dorky futuristic aesthetic. "I wanted him to be a bit more swashbuckle-y," she said. She reimagined the character with a custom-made camel overcoat that perfectly billows out in the back — and would probably fit right in at Pitti Uomo. "The coat has a great swish when he walks. It's not this big sack that hangs there," Mani added. The costume designer did, however, pay homage to the comics with a chicer, slim-fit update on "those weird cargo pants" that Hunter wears when he's not in his veggie colored suit. "I wanted to acknowledge that, but in a more modern way," Mani said. "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" premieres at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 21 on the CW.The Pentagon is funding a company called Robotic Technology, whose main project is developing an autonomous robot called EATR that fuels itself on "biomass." This biomass could include vegetation, paper, and even corpses on the battlefield. EATR stands for "Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot," referring to the way this robot will forage for its own power sources rather than having to return to base and power up. Advertisement Though the EATR is still in the experimental stage, Robotic Technology has high hopes for the robot. In a project spec, company representatives describe EATR as: An autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling, which would otherwise preclude the ability of the robot to perform such missions. The system obtains its energy by foraging – engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. It can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable. For example, about 150 lbs of vegetation could provide sufficient energy for 100 miles of driving, depending on circumstances. Of course there are no explicit mentions made of dead bodies here - FOX News came up with that meme - but "biomass" could include organic matter like dead animals. Though breaking down plant matter into fuel is a slightly different proposition than breaking down rotting corpses. Advertisement Still, there is another potential reason why the EATR could turn to corpse-gnawing. It is going to learn from its environment using a form of artificial intelligence, and figure out what is good to eat. The founder of Robotic Technology, Robert Finkelstein, has described the kind of artificial collective intelligence he hopes to imbue the EATRs with: The 4D/RCS is a framework in which sensors, sensor processing, databases, computer models, and machine controls may be linked and operated such that the system behaves as if it were intelligent. It can provide a system with several types of intelligence (where intelligence is the ability to make an appropriate choice or decision), including reactive, deliberative, and creative intelligence... We are experimenting with a unique approach to achieving swarm behavior and distributed artificial intelligence by partitioning the 4D/RCS among individuals in the collective. In the concept of the Cognitive Collective, THE 4D/RCS is partitioned among multiple robotic vehicles and then reassembled across the collective. This allows robots which are individually reactive with limited intelligence to become deliberative and cognitive within the collective; or robots which are individually deliberative to gain greater intelligence and efficacy within the collective. Advertisement This kind of "collective intelligence" is similar to what AI enthusiasts also imagine might emerge from something like Google, which has vast, distributed computing power. Are we looking at the beginnings of a human-eating, artificially intelligent robot swarm? Possibly. Or we might just be looking at a bunch of dumb, programmable vegetarians who don't need to dock in order to stay powered up. via Robotic TechnologyA tiny blot of a landmass off the western coast of Ireland is curiously labeled “Imaginary Isle of O Brazil” on cartographer Thomas Jefferys’s 1768 “Chart of the Atlantic Ocean.” A 21st-century viewer might wonder: why include a fictional island on a map of the known world? O Brazil, or Hy-Brasil as it was frequently was labeled, had haunted maps since the 14th century, first as a mistake, then as a mythological tribute. Its size and shape often morphed, its location wandered from Ireland to North America, and its name varied, but for five centuries it endured in Western cartography. “There were a number of mythical or imaginary places that appeared on maps, beginning in the early 14th century,” Stephanie Cyr, assistant curator in the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library, told Hyperallergic. “In the north Atlantic Ocean, the islands of St. Brendan, Hy-Brasil, Maida, and Bus all appear on early maps. Local legends and oral folklore spread to merchants and seafarers, and folk stories gave way to accounts of actual sightings of these places, which accounted for their appearance on maps. After a number of failed attempts at finding islands like Hy-Brasil, and disputed reports, these places were eventually removed from maps.” Hy-Brasil: Mapping a Mythical Island, a small display in Boston’s Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, explores this history through archival material and contemporary art by Caoimhghin Ó Fraithile. A larger online component includes 40 maps from the 14th to 19th centuries charting Hy-Brasil. Recently a floating sculpture by Ó Fraithile called “South of Hy-Brasil” was installed in the Fenway section of Boston’s Emerald Necklace park system (aka the Fens). Bobbing behind Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the temporary island is on view through mid-October as part of Medicine Wheel Productions’s Tír na nÓg, or Otherworld, series in collaboration with the Fenway Alliance’s Public by Design Initiative. The exhibition and art installation are in conjunction with a greater commemoration project for the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising insurrection. “Caoimhghin Ó Fraithile’s public art piece focuses on the island, so we took a look at our oldest maps in the collection, and discovered that we have dozens of maps that feature not only Hy-Brasil, but other imaginary islands,” Cyr said. “We consider the online exhibition an ongoing project, and as we continue to find appearances of Hy-Brasil on maps in atlases, we will add those to the overall online experience.” There are all sorts of legends attached to Hy-Brasil, including giant black rabbits that lived with a sorcerer, gods hidden by the mists, lost civilizations, and, more recently, UFOs. However, its greatest connection is to Irish folklore, particularly the belief in the “Otherworld” and its Elysium, a “Land of Youth.” When it first was illustrated on a 1325 map, Hy-Brasil was considered to only be visible once every seven years due to the heavy mists, its land housing an immortal race of people. The earliest example in Mapping a Mythical Island is a nautical chart from 1339 (presented in an 1890 facsimile), where Hy-Brasil seems to seep into the sea like a dab of ink. Hy-Brasil is among numerous phantom islands that populated early maps, resulting from optical illusions, misinformation, or just a lack of exploration. And like Hy-Brasil, they were often considered realms of unbelievable terrors and wonders, such as the Isle of Demons charted in the 16th and 17th centuries near Newfoundland, Canada, which was believed to be populated by devilish horrors. In other instances, phantom islands were intentional mistakes; one of the more infamous errors being Robert E. Peary’s Crocker Land, which the early 20th-century explorer employed as a hoax to gain further backing from his financial supporter George Crocker. Even our more recent cartography sometimes includes “trap streets,” where mapmakers embed a fictional thoroughfare to catch people who may be copying their work. Yet Hy-Brasil is interesting in being a myth that was for a time treated as reality, and a land that remained on maps beyond when it was identified as purely legend by sailors. The final example in the exhibition is James Imary and Son’s 1859 chart of the Atlantic Ocean, published just before Hy-Brasil was removed by the British Admiralty from their navigational charts in 1873. “With these pieces, visitors will be introduced to Hy-Brasil as it existed on early maps, and how the legendary island is interpreted by a 21st century artist,” Cyr said. “The fact that the legend has lasted this long and that it is still being interpreted through art is testament to its power, and the story’s resonation with people.” Hy-Brasil: Mapping a Mythical Island continues through October 23 in the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center of the Boston Public Library (700 Boylston Street, Copley Square, Boston).Park Ji-Sung Road, Suwon Suwon, Park's home town in South Korea, has unveiled a road named after him, Park Ji-Sung Road, to honour his contribution to the South Korean national team in the 2002 World Cup - the first instance of such an event for a living footballer in South Korea. Suwon (Suwon-si) is the largest city in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. It is also the provincial capital. Suwon is approximately 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Seoul. The city can be reached from downtown Seoul in under an hour. Suwon is sometimes called the capital of Korean football because the popularity of the Suwon Samsung Bluewings. King Jeongjo made an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to make Suwon the nation's capital in 1796 with the construction of Hwaseong, a fortress wall running around the entire city intended to guard the tomb of his father which he had located there. The fortress was constructed under the guidance of philosopher Jeong Yag-yong, and still exists today. It is a designated UNESCO World Heritage site. The walls once encircled the entire city, but recent urban growth has seen the city spread out far beyond the fortress. Institutions of higher education in Suwon include Ajou University, Dongnam Health College, Gukje Digital University, Hapdong Theological Seminary, Kyonggi University, Kyunghee University, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon Catholic University, Suwon Science College, Suwon Women's College, and the University of Suwon. In addition, the agricultural campus of Seoul National University is located in the city. Suwon is home to the Suwon World Cup Stadium, a venue during the 2002 World Cup tournament and home to K-League defending champion Suwon Samsung Bluewings. The city is also home to Korean Baseball Organization team Hyundai Unicorns. Suwon is also home to many foreign language teachers, the vast majority teaching English. This large expatriate community is spread throughout the city, with a particularly high concentration in the Yeongtong-dong district. Suwon is a regional transportation hub and an important stop on the Gyeongbu railway line going from Seoul to Busan, although the new KTX high-speed train has changed things slightly. Suwon is connected to Seoul with city and express buses and also the Seoul subway network.ANKARA (Reuters) - A jubilant President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday cast the return of Turkey to single-party rule as a vote for stability that the world must respect, but opponents fear it heralds growing authoritarianism and deeper polarisation. A woman looks at newspapers at a kiosk in Istanbul, Turkey November 2, 2015. REUTERS/Osman Orsal The AK Party, whose roots are in political Islam, defied pollsters and even the expectations of its own strategists in a general election on Sunday, consolidating support from the right to claw back a parliamentary majority that will bolster Erdogan’s grip on power. It was a personal triumph for the combative leader, who despite being constitutionally above party politics as head of state had shaped the AKP’s executive committee and its parliamentary candidates in the run-up to the vote. The result handed the AKP 317 of the 550 seats in parliament, only 13 short of the number Erdogan would need for a national referendum on constitutional changes he wants to forge a presidential system granting him full executive powers. “The national will manifested itself on Nov. 1 in favour of stability,” Erdogan said in comments to reporters after praying at a mosque in Istanbul. “Let’s be as one, be brothers and all be Turkey together.” The vote came at a critical time for Turkey on the global stage, with the United States dependent on Turkish air bases in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, and the European Union desperate for Turkish help with its growing migration crisis. Erdogan’s victory, two weeks ahead of a G20 leaders’ summit in Turkey, leaves Western allies dealing with an emboldened leader they may already know, but whose cooperation has not always been easy to secure. Financial markets rallied, with the lira currency on track for its biggest one-day gain in seven years and stocks up 5 percent, relieved that uncertainty from an election cycle stretching back almost two years had finally ended. But the result left the 50 percent of Turks who did not vote AKP in shock: from liberal secularists suspicious of Erdogan’s Islamist ideals to left-leaning Kurds who blame the government for resurgent violence in the largely Kurdish southeast. Since nationwide anti-government protests and a corruption scandal around Erdogan’s inner circle in 2013, his opponents had lived in the hope that the power of modern Turkey’s most divisive leader was finally on the wane. “Back to Square One” said the headline on Today’s Zaman, a newspaper critical of the AKP, casting the outcome as a result of a divisive and fiercely nationalist campaign. Washington said it was deeply concerned that media outlets and journalists were subject to pressure during the campaign. Amid reports that journalists were pressured in order to weaken political opposition, spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House had urged Turkish authorities to uphold the values of its constitution. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to congratulate him on his election victory and urged swift joint action to deal with the migrant crisis. GREEN LIGHT FOR GREATER POWER Erdogan won Turkey’s first popular presidential election in August 2014 after more than a decade as prime minister and immediately vowed to use his mandate to strengthen what had been a largely ceremonial post appointed by parliament. Even without constitutional change, he wasted little time flexing his political muscle, hosting cabinet meetings in his new 1,000-room Ankara palace and surrounding himself with powerful advisors in what effectively became a “shadow cabinet”. His opponents hoped that the loss of the AKP’s majority in a June 7 election, raising the prospect of coalition government, would put a stop to such overreach of his powers. But Sunday’s result has put his ambitions firmly back on track. “The view that the June 7 elections were a ‘no’ to the executive presidency has been collapsed,” said Mustafa Sentop, a senior AKP official who previously spearheaded the party’s efforts at constitutional reform. “The numbers are not enough at the moment, but I think these elections show a desire for the presidential system to be instilled. It could be seen as a green or yellow light for the presidency,” he told Reuters. It remained to be seen whether the additional 13 parliamentary votes needed to support a referendum could be found, but it was an ambition on which the AKP would “definitely not give up”, he said. In the meantime, a source in the presidency said, the cabinet would continue to meet in the palace “from time to time” suggesting no let-up in Erdogan’s influence on daily affairs. Erdogan has consistently portrayed criticism of his leadership as part of a foreign-backed effort to belittle him and undermine Turkey’s influence in the region. “Now a party with some 50 percent in Turkey has attained power... This should be respected by the whole world, but I have not seen such maturity,” he
The owners of the chain, which debuted in June 2016 in the Loop, said the concept wasn’t making money. FireFin locations in The Loop, Lakeview, West Loop, and Wicker Park closed on Monday. FireFin is a collaboration between Anshul Mangal and chef Rodelio Aglibot — who goes by The Food Buddha. Mangal runs a company called Now Open Project which also includes The Furious Spoon, a ramen shop with locations in Wicker Park, Logan Square, and inside Revival Food Hall in the Loop. FireFin and Furious Spoon’s creations predate the company. The company’s first project was to be a Lakeview food hall. Now Open planned a FireFin inside the space but that will no longer be the case. Mangal said the company was monitoring FireFin’s financials for sometime and that last week he and his partners decided to close: “I’m disappointed and sad,” Mangal said. “It kind of just sucks all the way around.” He added little clarity to the timing of the shutters. The timing is unprecedented, coming only five days after opening a new restaurant at 802 W. Belmont Avenue: “It’s just the economics of the restaurants just weren’t working for us — we felt it was in the best interests of the restaurants to close.” Now Open will now focus on growing Furious Spoon, a brand which Mangal said continues to prosper. The company plans to open more ramen shops next year. When asked if FireFin was a victim of expanding too quickly, Mangal said he couldn’t say: “I’m not sure,” Mangal said. “Hindsight is always 20/20 in the restaurant business, I’m not sure if having as many locations would be better or worse.” The relationships between Aglibot and the company’s other partners appear to be intact. Mangal said the were “as good as good can be” under the circumstances. Chef Shin Thompson is the main culinary partner at Furious Spoon, tapping into his Japanese heritage the same way Aglibot did with his Hawaiian heritage at FireFin. Chicago now has only one poke chain (Aloha Poke Co.), and it’s unclear if FireFin’s demise is indicative of management or a mainland trend dying down. Afterall, many native islanders feel mainland poke isn’t very exciting. There were signs of problems in September, when a plan to open a FireFin at 177 N. Morgan Street was nixed. Aloha Poke founder Zach Friedlander has heard the rumblings. Over the last month, he heard that some of FireFin’s spaces may soon become available for lease. Aloha Poke is going strong with plans to open restaurants in LA, Denver, Milwaukee, and other markets within the next six months. Poke is a lifestyle, not a trend, Friedlander maintained. “I think it’s just the lifecycle of a restaurant,” Friedlander said. “We’ve been very fortunate, we’ve made good decisions — we have such strong growth in front of us.” The following FireFins are now closed:Last week, the government dumped 900 pages of Saudi sheep documents on the media and opposition. The record shows a Minister looking to mislead absolutely everyone in order to make an illegal $4 million payment to a foreign farmer. David Parker is calling for the Auditor-General to investigate; I can see why. The reason we should care about this actually has nothing much to do with Mr Al-Khalaf, or sheep, or Saudi Arabia. New Zealanders deserve to be able to trust their government is spending their money within the law. We should have no tolerance for breaches of that trust. Here’s what the issue boils down to: First, Murray McCully wanted to pay compensation to Hamood Al Ali Al Khalaf, who used to import live sheep from New Zealand before the practice was banned, and now objects to a New Zealand / Saudi FTA. McCully hoped that compensating Mr Al Khalaf would mean he stops objecting to the FTA. From the documents, a February 2013 Cabinet paper recommends a payment of $4 million to Mr Al Khalaf partly for “the settlement of the long-running dispute.” That sounds a lot like compensation, even though McCully is at pains to ensure the payment should not appear to be compensation. Here’s an MFAT note of McCully’s comments in 2012 [with my emphasis]: he would not want any (financial) contributions to be treated as compensation as this would involve a plethora of lawyers and bureaucrats. The fact that proper authorities might scrutinise a multi-million dollar government payment isn’t a proper reason to hide the payment from them. That’s simply astonishing. Second, there’s no legitimate reason to compensate Mr Al Khalaf. New Zealand didn’t break any law by changing the rules around sheep exports, meaning there’s no legal reason to pay compensation. From the documents, the only “legal advice” about whether Mr Al Khalaf had a legal case came from Mr Al Khalaf’s lawyers. Not exactly an independent party! This is a far cry from John Key’s inferences in Parliament that New Zealand’s legal advice was that we were exposed. Also, Mr Al Khalaf made it clear to McCully that he had basically no intention of going to court anyway, telling McCully in February 2012: “Under our culture when someone opens a door to you for many years, you do not take them to court at the end of your stay.” Third, and not surprisingly, the government has no legal authority or money to pay this kind of compensation, that is compensation to people they don’t actually have to compensate. That kind of pot is usually called a “slush fund,” and we try not to have those in New Zealand. Fourth, that’s why Murray McCully dressed up Mr Al-Khalaf’s compensation payment as something else, over the objections of top government officials. Working together, Al Khalaf, McCully, and MFAT concocted a scheme where Al Khalaf would provide ill-defined intellectual property and networking services to New Zealand – otherwise known as “being you” – which were magically valued at exactly the $4 million elsewhere suggested as the right amount for compensation. This, McCully thought, would allow the money to come from a part of the foreign affairs budget (Vote: Policy Advice and Representation – Other Countries) that has no authority for use as a way to settle legal disputes. The Auditor-General took a different view, saying the business case for the joint New Zealand / Al Khalaf venture was “weak,” and raised concerns about the procurement process. In fact, the MFAT Chief Executive even met the Auditor-General to plead that this isn’t a normal commercial deal, but rather a “diplomatic settlement” of a “unique nature,” and therefore should get special treatment. This last part is really crucial. It both exposes the lie that this is a purely commercial solution, and also shows that MFAT – and by extension their Minister – were well aware that there were non-commercial (i.e. compensation) payments hidden among the accounts here. It indicates an intent to be deceptive with this payment, and to spend taxpayer money outside of its lawful appropriation. Seeing the documents, it is clear Murray McCully personally directed his officials in such a way that they broke the law. He ignored advice, misappropriated funds, and misled his Cabinet colleagues and the public in order to illegally sent $4 million of taxpayer funds overseas. He should be gone. McCully, and Simon Bridges and Judith Collins before him, have run roughshod. They ignored both the rules of government and their officials’ advice, and did exactly what they pleased with the taxpayers' money, regardless of whether their actions were appropriate, in the taxpayer’s interest, or legal. This, apparently, is what John Key meant by “higher standards of government.” ––– The documents I rely on in this post are currently available in hard copy only. Hopefully some enterprising soul will put them all up online soon, so the public can see exactly what Murray McCully has been up to.Source: Investigators to call Gliniewicz's death a suicide hello Law enforcement officials will announce Wednesday the shooting death of Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz was a suicide, a source confirmed. The source wished to remain anonymous. Officials with the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, which has been investigating the fatal shooting for the past two months, are not confirming the information themselves, task force spokesman Christopher Covelli said Tuesday. Lake County authorities will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. to reveal "significant new information" about Gliniewicz's death, they said earlier. The news conference will be at the Round Lake Beach Civic Center, near the corner of Mallard Creek Drive and Hook Drive in Round Lake Beach. Gliniewicz, 52, was found dead in a marshy area Sept. 1 after radioing a dispatcher that he saw three men -- two white and one black -- acting suspiciously at 7:52 a.m., authorities said. He called back three minutes later and said the men ran into a swampy area and that he was in a foot chase and needed backup. Officers found Gliniewicz shot 14 minutes later, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at 8:25 a.m. Police have since said Gliniewicz was shot twice with his own gun, once in his bulletproof vest and a second time in the chest, over his police vest. Task force Cmdr. George Filenko said last month there were signs of a struggle near where Gliniewicz was found shot more than 50 yards from where his police vehicle was parked. But gunshot residue tests performed were inconclusive, said Filenko, who explained the tests did not specifically show whether Gliniewicz was shot by someone near him or whether he pulled the trigger of the gun himself. Officials also said he was out of his car and on foot patrol for 20 minutes on Honing Road before his death. However, very few additional details have been released about the case in the two months since Gliniewicz was found dead. The lack of information has led to speculation that the death of Gliniewicz could have been a suicide or accidental in nature. Lake County Coroner Dr. Thomas Rudd told media outlets in September that Gliniewicz died because of a single "devastating" gunshot wound. He refused to say where the shot was or whether the veteran officer was hit with other shots, but he later told other media outlets Gliniewicz was shot in the torso. Rudd also said at the time he hadn't issued a final report on the manner of death -- homicide, suicide or accident -- because he hasn't received a final report on the investigation from the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force. He said he was leaning toward ruling the case a homicide, but he added the evidence he has now is incomplete. And in at least one media report, Rudd questioned how a killer could get close enough to attack Gliniewicz, who had served in the military and was a longtime police officer. Investigators then said they wanted Rudd to stop releasing such unconfirmed information. In a joint statement, Filenko and Lake County Undersheriff Ray Rose said Rudd's release of information to the media is "completely outside of policy, procedure, protocols, and are completely unprofessional." "Doctor Rudd, releasing information which is sensitive to this investigation, puts the entire case at risk," Filenko said at the time. "All of the progress made since this tragic incident is potentially in jeopardy." Investigators later said they found "unknown sourced DNA" at the scene of Gliniewicz's death.Google Chrome's incognito mode is meant to make more suspicious (insert Lenny face here) browsing history invisible at your beck and call. However, Google hadn't previously made incognito mode on Android disable keyboard suggestions. To alleviate this, browsing in incognito on Chrome Dev with a device running Android 8.0 will now make the incognito fedora and glasses appear on your keyboard, and Gboard won't remember unique words that you type. left: Dark. right: Light. The trademark incognito graphic currently only pops up on Android 8.0 O DP3 in a Chrome Dev incognito tab. After quite a bit of testing, we concluded that previous versions of Android and the regular Chrome app in incognito did suggest words based on what you've typed, but we couldn't get anything typed in Chrome Dev with incognito to stick on O. However, we're not seeing anything in Gboard's settings, despite an 'incognito mode' string being found in one of our teardowns from April. It's important to keep in mind that this feature hasn't yet been finalized; after all, this is still a developer preview, and it's only showing up in Chrome Dev. We wouldn't be surprised to see more details on this pop up as the official launch date of Android 8.0 approaches. We'll keep you guys posted on whatever this materializes into.David Cameron has pledged to overlook a ruling by the European Court of Justice that could allow prisoners to vote in elections, a Downing Street source has said. The ECJ will announce on Tuesday whether it deems that automatically taking away prisoners’ ability to vote is an infringement of their human rights. The Prime Minister has previously stated the idea of prisoners voting in UK elections made him “physically ill”. The court will also deliver its preliminary verdict in a case between the UK and the European Commission over the legality of Britain’s right to resident benefits tests. EU migrants must pass the test before they are allowed to claim some benefits in the UK. Both rulings could impact Mr Cameron’s bid to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU, after he previously insisted benefits reform is an "absolute requirement". A Downing Street source told the Daily Telegraph Mr Cameron would seek to disregard any ruling. "David Cameron has made clear that prisoners will not get the vote as long as he is Prime Minister. Nothing is going to change. He has made clear that the idea of them getting the vote makes him physically sick,” the source said. “There is always a way of putting these things into the long grass.” Tory MP Philip Hollobone, a member of the Eurosceptic group Conservatives for Britain, said: "If EU judges force us to give prisoners the vote it will cause uproar. Parliament voted recently to reject European judges' demands to let convicted criminals vote in UK elections. “But now the EU is threatening to bring it in by the back door. We need to take back control and vote to get out of the EU in the upcoming referendum."Lippy Greetings, friends. Lippy here. As the heat begins to abate and summer gives way to fall, how are we to spend these shorter, cooler days? Personally, I would love to spend them buried in a good book with a nice cup of tea at my side... But lengthening nights bring increased monster activity, and that is a threat we cannot ignore. Might I be so bold as to ask you to help put my worries at ease? Today, Master (user) has entrusted to me the task of introducing a wonderful new ability. For the sake of peace, and tea, and evenings spent reading good books, I will endeavor to do my best! Now, I gave this same presentation last month, so any Great Saviors who have already seen it should feel free to skip it! In an update from the Heavens, my goddess Leonne has revealed a new aspect of (user)'s stonecantation powers. This new ability is none other than... Unison Artes! By drawing more deeply from the power of hero stones, another hero who shares a strong bond with the summoned hero is able to join in his or her attack! To put it more simply, one might say that they're bonus attacks! But Unison Artes are more than that. Successfully executing one not only deals damage, it increases your LC as well! What's that you say? "They must be difficult to execute"? Dear me, no! That's not the case at all! Once you know the trick to using them, you should be able to execute them with ease. Because this ability is still being tested, you must first embark upon a quest that permits the use of Unison Artes. Next, you must execute a chain of at least five links involving a character that possesses an Unison Arte. Please make sure that character is positioned as the fifth link or beyond. Then, an electric current will surge through the battlefield! That's the sign the Unison Arte is ready to go! Release your finger to attack, and the Unison Arte will begin! A red marker and a white circle will appear. At the moment that the white circle envelops the red marker, tap the screen to execute the bonus attack! At that point, the hero who shares a strong bond with that character will rush bravely onto the battlefield to attack at his or her companion's side! Not only will this attack damage the target, but it will also provide LC! Quite the effective move! Perhaps an example would help?Spring is here! Some people despise spring. There’s allergies, pollen everywhere, and the weather starts to get warmer… To me, each new season is exciting in it’s own way. I’m not a fan of flowers and sunlight, but spring means summer is around the corner, which means it’s time to start looking good. Guys, I get it. It’s hard. Autumn and winter are 6 months filled with delicious food, holidays, and the weather invites you to stay at home watching your weaboo anime and eating Pocky in your pajamas. But it’s easy to turn this around and get plenty of exercise, while still being a weaboo. You don’t need cosmic gadgets or magical powers. If you know what you’re doing, it won’t take much effort. Look, the truth is, Yatta-Tachi wants you to feel good about yourself. We want you to be happy. That’s why we decided that over the next month, I will be giving you ideas and advice on how to beat your laziness, get up, and start devouring the world like the cosmic deity you’re supposed to be. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Yatta-Tachi Summer Challenge. Any questions? You, the handsome guy in the front row. Why should I do this? Honestly? Maybe you shouldn’t. Much like taking your studies seriously or brushing your teeth daily, this is something that must come from you, and not some order you must follow because someone tells you to. If you have been feeling like you need to do something, but don’t know exactly what it is, this may be a good first step. It’s a simple challenge that can be done by anyone -seriously, you don’t need to be fit or anything, this is foolproof- that will give you results soon enough. Physical exercise, no matter how small, will do wonders for your health. Never forget we are animals, and animals need to get some degree of physical activity. Also, if you’re feeling down, nothing will make you happier than achieving your goals. Next question! I don’t exercise regularly/never exercised ever. Can I do this? Yes. This plan is designed to get you moving, no matter your physical condition. It doesn’t matter if you’re packing a little extra weight, if you’re skinny, or if you’re following Saitama’s training regime. Remember the general idea is not to lose weight or get buff, but to get moving. Yes, you will see some changes in your body, but the biggest change will be in your mind. Wait, that sounded way deeper than what I intended. What I meant to say is, before ‘abs’, you’ll feel the serotonin and dopamine in your brain, and the feeling of accomplishment. And that, my friend, feels way better than having a 6-pack. But since we are at it, I’d also like to tell you that you do not need to have previous knowledge about fitness. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything you need to know, in a way even a kid could understand. Really, it’s easy. Don’t be intimidated. Next question! You, the girl with glasses! What do I need to do this? You need to want to do it. This is so easy, even if you’re not really determined, you can do it. No need to be the next Naruto when it comes to willpower. It is not obligatory, but you will also benefit from having a portable music player (most of us use our smartphones), and a Spotify account, which you probably already have. And if you don’t, gosh, it’s free and will take you 5 minutes. Of course, you’ll feel better using comfy clothes. I won’t lecture you about this. Just use common sense and adapt it to your situation (i.e.: probably not a good idea to wear shorts if you live in Alaska, don’t dress in the colors of your street’s rival gang, etc). Why are you qualified for telling this? I’m in pretty good shape. I’ve been better, yeah, but most importantly, I’ve been worse. I know how much better we feel after including exercise in our lives, and trust me, I’m a comfy guy. I’m not really keen on the actual physical effort. I don’t really like going outside, sunlight makes me sneeze, and I’m quite clumsy. I’m not really the sporty person we think are the only ones who like to exercise. But I’m efficient, and physical activity makes us work much better. Also, after a few years of training I’ve gone bald, even without following One Punch Man’s workout routine. Imagine how hardcore it must be. But, Greg-Senpai! I don’t want to become a mountain of muscles. Haha, man, don’t worry. It takes years of hard, specific work, to get ‘buff’. If you end up accidentally looking like The Rock, don’t worry. Your method will also make your rich and famous overnight. And hey, you’ll be allowed to say ‘brah’, which is cool. What does this have to do with anime?! Good question! Many anime inspire us to be better in some way, and when it comes to shounen, the lesson is always “hard work beats natural talent.” I, along with many people, have become inspired to be healthier by watching sports anime (something we will talk about next week, don’t worry). When I was sitting in my couch watching Free! Eternal Summer, I really wanted to start swimming. And no, it wasn’t because I wanted to look good in front of my squado, but because it seemed fun. We can combine an activity that is hard with something we enjoy to make something productive, while keeping it easy. If this is a Summer Challenge, why are we starting in Spring? That’s like studying the night before your finals. You may feel the benefits of working out the same day your start doing it, but your body won’t show results until a month or two have passed. Also, if the weather is not an excuse anymore, why start later what you can start now? The sooner we start, the sooner we see the results. Anyone else? When do we start? 😀 That’s the spirit! 😀 We are starting with the actual training next Friday. For now, you have 4 missions. Make sure you have the gear necessary for physical activity. You can buy sportswear, or you can use old clothes you have around. As long as you can exercise freely, it’s a go. Take a photo of yourself. It doesn’t have to be one of those photos we see on fitness ads of people half-naked comparing themselves before/after Photoshop. You can take the photo fully clothed if you want, but take it. And don’t post it on your Social Media. Keep it for yourself. Remember: You are doing this for yourself. Download Spotify, if you don’t have it. Spotify is a platform for listening to music for free. You’re also able to create and share playlists with other people, and music helps a lot when you need motivation. Anime openings are great for workout playlists., if you don’t have it. Spotify is a platform for listening to music for free. You’re also able to create and share playlists with other people, and music helps a lot when you need motivation. Anime openings are great for workout playlists. Run. It might be a simple, small run from the car to your doorstep, or that empty aisle when you’re doing grocery shopping. You don’t have to be dressed for exercise (but please, don’t run wearing heels), and stop as soon as you feel tired. The main idea is to show your body that you are physically capable of doing it, if you want to. These 60 feet you run today may feel small, but it’s only the beginning. I’ll see you all next week! Please let me know in the comments if you’re willing to give it a shot, and what anime inspires you to work harder! P.s.: If you do run wearing heels and survive, please send us photographic evidence of it and I promise you’re getting featured in next week’s article.Today, Seiko has released the Prospex “Orange Samurai” SRPB97 watch for the USA market, and for now as an Amazon.com pre-order exclusive. Seiko has not held back on rereleases capitalizing on the cult status of certain watches including vintage pieces but also even very recent models – such as the very recent Grand Seiko Hi-Beat 36000 GMT Limited Edition SBGJ227. The original diver’s watch that was apparently nicknamed by the public as the “Samurai” was released only in 2005 and included an orange dial version, the SBDA005. This new Seiko Prospex “Orange Samurai” SRPB97 recalls that model with the orange dial, but with updates and changes reflecting the current “Samurai” collection of dive watches marked by their angular case design. Seiko has had a number of orange dial watches get kind of “famous” among watch enthusiast communities, not least the “Orange Monster” SKX781 – which came back in 2012 as the SRP309 along with other color versions such as the Seiko SRP313K1 reviewed here. It was Doxa, however, who started the trend back in the 1960s with something like this recently also rereleased DOXA SUB 300 Black Lung. These orange dials are eye-catching and make for a bold dive watch with personality, of course, but it has also been claimed that the color is more legible underwater. Water affects colors of the light spectrum, with red disappearing first and yellow remaining visible deeper. So orange being a mixture of red and yellow is not necessarily the “most legible” but the bright, near-florescent colors often found on watch dials are going to be easy to see in most conditions, to say the least. In the end, contrast will be more important than color for legibility, and seiko dive watches, always amply lumed, do well in that regard. As noted, the orange dial seems to reference the original release, but the rest of the specs and design are in line with current Seiko “Samurai” collection watches. For all about the samurai in general, see our review of the Seiko Prospex “Blue Lagoon Samurai” SRPB09 here. Most notably, the hands and markers are different from the 2005 model, but the angular case and distinctive bezel are pretty close to the original. Another major difference is that these are larger at 44mm wide and 12.8mm thick in steel – while the original models were 42mm wide in titanium. The current Samurai watches have 200m water-resistance, a hardlex crystal up front and solid caseback with the Seiko 4R35 automatic movement inside that operates at 3Hz with a 41-hour power reserve. The Samurai was discontinued in 2008, and Seiko themselves sometimes seem surprised by the popularity and cult status of their own watches that they had mostly designed as pragmatic, affordable products. With droves of passionate collectors chatting on the internet, however, Seiko has slowly woken up and achieved a kind of self-awareness, and the past year or so has seen more nostalgic rereleases than ever as well as more watches meant to compete with Switzerland. There are surely benefits that go along with this, such as listening more to their fans, wider availability, broader recognition of the brand’s qualities, and even more variety (as if Seiko ever lacked that) including premium options and features. Watches like the the Seiko Prospex “Orange Samurai” SRPB97 and many in the Prospex collection in general, in my opinion, stay true to Seiko’s spirit of well-built watches and value proposition. Seiko does a lot of regional limited editions and special releases, often even with more premium features or funky colors, such as this Marinemaster 300M SLA015 Limited Edition that was sold only in Germany. Unfortunately for everyone else who is into the Orange Samurai, this particular special edition is intended for the US. The Prospex (professional + specifications) line seems to be the home for a lot of these special releases and exists as Seiko’s lower mid-range offering more refined and durable sport watches for good values – ostensibly intended for “professional” use but probably destined for the wrists of collectors in many instances. Again, the Seiko Prospex “Orange Samurai” SRPB97 is available first for pre-order on Amazon.com and later at authorized Seiko dealers in the United States in 2018. The online purchases through Amazon will come on a steel bracelet with an additional rubber strap that will not be included when bought through standard retail. The Seiko Prospex “Orange Samurai” SRPB97 has a price on Amazon of $575 with preorder now and will be officially released November 13, 2017. seikousa.comUpdate: I made three new videos of 2009 with my 5D Mark II last year. http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2639782&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=01AAEA&fullscreen=1 One year in 40 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo. So far I’ve made two videos of the images I describe in this article. The one here at the top and another two minutes version. Read on to learn how I did this, to see the other video and to download the videos and images in high quality. And if you want to watch this video here at the top in HD quality you have to click through to Vimeo. The story Back in 2005 I did an experiment shooting images out of my window for one year. It turned out pretty cool and in the end of 2007 I decided to do the same. But in much better quality. So I started shooting images with my Canon 400D. From the same spot each time, but not through my window. I found a spot outside that gave more or less the same framing each time I placed my camera. So, I went out on our balcony snapping some images at pretty irregular intervals all through 2008. Each time I snapped the following images: 3 exposures @10mm (Canon EF-S 10-22 F3.5-4.5 USM) 3 exposures @17mm (Canon EF-S 17-55 f2.8 IS USM) 3 exposures @55mm (Canon EF-S 17-55 f2.8 IS USM) All images shot in RAW. The three exposures where: normal, +2 EV and -2 EV. In addition to the images I decided to record some audio at the same place. Using my Canon S2 IS and my Canon HF10 I recorded simple background sounds trough 2008 as well. Not with exact connections to each image. More with a focus on getting audio from winter, spring, summer and autumn. All together giving me a pretty decent range of material to put together some experiments. Then what? The videos… Link to this video in HD on YouTube. At the top of this article you find a 40 second version that show one year. Using the 10mm wide angle images. Right above you find a two minute version made from the 55mm zoomed in images. First I used Photomatix to make HDR images of the ones I decided to use. Mostly because the HDR effect makes the images flat so that the difference in light and shadows won’t disturb the transitions in my video. Then I used Photoshop to align all the images. Placing the camera manually at the same spot each time won’t give the exact same spot. So I needed some fine adjustment. Photoshop does this. Here’s how: First load the images you have chosen into layers by using “File->Scripts->Load files into stack“ When you have found all your files make sure to check “Attempt to automatically align…“ Give your computer huge amounts of time and get back when it has finished. Now Photoshop has adjusted all the images and put them on separate layers in one file. The next thing you have to do is to crop the image. Because of the adjustments the images are not the exact same size. A crop will do the trick. When the computer is done cropping you export the layers to files. “File->Scripts->Export Layers to files“ Now you have a folder with a bunch of images with the same framing. I decided to do simple dissolves between them. And ended up with a project in Final Cut Express that looked like the image above. I didn’t want one dissolve at a time. I wanted to make some kind of flow where one dissolve is taken over by the new one before it is finished. As you can see from the timeline my dissolves overlap. The free downloads First of all: please comment here or contact me if you use the images. I’ll link to all cool projects made from these files! All the images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license. In other words: Use them non commercially as long as you give me credit and as long as you share the work you do under the same license. For commercial use please contact me. Or you can simply buy non exclusive royalty free use by purchasing the full quality file here: OneYear40seconds1920x1080.30p.H264.mp4 It’s $99,- and the money will be spent on hosting for my projects. For commercial use of the full quality non branded still images you can buy the complete package of high resolution stills here: EiriksoStills.zip And where are the files? Images: 10mm wide angle aligned HDR images in this flickr set. All the images from that Flickr set in a ZIP file. 55mm zoomed in aligned HDR images in this flickr set. All the images from that Flickr set in a ZIP file. Audio: The audio as WAV in a ZIP file Video: 40 second movie, 8 mbit/s H264, 1280×720 25p Two minutes movie, 8 mbit/s H264, 1280×720 25p But I know what I’m doing and want the full resolution RAW files to make something really cool! Please comment here or contact me and I’ll provide you with what you want. RAW files, video footage, more audio from the same spot etc… Whats’s next? Eh. Well. I just upgraded my camera to a Canon 5D Mark II. Giving me a possibility of getting even higher quality footage from this nice view of some trees… Guess I’ll snap some images on my balcony through 2009 as well. 🙂Published: 09:53, 23 February 2017 \| Updated: 11:15, 23 February 2017 SHARE PICTURE Copy link to paste in your message +8 Anna Rowe, 44, needed counselling after discovering her new love was a married father with a fake Tinder profile A heartbroken woman who was lured into a 14-month relationship by a married father with a fake Tinder account is demanding a change in the law to make the practice illegal. Anna Rowe, 44, met a man calling himself 'Antony Ray' after they matched on the dating app and they met up after three months of talking online, embarking on a whirlwind romance. He told her they were 'creating something special' and would refer to her as 'Mrs Ray' and 'future wife' during thousands of messages, though he made excuses for why he could only meet up with her sporadically. But she eventually became suspicious and hired a private investigator, who revealed that he was a married father with a separate mobile phone and social media accounts to conduct his affairs. He had even used a picture of a Bollywood star on his Tinder account, which he was still using, and had lied to her from the moment they met. Miss Rowe, a teaching assistant from Canterbury, Kent, needed counselling after discovering that she had fallen victim to the cruel fraud. She is now urging the Government to make 'catfishing' - fabricating an online identity to forge a fake relationship - a criminal offence in order to protect others. Miss Rowe said: 'I didn't know who this man who had been in my life for 14 months was. I'm not stupid by any means, but he had played me. 'I was heartbroken, but I was also scared. I wondered if anything he told me true.' The nightmare began in August 2015 after the pair matched on Tinder, which shows users pictures of potential matches and allows them to chat if both parties like the images. Scroll down for video SHARE PICTURE Copy link to paste in your message +8 After hiring a private investigator, she discovered he had even used a black and white picture of Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan - who looked strikingly like him - as his Tinder profile picture SHARE PICTURE Copy link to paste in your message +8 SHARE PICTURE Copy link to paste in your message +8 The mother-of-two accepted there was little routine to Antony's visits but when they they bombarded each other with romantic text messages The man, calling himself Antony Ray, claimed he lived in London, had been divorced for 15 months, had three sons and parents who lived in Harrogate, Yorkshire. They started getting to know each other, regularly messaging over WhatsApp, through text and speaking on the phone. Three months later, in November, they met for the first time when Antony drove to meet Anna in her home town of Canterbury, Kent, and their relationship blossomed. He claimed to spend weekends with his children and work in aviation, meaning he had to travel abroad several times a month, in order to explain his sporadic visits. SHARE PICTURE Copy link to paste in your message +8 Miss Rowe needed counselling for a year after the deception from a man who she thought she would marry after their romantic conversations Woman is 'Catfished' by man using fake name and picture on Tinder v f Loaded : 0% Progress : 0% w 0:00 A Previous f Play A Skip LIVE d Mute w 00:00 Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 1:14 t Fullscreen g Need Text Video Quality 576p 540p 360p 270p i k m h
researchers has found more than dozen of POS malwares."Target" was one of the many big corporations targeted by these black hat hackers last year; it forces the retail giant to upgrade their systems. But not every business can afford the new certified systems because of the sky-high cost, it has now provided a big opportunity to hackers. That's why those small businesses now become the primary target of these criminals.FireEye a cyber security firm was the first to discover this newest malware, which is targeting the thousands of U.S citizens all over the country.security researcher on FireEye's blog post said He further wrote that "These POS malwares including Treasurehunt are easily available on dark web if you are willing to pay the right price. Those tools available for FREE on dark web are not often as effective as the purchased ones. These free tools are mostly outdated or their source code may have been disclosed, which makes them easier to detect by security software. Average 60 million shoppers in U.S and Canada are effected from payment system hacks in past two years.Working on “Red Hood and the Outlaws” is a special experience for Soy as it pairs him with writer Scott Lobdell. “I hardly buy comics,” he shockingly says in the vernacular for someone in his profession. “We don’t have comic book shops in Pangasinan so I had to make do with what there was… hand-me-downs, second hand copies.” “And that first comic I got was Uncanny X-Men that featured the art of Joe Madureira who is such a big influence on me (along with Humberto Ramos),” said Soy. Madureira drew the then popular comic for three years before opting to do his own creator work, “Battle Chasers” for the Cliffhanger imprint of Wildstorm Studios in Image Comics. “The writer of those X-Men stories that Joe drew was Scott Lobdell.” The two got to work together on a couple of issues of Red Hood/Arsenal for DC last year and when both learned they’d be working together at least for six issues of the new title, it was a welcome development. “So working on the character of Red Hood isn’t difficult because I previously worked on him. The challenge for both of us is elevating the character to a bigger platform.” The character of Red Hood was a petty thief who incidentally was initially the Joker before he became deranged and psychotic. The persona was later adopted by Jason Todd, the former Robin who was controversially “killed off” in the now classic “Death in the Family” story that ran in “Batman” #426-429 in 1988-89. The story was controversial because DC Comics gave readers a chance to have a say in the fate of the character through a special phone-in 1-900 number that cost 50 cents. The finally tally of 5,343 versus 5,271 saw a thumbs down for the character. The “comics death” received a lot of media attention especially from the mainstream press. “Hopefully, we can tell some really good stories,” underscored Soy about Todd.If Question 2 passes, marijuana customers could increase by ‘three or four times’ Next week, Nevada will have the chance to join four other states to allow legalized recreational marijuana for adults. Ballot Question 2 would not only allow Nevadans age 21 and older to have easier access to pot, it could provide more than $1.1 billion in tax revenue and economic activity over the course of the proposed law’s initial eight years, according to a study by Las Vegas-based RCG Economics. Armen Yemenidjian, president and CEO of the three Essence Cannabis Dispensaries in the Las Vegas Valley, is ready for the change. Yemenidjian, whose dispensary chain was recently ranked first in Nevada and included in the top 25 marijuana outlets nationwide by a Business Insider report, currently boasts an inventory of over 100 products, ranging from flower strands to vaping products and marijuana-infused body lotions. That inventory would double to about 200 products if Question 2 passes, he said, and customers would increase by “three or four times.” “It’d be huge for us,” Yemenidjian said. “No doubt about it.” With 53 percent of Nevadans in favor of the proposal, according to a Oct. 26 KTNV-TV/Rasmussen Report poll, Question 2 will become law on Jan. 1, 2018, if Yemenidjian and state legislators in favor of the proposal have their way. Current medical marijuana license holders will have the first opportunity at the new recreational licenses. Yemenidjian said all three of his valley dispensaries would turn into dual medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries. With one section of the store for displaying marijuana products for medical customers and another section for recreational buyers, Yemenidjian said inventory of products like Island Sweet Skunk flower, edible cake pops and moisturizing body cream will be labeled separately for recreational buyers and his current medical buyers. “The quality of the product would be the exact same,” Yemenidjian explained. “The only thing different would be the taxes.” Andrew Jolley of The Source Dispensary also hopes to turn his two Las Vegas Valley dispensaries into dual-medical and recreational facilities. Now with over 150 current products, Jolley said he’ll continue expanding as early as January of next year. “Many products serve both medical and recreational customers” Jolley said. “So there won’t be too much transition required in that regard.” Just south of the Strip, marijuana grower Kevin Biernacki of the Grove has saved half of his 11,000 square-foot cultivation facility for the possibility of recreational marijuana. If Ballot Question 2 passes, Biernacki’s current 4,000 marijuana plant facility will become 8,000 total plants, requiring an additional 500 color-coordinated LED lights and several thousand more gallons of water purifying and storage tanks to double his current marijuana output. “All this is saved for recreational,” Biernacki said this summer, pointing to three empty rooms in his cultivation facility. “Business would skyrocket if that passes.” The Las Vegas marijuana growers and distributors didn’t divulge financial figures for their own businesses. But Armenidjian said passing recreational marijuana would be key for all of the state’s 42 dispensaries to stay afloat. While the medical model is still expanding and “somewhat stable,” Armenidjian said he knows of “a couple” medical dispensary owners who might not make the cut without Question 2. “Right now we just don’t have enough in-state medical customers for everyone to get by,” he said. Much will also depend on the Nevada Legislature. With most of the provisions of the proposed law already outlined in Ballot Question 2, the Legislature’s main priority would be consolidating Nevada’s recreational and medical marijuana programs under state bureaus and ensuring the new medical program is ready to go by early 2018. Among the Legislature’s top priorities would be moving the medical marijuana program from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Taxation, joining the proposed regulatory state body for the recreational marijuana. The move to the taxation department will mirror how alcohol is regulated in Nevada, explained state Sen. Patricia Farley. The department monitors alcohol sales and revenue while business regulations and enforcements for violators are handled on the local level. “The Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t really have the money or guidance to decides who does what,” Farley said. “So rather than reinvent the wheel, we just want to simplify things.” State Sen. Tick Segerblom said the Legislature’s role is pivotal in moving the recreational program forward on time. While Nevadans voted on making medical marijuana legal in 2000, the first dispensary didn’t open until 2015. Segerblom hopes a proactive state Legislature in 2017 will prevent the same result with recreational marijuana. “When there’s uncertainty, everything takes longer,” Segerblom said. “We don’t want that.” Yemenidjian said the sooner Question 2 passes, the more Essence and other dispensaries would benefit in the long-term. “We’ve come this far as a state and there’s no turning back now,” he said. “So the question is whether we want to thrive or risk our investments.” Keeping Nevada a medical marijuana-only state while others, like California and Arizona attempt to go recreational, could detract additional weed-seeking visitors from coming to Las Vegas, RCG Economics Principal John Restrepo said. While most of Las Vegas’ more 42 million annual visitors come to the valley for its variety of gaming and entertainment options, adult-use marijuana would draw a “small yet notable” addition of weed-specific tourists here, Restrepo said. His 88-page economic analysis didn’t include a number of estimated marijuana-specific tourists, but such visitors would be “a certainty.” “If Question 2 doesn’t pass, we’d lose out on the taxable revenues for adult-use, and you’d potentially lose visitors that wouldn’t come here otherwise,” Restrepo explained. In Colorado, state officials say that since the recreational use model went into effect in Sep. 2014, over $100 million in tax revenue has been raised by state marijuana facilities. That money went into a state research fund for marijuana studies, Colorado Director of Marijuana Coordination Andrew Freedman told cannabis website HighTimes in August, as well as substance abuse treatment facilities in Colorado and after-school youth drug prevention programs. “I think a lot of people who don’t normally use marijuana are taking their vacation in Colorado and deciding to partake,” Freedman said. In Washington State, recreational marijuana has contributed more than $65 million to state coffers since the program kicked off in July 2014. State spokesman Mikhail Carpenter called the program “a success,” adding that it continues to expand quickly as tourists and locals alike move from black market sellers to regulated, licensed dispensaries. “Above all, the recreational program has been very successful in taking a black market and bringing into a regulated industry,” said Carpenter, spokesman for the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, which regulates alcohol and marijuana sales. Travel Oregon spokeswoman Linea Gagliano estimated as many as five percent of the state’s 27 million annual tourists have come for marijuana since the state enacted legalized recreational use last year. Through July, the state had collected over $18 million in tax revenue, translating to about $72 million in sales. While Gagliano said Oregon’s tourism industry doesn’t focus its advertising on its legal marijuana industry because the plant is still federally illegal, it often resonates with visitors coming to explore the Beaver State’s popular food and outdoors scenes. “People come here for great food and a beautiful outdoors scene,” Gagliano said. “We just happen to also have recreational cannabis.” Editor’s note: Brian Greenspun, the CEO, publisher and editor of the Las Vegas Sun, has an ownership interest in Essence Cannabis Dispensary.Like it? Share it... The Great Barrier Reef has suffered from another round of severe coral bleaching, with two-thirds of the Australian landmark now pushed to the limit. This was the second such event this year, and only the fourth overall, according to Professor Terry Hughes, one of the marine biologists leading the conservation effort. Mass bleachings had previously only occurred in 1998, 2002 and 2016, with this latest event the first time a back-to-back occurrence has manifested itself since records were being kept. A media release from the Australian Research Council outlined some of the reasons behind the most recent bleaching incident, with record-breaking temperatures outside of El Niño conditions mostly to blame. Whilst coral bleaching doesn’t necessarily mean the death of the corals in question, it is expected that there will be a high mortality rate amongst the latest batch of reefs to be affected. But how exactly does coral bleaching affect the reef and what is the process behind it? As a direct result of climate change, sea temperatures have increased by almost 1˚ Celsius, this change in temperature has led the photosynthetic aspect of corals to be inhibited, leading to the loss of the zooxanthellae that is integral to corals’ ability to photosynthesize. In turn this leads to coral bleaching, which severely weaken coral reefs’ resilience and ability to adapt such events. Reefs have survived many bleaching events in the past, but they had several years to do so, as Dr. James Kerry explains, the latest event on the Great Barrier Reef is pushing an already stressed coral population to new levels: “It takes at least a decade for a full recovery of even the fastest growing corals, so mass bleaching events 12 months apart offers zero prospect of recovery for reefs that were damaged in 2016.” The compounding effects of the consecutive bleachings along with the damage from Tropical Cyclone Debbie’s landfall last week have greatly affected the GBR’s ability to adapt and heal itself. As Prof Hughes points out, climate change is the driving force behind these events, and without immediate action, it is likely that coral bleaching events will continue to degrade the Great Barrier Reef further. “Clearly the reef in now struggling with multiple impacts, without a doubt the most pressing of these is global warming. As temperatures continue to rise, the corals will experience more and more of these events. Ultimately, we need to cut carbon emissions and the window to do so is rapidly closing.Quebec Premier Pauline Marois is taking aim at the Quebec Liberals over their opposition to her government's proposed values charter. Marois says the opposition party is, in her words, "completely isolated" on the issue. She says the Parti Québécois' proposed law would give the province a framework so that people from different backgrounds can live in harmony. Story continues below advertisement The opposition Coalition party, which holds the balance in the minority legislature, has said it's open to discussions. The legislation introduced Thursday includes a plan to ban public-sector employees from wearing overtly religious clothing. The PQ is threatening to trigger an election over the issue by making votes on the legislation a matter of confidence. In a speech Saturday at the PQ convention in Montreal, the Premier also hinted at the limits of the PQ's power in a minority situation. She said the Liberal opposition has made it difficult to pass through new laws related to mining, economic development and protecting the French language.Developer Harry Stamoulis didn't get to be head of Australia's 95th richest family, with wealth of over half a billion dollars according to the BRW Rich List, without some good fortune. But a decision taken by the Andrews government makes it clear how lucky Mr Stamoulis was to own - and sell - a Collins Street building under the previous planning minister, Matthew Guy. Millionaire property developer Harry Stamoulis (left) in 2014 with then planning minister Matthew Guy and then premier Denis Napthine (right) at the opening of the Gods, Myths & Mortals exhibition at the Hellenic Museum in Melbourne. The Andrews government's planning minister, Richard Wynne, has knocked back an application to build an 82-level tower on the site at the corner of Collins and King streets, opposite the Rialto. Mr Wynne will also take a further, more dramatic step to reverse an unusual decision made by Mr Guy, who is now opposition leader, while he was planning minister.The story was first published in Japan in オール読物 (Ōru Yomimono) "All For Reading", a monthly literature magazine published by Bungei Shunju, in October 1967. Nosaka won the Naoki Prize for best popular literature for this story and American Hijiki, which was published a month before. [1] Both short stories along with four others were bundled as a book in 1968 published by Shinchōsha ( ISBN 4-10-111203-7 ). The short story was later adapted into the 1988 animated film Grave of the Fireflies, directed by Isao Takahata. The film was released on April 16, 1988, over twenty years from the publication of the original work. [2] It was adapted again into a live action television film Grave of the Fireflies. Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓, Hotaru no Haka ) is a 1967 semi-autobiographical short story by Japanese author Akiyuki Nosaka. It is based on his experiences before, during, and after the firebombing of Kobe in 1945. One of his sisters died as the result of sickness, his adoptive father died during the firebombing proper, and his younger adoptive sister Keiko died of malnutrition in Fukui. It was written as a personal apology to Keiko, regarding her death. Akiyuki Nosaka wrote the book in 1967, during a period of high economic growth. Nosaka said that the era felt strange to him and that "the real spirit of humanity was different" and so he wished to depict an "idealized humanity" between a brother and sister, or "ultimately, of a man and a woman." [2] He added that he wished to place Seita, the main character, "in an idealized situation." Nosaka said that he himself had been in such a scenario until fourteen and then had to grow up very quickly, becoming "worse off" than other children. [2] Seita Edit Akiyuki Nosaka explained that Seita and Setsuko survive the wartime environment by "locking themselves up in a world of their own."[3] Nosaka added that after their mother, their sole guardian, dies, Seita "decides to become the guardian of his little sister, even if it means making an enemy out of the world."[3] At one point, Seita has a favorable reception to making himself a source of food for his sister. Nosaka argued "On the one hand, that's very tragic, but it's also a blessed situation. For Seita, it's like he can try to build a heaven for just the two of them."[3] Nosaka argued that while Seita is "when it comes to reality" not a romanticist for he also becomes hungry, "objectively speaking" Setsuko, at age four, is at the period when "a girl looks the cutest" and Seita is just becoming aware of his masculinity in his adolescent period.[3] Nosaka said that the two have an "obvious consanguineous relationship" and that Setsuko is the only person Seita can confide in.[3] Nosaka added that "while there's a strong blood tie, he's shut out from being able to love her as a girl" and that his tension increases to high levels and therefore sublimation takes place.[3] Nosaka explained that Seita "is rather spoiled for a wartime child" and therefore the children of 1987 would act like he would if they were put in that situation.[3] Isao Takahata said that he was compelled to adapt the story into an animation after seeing how Seita "was a unique wartime ninth grader."[3] He previously believed that boys always developed the will to live, but Seita instead chooses not to endure difficult feelings; when his aunt insults him, Seita does not act in a stoic manner and instead withdraws from the situation. Takahata argued that Seita's feelings are better understood by the children in 1987, who often base decisions on whether or not they are pleasant, while during that year his generation had the belief that Seita needed to endure it. Takahata argued that "It's not only the children...I think the times are becoming that way, as well" and therefore he liked the idea of adapting the story as a film.[3] Nosaka said that in the story, Seita "got increasingly transformed into a better human being" since he was trying to "compensate for everything I couldn't do myself" and that he was never "kind like the main character." Nosaka explained that "I always thought I wanted to perform those generous acts in my head, but I couldn't do so." He believed that he would always give food to his sister, but when he obtained food, he ate. The food tasted very good when it was scarce, but he felt remorse afterwards. Nosaka concluded "I'd think there is no one more hopeless in the world than me. I didn't put anything about this in the novel."[4] Setsuko Edit Nosaka said that Setsuko also has to grow up quickly, and she takes the role of Seita's mother, "and at other times, the role of his lover."[3] Setsuko acts as Seita's spiritual support while Setsuko relies on Seita for nourishment.[3] Nosaka said that "[i]n the end, it turns out that the days leading up to their death are like the development of a love story."[3] Nosaka said that the death of his sister was "an exact match with the novel."[2]Given the constant flow of news from Syria regarding the civil war, and today’s assertion that the regime has used chemical weapons, I thought that it might be a good moment to look at the Syrian oil industry, and its role in the conflict. Oil has historically been an important source of revenue for the Syrian government, despite relatively low production. Oil production actually peaked at ~600,000 barrels per day in the mid-1990s, declining to ~400,000 bpd in the months before the conflict, but the $4 billion it brought in during 2010 still represented 35% of export revenues. Syrian proved reserves were approximately ~2.5 billion barrels as at Jan 1st 2013. The bulk of Syria’s oil and gas fields run in a northeast – southwest band through the centre of the country, running from the city of Homs to the Hassake region in the very northeast corner of the country, bordered by Iraq and Turkey. Fifty percent of pre-war production was from this northeastern region, with the largest producing field in the country, Suwaidiyah, producing just over 100,000 bpd. The oil was transported along a major pipeline running to Homs and then on to the Mediterranean coast and eventual export. There is a suite of smaller fields in the east of the country, trending northwest – southeast just north of the Euphrates river near the Iraqi border, in the Deir al-Zor region. Syria’s oil is typically heavy and sour, making refining difficult and expensive. The smaller oilfields in the Deir al-Zor region are of a more refinable light crude. Syria has only two refineries, one in Homs and one on the Mediterranean coast at Banias. Most Syrian oil was exported to the European Union for refining, with Syria re-importing refined products such as diesel or petroleum for local use. Consumption has risen steadily since the 1980s, getting to within 80,000bpd of production in early 2011, thus restricting and complicating the country’s finances. Since March 2011, Syrian oil production is down 50%, to an estimated 153,000 bpd. Oilfields were reportedly recognised by all sides early in the conflict as key to the country’s post-war wealth. Many fields were shut-in and remained broadly undamaged. However, in the first few months of 2013 violence related to oil infrastructure increased, with rebels securing oil installations and pumping stations amid fierce battles. Pipelines have also been damaged, particularly near Homs. Two international pipelines connect with Iraq, but only one remains in operation, the Ain Zaleh – Suwaidiyah pipeline, connecting Iraq with northeast Syria. A map of ethnicity provides some interesting context. The government is dominantly from the Shi’ite Alawite sect, which is strongly concentrated along the coastal region of the country, away from sources of oil. East of the city of Homs the country is dominantly Sunni, until you reach the far northeast of the country, around the Suwaidiyah oilfield, which is dominantly Kurdish (most Kurds are also Sunni, but of different ethnicity). Oil remains critical to the conflict as the government’s military fleet largely runs on diesel or gas oil. Subsequent to imposition of sanctions in 2011, when the EU ceased to purchase exported crude, the Assad regime resorted to bartering what crude production they could still access with countries like Russia, Iran, & Venezuela, swapping the oil for refined diesel. In March, Syrian Sunni rebels surrounded the city of Deir al-Zor. The fighters responsible for the siege include fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, some of the war’s most battle hardened and effective soldiers. The 10,000 strong faction is led by leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq & publicly declared support for al-Qaeda earlier this month. The ranks include jihadist fighters from across the Islamic world and their stated aim is an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Whilst the relationship between jihadists and local Sunnis is often wary, al-Nusra is winning hearts and minds by production and distribution of bread and oil across the region. The group is already in control the Deir al-Zor oilfields. In the northeast of the country government forces withdrew from the oil town of Rumeilan between October 2012 and January 2013. Today, Kurdish fighters known as the Popular Protection Units (YPG) or the Democratic Union Party (PYD) control the region, fighting government forces and, on occasion, other Syrian rebels. Many locals claim that they want to secure a broadened autonomy for the region, which they call Western Kurdistan. On the 22nd April 2013 the European Union lifted its oil embargo, aiming to provide support to forces fighting Assad’s government. But how can the oil get to market? The existing Syrian pipelines pass through government territory on their way to the Mediterranean coast. There is a refinery at Homs that could perhaps provide some local products, but it remains in a disputed area with no clear control. Turkey is directly opposed to Kurdish separatism and is unlikely to allow transport of oil into Turkey from Kurdish controlled Syria. Although it should be noted that, in a moment of realpolitik, Turkey has allowed oil shipments from Iraqi Kurdistan to pass through the country and talks continue between Kurds and Turks. The Ain Zaleh – Suwaidiyah international pipeline does exist, but is designed for flow from Iraq to Syria, not the other way around. Crude could perhaps be trucked to Kurdistan, but would be vulnerable to government and (possibly) Turkish sponsored sunni groups. Sweeter crude from the Deir al-Zor region could be trucked to Iraq and sold, directly supporting Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant. Syria remains an extremely complicated situation. To summarise: The heartland of Assad’s (Shi’ite) Alawite regime is along the Mediterranean coast, away from the oil reserves. Assad’s regime is starving of oil and diesel, relying on barter with Russia, Venezuela, & Iran and dwindling access to crude oil to fuel their military. The oil regions themselves are split between Sunni and Kurdish control The northeastern oil reserves are within an ethnic Kurdish area, with many locals supporting the idea of Western Kurdistan. The Kurdish regime in northern Iraq is supporting the Kurds in northeast Syria, and presumably the Turkish Kurdish groups are doing the same thing. However, whilst Turkey supports the Sunni Syrian rebels in general, it opposes Kurdish independence. Clashes in the Kurdish town of Ras al-Ain between Kurdish fighters and Sunnis are a sign of direct Turkish involvement in the area, according to Hamid Hajji Darwish, a leader of the Kurdish National Council. The remainder of the oil discoveries are in Sunni areas, with the sweeter crude (and some gas) controlled by jihadist fighters loyal to al-Qaeda in their fight for an Islamic state across Iraq and the Levant. Some parts of Iraq may well support the Sunni groups. Lebanon, bordering Syria to the southwest, is already split along sectarian Sunni and Shi’ite lines, and is likely supporting both sides in the civil war. It is at constant threat of being dragged into a more regional war. Iran is a Shi’ite supporter of the Assad regime and a controller of Hezbollah in Lebanon and beyond, and of course it is playing its own regional game. Sitting at the bottom of the map is Israel, paying close attention, and worried about Syrian supply of chemical weapons to Iran-controlled Hezbollah as the regime starves of fuel and foresees its own demise. Israel has already attacked a convoy in southern Syria for just that. Simple, eh? Keep your eye on the oilfields. If the rebels, Sunni or Kurd, can access & export crude, and thus gain cash, fuel, and additional armaments, then the balance of the war could shift significantly. (p.s. just after I published this I saw that Syria is quite upset at the lifting of the oil embargo). _______________________________________________________________ Postscript: What caused the war? Why now? You may have already read my post on oil, base rates, food, and the Arab Spring. The idea applies to Syria too. It is interesting to note that during the early months of the Arab Spring Syria was considered a dormant, silent state, safe from revolution. Then, by March 2011 the first demonstrations started. Why? For much of 2006-2011 the Syrian region had experienced significant drought, heightening through 2011. Nearly 75% of agricultural land suffered crop failure. Herders in the Kurdish northeastern region lost 85% of their livestock, affecting 1.3 million people. Farms were failing, and people were suffering. In 2010 the New York Times ran an article describing the “fertile fields as turning barren”. Two to three million people were pushed into extreme poverty. Syria, the origin of wheat and barley, was forced to import grain, paying international spot prices. Then, between 2010 and 2011 the price of wheat doubled. US wheat prices reached almost $8 a bushel in March 2011, the month that protests erupted in Deraa, one of the poorest towns in southern Syria, and the subject of significant inward migration from the failing agricultural regions. When you’re poor and the price of food doubles, what do you do? What have you got to lose? Interestingly, a NOAA study in the Journal of Climate links the prolonged drought to climate change, although mismanagement of water resources and the building of damns across the Euphrates are also clearly issues. To throw a question out there, is the war in Syria the result of external pressures? The population has been subjugated and under emergency law for over 40 years. Why now? Did two key events interact? Did Western debt and the collapse of the financial industry (the result of soaring oil prices and possibly the first peak oil recession), lead to quantitative easing & the flowing of cheap money into commodities, and thus cause increased wheat prices? And did the Syrian drought (possibly caused by global warming), lead to devastation of agricultural crops, mass internal migration, poverty, and the creation of a surge of agricultural Sunni’s into Alawite coastal towns, exacerbating disaffection within Syrian cities? Did these two trends cause a civil war? Does this really boil down to our inability to produce sufficient oil in the mid 2000s and our continued production of CO2 to date? Is this, in short, a taste of the future?Samsung has already brought the much-loved Blue Coral hue from the now-dead Galaxy Note7 to the Galaxy S7 edge, but that apparently wasn't the last new color version we'll see this year for one of its flagships. According to a new report from Samsung's home country of South Korea, a glossy black Galaxy S7 should be out in early December. The information allegedly comes from certain unnamed "industry sources". In case you're wondering - yes, this will be glossier in appearance than the black Galaxy S7 version that's already out. It's also very likely that this has a lot to do with how successful Apple's glossy Jet Black hue for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus has proven to be. Samsung is also looking to capitalize on new color launches for the S7 line, hoping it can milk some more sales from such moves, since it had to cancel the Note7 and that has clearly hurt its bottom line. What isn't yet clear is whether the glossy black Galaxy S7 will be launched globally, or if it will be limited to select markets. If this rumor pans out however, we're bound to find out soon enough. SourceNEWARK -- Steven Van Zandt, a long-time member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and one of the stars of "The Sopranos," will deliver the keynote address at Rutgers University's commencement ceremony this spring. Van Zandt, who grew up in New Jersey, was approved by the university Board of Governors during its meeting Wednesday at Rutgers-Newark. He's the latest in a series of high-profile graduation speakers at Rutgers, including President Barack Obama in 2016. Rutgers locked in Van Zandt last spring after he was the number one choice of a committee of students and faculty that recommended a commencement speaker, university President Robert Barchi said. The committee accepted nominations from the study body before making a selection, according to Rutgers. "He was the students' choice, as well as the committee's choice, so I expect that this will be looked on very positively by the students," Barchi said. 7 Jersey shout-outs in Obama's speech Rutgers will pay Van Zandt a $35,000 speaking fee, spokeswoman Karen Smith said. The fee will not be paid from Rutgers' state funding, she said. Van Zandt sparked some controversy recently when he criticized the cast of the hit Broadway show "Hamilton" for calling out then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence from the stage during a performance following the November election. Actor Brandon Victor Dixon, during the curtain call, spoke out to Pence as he left the theater, saying "We hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values, and work on behalf of ALL of us." Van Zandt later tweeted that "everyone who is sane disagrees with [Pence's] policies," but said a Broadway stage was not to place to make that statement. "Audiences shouldn't have to worry about being blindsided like that. Theater should be sanctuary for Art to speak," wrote Van Zandt, while reiterating he remained staunchly against Donald Trump and Pence's policies. Van Zandt, a 1968 graduate of Middletown High School in Monmouth County, began performing with Springsteen in the 1970s and co-produced the albums "The River" and "Born in the U.S.A." He left the E Street band in the early 1980s but rejoined in 1999 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 as a member of the group. Also in 1999, Van Zandt began playing the role of Silvio Dante, the consigliere to Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano in HBO's "The Sopranos." Along with his accolades in music and television, Van Zandt was picked for his activism and community fundraising, Rutgers officials said. In 1985, he established Artists United Against Apartheid and worked with other musicians, including Bob Dylan, Run-D.M.C., Miles Davis, and Springsteen, to record the album "Sun City," which protested South Africa's policy of racial segregation. Locally, Van Zandt has raised money to support the renovation and expansion of Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank. In addition to speaking, Van Zandt will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts at the May 14 ceremony at High Point Solutions Stadium. The university also announced Wednesday that Carla Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to serve as the U.S. Librarian of Congress, will speak at Rutgers-Camden's commencement ceremony. Rutgers-Newark previously selected Eboo Patel, chief executive officer of the Interfaith Youth Core, to deliver the keynote address at its ceremony. LGBTQ and HIV health care advocate Harvey Makadon will receive an honorary Doctor of Science at the ceremony for the New Brunswick campus. Makadon is the director of the National LGBT Health Education Center and the National Center for Innovation in HIV Care Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia was charged Wednesday with a single felony hit-and-run charge for allegedly leaving the scene of a crash last August near the San Francisco International Airport, the San Mateo County district attorney said. Steve Wagstaffe said Wednesday his office is in the process of filing that charge against Tolia, who runs the neighborhood-based social network. Tolia will get served the paperwork in the mail and he will not be taken into custody, Wagstaffe said. People are charged with hit-and-run accidents when they are "aware that they caused them and don't stop," Wagstaffe said. Tolia is also facing a lawsuit, which accuses him of causing the accident on Highway 101 in Brisbane on his way home from San Francisco Airport, where a driver spun out of control and damaged her car and broke her hand. Tolia never stopped, according to the lawsuit and a California Highway Patrol report, where an officer recommended the felony charge. Reached Tuesday night, Tolia told NBC Bay Area: "I just learned about this lawsuit tonight and will cooperate fully with authorities. This is a personal matter that happened last August and is not related to Nextdoor." Tolia was not immediately available by phone on Wednesday to comment on the DA's announcement of the charge. Tolia's first court appearance is set for May 28. San Francisco-based Nextdoor was founded in 2010, and is now used in more than 34,000 neighborhoods, according to the company's website. Nextdoor describes itself as "passionate about building stronger and safer neighborhoods." "The irony is not lost on anyone that a good neighbor doesn't flee the scene," said Joseph Brent, the attorney who filed a lawsuit Tuesday in San Francisco County on behalf of Patrice Renee Motley of San Francisco. "If a car is honking at you, and you watch it spinning out of control, what do you think is going to happen?" Motley claims in her suit that Tolia made an unsafe lane change in his black BMW X5 SUV and nearly hit her car, forcing her Honda del Sol to spin out of control on the highway and strike a concrete median with oncoming traffic zooming her way. Her car suffered "moderate" damage and she was taken to San Francisco General complaining of a hurt wrist, according to a CHP report taken on Aug. 4. Brent told NBC Bay Area that she required surgery and plates to be inserted into her hand. Tolia told CHP officers he did not stop and instead kept driving because he was "shaken" and didn't call 911 because he was certain someone else had, according to the lawsuit and the CHP report. He was driving with his wife and child at the time. Other drivers followed and took down Tolia's license plate. Police tracked him down and interviewed him and his wife at their home in Pacific Heights. Prior to starting Nexdoor, Tolia was a co-founder of Epinions. He has also worked at Yahoo. Both Wagstaffe and the civil attorneys said the coincidence of the criminal charge and the suit - within one day
their masters, it is obvious that we are not likely to find much if any authentic information about the historical Mohammed in the Hadith. The Sira and Maghazi Well into the second Muslim century, scholarly opinion concerning the birth date of the Prophet was spread over a space of eighty-five years! Although the names of some seventy historians are known who are believed to have dealt with the life of Mohammed and the prehistory and early history of Islam up to the year 1000 CE, their works have not survived and they are known only from quotations in later historians. The Sira, or biography of Mohammed, is mainly known from a work by Ibn Ishaq [c85 / 704 —150 AH / 767 CE]. Ibn Ishaq was born into a family of Medina that made a living procuring Hadith, and he followed the family trade, ending his career in Baghdad. A number of early Muslim critics held him to be a liar 21 in regard to his Hadith, and it is somewhat ironic that he has ended up being the earliest Muslim historian whose work is relied upon by modern Mohammedan apologists. Unfortunately, his work has not survived in its original form. Rather it has been transmitted in two highly altered and differing recensions: the most popular one made by Ibn Hisham [d. 218 AH / 833 CE] and another one made by Yunus b. Bukayr [d. 199 AH / 814-815 CE]. Some parts of Ibn Ishaq's work that were suppressed by Ibn Hisham and Yunus b. Bukayr can be found in quotations in the works of fourteen other historians writing 110 to 199 years after the Hegira. As a result, Ibn Ishaq's Sira has to be reconstructed from the works of sixteen later historians! 22 Doing so, however, is hardly worth the effort, considering the poor reliability of the entire Sira literature. The Maghazi, it will be remembered, is the chronicle of Mohammed's bandit raids and military activities. One of the earliest authors known to have collected Maghazi legends was Wahb b. Munabbih, who was born 34 years after the Hegira [654 CE] and lived until the year 110 AH [728 CE]. A fragment of his work has survived in the Heidelberg Papyrus (early third / ninth centuries) which contains Maghazi traditions attributed to him. It is important to note that Wahb did not know about the use of isnads — the chains of transmitters used to establish the authenticity of traditions. 23 It seems likely then, that any isnads found in scraps of early historians are not authentic but were the creations of later historians who wished to give the appearance that their traditions are anchored in the secure moorings of primal Mohammedanism. Perhaps the major source for this part of Mohammed's life is the Kitab al-Maghazi by al-Waqidi [130 / 747-207 / 822-823]. 24 He was a Shiite and is credited with having first established the chronology of the early years of Islam. He made extensive use of Ibn Ishaq's work and is himself cited extensively by the later popular historian al-Tabari [c224-225 / 839—311 / 923]. Ibn Warraq sums up the historical significance - or lack thereof- of Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi: 25 Both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi's reputations have suffered in recent years as a consequence of the trenchant criticisms by Patricia Crone (especially in Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, pp. 203-30), where she argues that much of the classical Muslim understanding of the Koran rests on the work of storytellers and that this work is of very dubious historical value. These storytellers contributed to the tradition on the rise of Islam, and this is evident in the steady growth of information: "If one storyteller should happen to mention a raid, the next storyteller would know the date of this raid, while the third would know everything that an audience might wish to hear about it." Then, comparing the accounts of the raid of Kharrar by Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi, Crone shows that al-Waqidi, influenced by and in the manner of the storytellers, "will always give precise dates, locations, names, where Ibn Ishaq has none, accounts of what triggered the expedition, miscellaneous information to lend color to the event, as well as reasons why, as was usually the case, no fighting took place. No wonder that scholars are fond of al-Waqidi: where else does one find such wonderfully precise information about everything one wishes to know? But given that this information was all unknown to Ibn Ishaq, its value is doubtful in the extreme. And if spurious information accumulated at this rate in the two generations between Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that even more must have accumulated in the three generations between the Prophet and Ibn Ishaq." Thus, the biography of Mohammed is very much like that of Jesus Christ: the later the biographer, the more he 'knows' about his character. The earliest sources know little or nothing about their lives, and biographies are built up from 'facts' that successive retailers of tales 'discover' as needed. It has been shown 26 that the Sira (and almost certainly the Maghazi as well) depends to a large extent upon the Hadith, which we have already seen are mostly factitious creations of theopolitical propagandists. Moreover, many Hadith have been shown to be etiological expansions of Qur’anic passages, created to provide a causal biographical or historical background for particular'revelations'. This means that much of the Sira has been inferred from ambiguous or unintelligible passages in the Qur’an! Would-be biographers of Mohammed are faced with a chicken-or-egg conundrum at this point, since the Qur'an itself would appear to be a somewhat special collection of Hadith — many of which appear to have been manufactured for sale. The unreliability of the Sira as a source of information regarding the life of Mohammed affects even the supposedly foundational datum of his birth having been in the year 570 / 571 CE. Lawrence Conrad 27 has shown that well into the second Muslim century, scholarly opinion concerning the birth date of the Prophet was spread over a space of eighty-five years! If Muslim scholars during that crucial formative century had not yet decided when Mohammed had been born, what can we believe of the other dates that later became 'facts' of Muslim chronology? That the year 622 CE was indeed of early significance to the evolving religion has been confirmed from coins which mark it as the beginning of a new era. Nevertheless, there is no seventh-century source that identifies this year as the year of the Hegira. Two Nestorian Christian documents of 675 and 680 designate it as the year of "the rule of the Arabs." Casting yet another shadow on the doctrine of the Hegira as being a migration that took place in 622 CE is the Apocalypse of Samuel al-Qalamun, written in the eighth century. In this Coptic Christian prophecy, despite its having been composed in Arabic in Egypt, the term Hijra (Hegira) is employed for the Arab conquerors themselves, not for their move from Mecca to Medina! So completely has the critical examination of Muslim sources revealed the unreliability of the Sira as a biography and the weakness of all available biographical data, a number of Soviet scholars have been able to argue quite coherently that the historical Mohammed is as unreal as the historical Jesus! N. A. Morozov, 28 for instance, propounded the theory in 1930 that Mohammed and the first caliphs were mythical figures and that Islam was a form of Judaism until the time of the Crusades. In the same year, Klimovich 29 published "Did Muhammad Exist?" and argued that all our information on Mohammed is late and that his life was a necessary fiction springing from the euhemeristic notion that all religions have to have had a founder and that all the gods were once men. Yet another Soviet scholar, S. P. Tolstov, compared the myth of Mohammed with the deified shamans of the Yakuts, et al. 30 and argued that the practical purpose of the Mohammed myth was to prevent the disintegration of a political block of traders, nomads, and peasants which had helped a new feudal aristocracy come to power. It is not necessary to agree that Mohammed is a myth in order to understand the practical significance of the fact that such a view could be advanced in serious scholarly circles. Even if Mohammed did exist, we can know nothing about him from the existing sources. He might as well have been a myth. The Witness of the Infidels After considering the records of early non-Muslim sources that reported on the Arab conquest or ancient writers who wrote about the caravan trade before or during the supposed time of Mohammed, a writer styling himself "Ibn al-Rawandi" 31 integrated those dates into his deep understanding of the Muslim sources for their version of Islamic history and concluded that Once the Arabs had acquired an empire, a coherent religion was required in order to hold that empire together and legitimize their rule. In a process that involved a massive backreading of history, and in conformity to the available Jewish and Christian models, this meant they needed a revelation and a revealer (prophet) whose life could serve at once as a model for moral conduct and as a framework for the appearance of the revelation; hence the Koran, the Hadith, and the Sira, were contrived and conjoined over a period of a couple of centuries. Topographically, after a century or so of Judaeo-Muslim monotheism centered on Jerusalem, in order to make Islam distinctively Arab the need for an exclusively Hijazi origin became pressing. It is at this point that Islam as we recognize it today - with an inner Arabian biography of the Prophet, Mecca, Quraysh, Hijra, Medina, Badr, etc. - was really born, as a purely literary artefact. An artefact, moreover, based not on faithful memories of real events, but on the fertile imaginations of Arab storytellers elaborating from allusive references in Koranic texts, the canonical text of the Koran not being fixed for nearly two centuries. This scenario makes at least as much sense of the sources as the traditional account and eliminates many anomalies. From the vantage point of this skeptical analysis the narrative related in the Sira, that purports to be the life of the Prophet of Islam, appears as a baseless fiction. The first fifty-two years of that life, including the account of the first revelations of the Koran and all that is consequent upon that, are pictured as unfolding in a place that simply could not have existed in the way it is described in the Muslim sources. Mecca was not a wealthy trading center at the crossroads of Hijazi trade routes, the Quraysh were not wealthy merchants running caravan up and down the Arabian peninsula from Syria to the Yemen, and Muhammad, insofar as he was anything more than an Arab warlord of monotheist persuasion, did his trading far north of the Hijaz; furthermore, Mecca, as a sanctuary, if it was a sanctuary, was of no more importance than numerous others and was not a place of pilgrimage. Space will not allow examination of all the non-Muslim sources and other evidence that led al-Rawandi to these startling opinions. However, a few points can be noted. The tenth-century Armenian historian Thomas Artsruni (Ardsruni) understood Mohammed's base of operation to be in Midian, not in South Arabia, and identified Mecca with the Pharan located in Arabia Petraea, which comprised modern Jordan down into the Sinai peninsula. 32 Information on the qibla, the direction in which early Muslims prayed, comes from the tenth-century Coptic bishop of Ashmunein in Egypt, Severus b. al-Muzaffa 33 and from the Muslim historian Baladhuri, 34 who tells us that the qibla in the first mosque at Kufa (in Iraq) was westward, instead of south-southwest as would be the case if present-day Mecca were its focus. Added to other information that Jerusalem, not Mecca, was the focus of early Muslim worship, the archaeological discovery THAT an ancient mosque under the Great Mosque of Wasit was not oriented toward Mecca adds weight to the thesis that the Muslim movement started in northern, not southern, Arabia, and that the traditional story of Mohammed's movement from Mecca to Medina and back is a foundational myth concocted to completely Arabize a conquest history which found it necessary to distance itself from Judaism and Christianity for theopolitical reasons. Investigation of the role of Mecca in the origin and early evolution of Islam leads to the startling conclusion that the Mecca of Muslim tradition never existed - perhaps being as fictional as the Nazareth in the foundation myth of Christianity. In the Mohammedan sources, Mecca is depicted as a wealthy trading center, a natural crossroads for caravan shipment of goods by prosperous merchants not only from Yemen in the south to Syria and the Roman empire in the north, but also for east-west trade as well. 35 Unfortunately, the classical geographers who showed considerable interest in Arabia knew nothing about it. (The Macoraba of Ptolemy, which some Muslim apologists claim to have been Mecca, is derived from a different root and clearly was not relatable to the present-day city in the southern Hijaz.)&ngsp;36 The only place name in Ptolemy which conceivably could be related to the name 'Mecca' is Moka, a town in Arabia Petraea in present-day Jordan. Patricia Crone 37 sums up the evidence of non-Muslim sources as it pertains to the myth of Mecca: It is obvious that if the Meccans had been middlemen in a long-distance trade of the kind described in the secondary literature, there ought to have been some mention of them in the writings of their customers. Greek and Latin authors had after all, written extensively about the south Arabians who supplied them with aromatics in the past, offering information about their cities, tribes, political organization, and caravan trade; and in the sixth century they similarly wrote about Ethiopia and Adulis. The political and ecclesiastical importance of Arabia in the sixth century was such that considerable attention was paid to Arabian affairs, too; but of Quraysh and their trading center there is no mention at all, be it in the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Aramaic, Coptic, or other literature composed outside Arabia before the conquests. This silence is striking and significant. This silence cannot be attributed to the fact that sources have been lost, though some clearly have. The fact is that the sources written after the conquests display not the faintest sign of recognition in their accounts of the new rulers of the Middle East or the city from which they came. Nowhere is it stated that Quraysh, or the "Arab kings," were the people who used to supply such-and-such regions with such-and-such goods; it was only Muhammad himself who was known to have been a trader. And as for the city, it was long assumed to have been Yathrib. Of Mecca there is no mention for a long time; and the first sources to mention the sanctuary fail to give a name for it; whereas the first source to name it fails to locate it in Arabia. [The Continuatio Arabica gives Mecca an Abrahamic location between Ur and Harran.] Jacob of Edessa knew of the Ka‘ba toward which the Muslims prayed, locating it in a place considerably closer to Ptolemy's Moka than to modern Mecca or, in other words, too far north for orthodox accounts of the rise of Islam; but of the commercial significance of this place he would appear to have been completely ignorant. Whatever the implications of this evidence for the history of the Muslim sanctuary, it is plain that the Qurashi trading center was not a place with which the subjects of the Muslims were familiar. With the disappearance of Mecca from the list of documentable facts concerning the origins of Islam and the life of Mohammed, the character known as Mohammed of Mecca becomes as problematic as the character Jesus of Nazareth. Despite the claims of some Christian archaeologists otherwise of good repute, the archaeological and literary evidence shows that the place now known as Nazareth did not exist as an inhabited town during the first centuries BCE and CE. Without a Nazareth to come from, Jesus of Nazareth now seems as historical as the Wizard of Oz. Unexpectedly and quite surprisingly, the debunking of the Mecca of Muslim tradition makes it now seem likely that Mohammed of Mecca will soon be joining Jesus of Nazareth, the Wizard of Oz, and Peter Pan as a resident of Never-Never Land. FOR MORE INFORMATION The present essay has been greatly dependent upon the excellent books written or compiled by Ibn Warraq and published by Prometheus Books. Readers wishing to attain a solid understanding of the difficult subject of Mohammedan origins are urged to obtain and read these books: The Quest for the Historical Muhammad by Ibn Warraq Edited and translated by Ibn Warraq. Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York: 2000. Includes articles by early-modern and recent critical scholars concerned with the origins of Islam. Publishers Weekly: "... Warraq has provided a highly readable critical survey of the literature of this quest..." The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam's Holy Book by Ibn Warraq Pick one up for a friend! Edited by Ibn Warraq. Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York: 1998. Includes articles by early-modern and recent critical scholars concerned with the origins of the Qur'an. Book: Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell THE LAW OF SHARIA A Woman's Plight Early in December of 2001, a Sharia religious court of appeal in Muslim-dominated northwest Nigeria ordered a stay of execution for a woman who had been sentenced by a lower court to be stoned to death for having sex outside of marriage. The woman contended that she had been raped. The court granted the stay to allow Safiya Hussaini, 33, to appeal her sentence by a lower Sharia court in the state of Sokoto. The woman is a divorced mother with five children who would be orphaned and probably perish if the execution were carried out. The court imposed the sentence after Hussaini asked it to compel a man to pay for her infant daughter's naming ceremony. She charged he had raped her three times and impregnated her. When she charged the man with rape, the court dismissed the charges against him, citing a lack of evidence because she was the sole witness. After dismissing the rape charge against the man, the lower Sharia court then charged the woman with adultery and sentenced her to death in mid-October. She was given thirty days to appeal. According to Sura 2:282 of the Qur’an, the testimony of a woman is equal to only half the testimony of a man, so Hussaini's appeal will automatically be trumped by the rapist's counter-charge. Hussaini was sentenced to death because she was divorced. Had she never been married, the sentence would only have been one hundred lashes. The fate of her five children, of course, was of no concern to the religious court. The Nigerian federal government has said it will not allow the sentence to be carried out, but officials in Sokoto indicated that the federal government had not contacted them about the up-coming stoning. Nigeria is not yet "One Nation Under God," since Sharia has been imposed on less than a half of its 36 states. More than a thousand people have lost their lives in riots protesting the introduction of religious law. 570 CE Birth of Mohammad? 575 CE Persian occupation of souther Arabia 576 CE Death of Mohammad's mother, Amina? 602 CE End of Arab principality of Hira on Iraq-Arabian borderlands 610 CE Mohammed's first'revelation'? 613 CE Mohammad begins preaching Flight of his followers to Ethiopia? 619 CE Deaths of Khadija and Abu Talib? 620 CE Mohammed's "Night-Flight" from Mecca to Jerusalem and then to the Seventh Heaven? 622 CE Hegira of Mohammed from Mecca to Media? Islamic era begins July 1 Muslims win the Battle of Badr? Jewish tribe of al-Nadhir is crushed and expelled" "The War of the Trench," where Muslims in Medina repulse attack from Mecca? 627 CE Jewish Qurayza tribe attacked by Mohammed? Treaty of Hudaybiyya? Truce with the Quraysh? Jews of Khaybar are exterminated? 630 CE Mohammed conquers Mecca? 632 CE March, Pilgrimage of farewell? Dead of Mohammed? Abu Bakr becomes first caliph? 633-637 CE Arabs conquer Syria and Iraq 636 CE Battle of Qadisiyya, defeat of the Persians 639-642 CE Conquest of Egypt 650 CE Capture of island of Arwad 656 CE Murder of ‘Uthman? Beginning of first civil war in Islam? 657-659 CE Battle of Siffin Murder of ‘Ali Beginning of Umayyad dynasty Massacre of Husayn and Alids at Karbala 683-690 CE Second civil war 685-687 CE Revolt of Mukhtar in Iraq Beginning of extremist Shia‘ ‘Abd al-Malik introduces Arab coinage. Muslims land in Spain. Umayyads give way to abbasids. Umayyad prince ‘Abd ar-Rahman is Amir of Cordova. 762-763 CE Foundation of Baghdad by Mansur 809-813 CE Civil War of Amion and Mamun 813-833 CE Reign of Mamun Development of Arabic science and letters The Caliphs Orthodox Caliphs 11-40 AH / 632-661 CE? Abu Bakr 11 / 632? ‘Umar 13 / 634? ‘Uthman 23 / 644? ‘Ali 35-40 / 656-661? Umayyad Caliphs 41-132 AH / 661-750 CE Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad / Iraq 132-656 AH / 749-1258 CE Footnotes: A In transliterating Arabic, Hebrew, and other Semitic languages several special characters are required for sounds that either are not found in English or are not recognized as separate sounds having their own alphabetic characters. The character \| ’ \| is used to represent the glottal stop - the brief constriction of the throat that occurs when one pronounces a vowel at the beginning of an isolated word, but which is often absent when the word is preceded by an. Thus, we have ’apple, pronounced with a glottal stop, but ’an apple which, when smoothly pronounced, lacks the glottal stop before the second a. In Semitic languages, the glottal stop is given a symbol of its own and has the honor of being the first letter of the alphabet - alef - although in Arabic it carries a special diacritical mark called hamza to make it clear that the glottal stop is actually pronounced. Modern Arabic and ancient Hebrew have another special sound, a deep-throated, laryngeal glide, which is lacking in English but is considered to be a separate letter of the alphabet - ayin - and is transliterated with the special character \| ‘ \|. The difference between alef \| ’ [ and ayin \| ‘ \| can be illustrated by two rather undignified examples. A string of alefs (glottal stops) is pronounced when one imitates the sound of a machine-gun: ’aa!-’aa!-’aa!-’aa!-’aa! The ayin, on the other hand, is the dipping glide one makes when imitating the sound of an automobile engine being started up when it's ten below zero: ‘aah ‘aah ‘aah ‘aah ‘aah. Arabic, like most Semitic languages, has three gradations of aitch. The lightest of them, transliterated as h, is identical to the aitch of English. The harshest of them, usually transliterated as kh, is like the ch in the German name Bach. The middle aitch, transliterated with the special character h, is pretty much like the sound one makes when breathing heavily on bifocals to fog them for cleaning. B The term Muslim is classical Arabic, whereas Moslem is colloquial Arabic, where u has changed to o, and i has changed to e. Thus, Mohammed is the colloquial equivalent of Muhammad, and Umar becomes Omar. C The Muslim calendar, like the Jewish calendar, is a lunar calendar - the year consisting of six months of 29 days and six months of 30 days each. This adds up to only 354 days, creating a discrepancy with the solar year of a little over three years per century. Unlike Jewish calendrical practice, no attempt is made to bring the Moslem year into accord with the solar year (the Muslim calendar falls behind eleven days every solar year), intercalary days are added every three years or so to make up for the fact that a lunation is a bit more than 29.5 days lone. D AH = Anno Hegirae, 'In the year of the Hegira', reckoned from 16 July 622 CE. E Most of the terrorists, especially those from Arabia, have been members of a fundamentalist Sunni sect known as the Wahabis. Founded by Mohammed ibn-‘Abd-al-Wahab [1703-1791 CE] of the Najd region of Central Arabia, it is noted for its rejection of all 'novelties' absorbed by Islam, rejecting music and the wearing of silk or jewelry. Wahab rejected consensus of opinion as a source of authority. By marriage he became allied with the family of Saud - the ruling family of Saudi Arabia today. Recently, an Internet news site made the unconfirmed claim that the great majority of imams who lead American mosques are Wahabis. Reference Notes: 1 Alphonse Mingana, The Transmission of the Koran," in The Origins of the Koran, edited by Ibn Warraq, Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1998: 108. 2 Ibn Warraq, "Introduction," in The Origins of the Koran, 11. 3 Ibid., 13. 4 Mingana, op. cit., 98. 5 Ibid., 99. 6 Ibid., 102. 7 Ibid., 102-103. 8 Ibid., 104-106. 9 Ibid., 106. 10 Ibid., 107. 11 Ibid., 108-109. 12 Ibid., 109. 13 Ibid., 110. 14 Ibn Warraq, Koran, 14. 15 Ibid, 15. 16 Ibid, 16. 17 Ibid, 17. 18 Z. Sardar and Z. A. Malik, Muhammad for Beginners, 1994, quoted by Ibn al-Rawandi, "Origins of Islam: A Critical Look at the Sources," in The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, edited and translated by Ibn Warraq, Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2000: 89-90. 19 Ibn al-Rawandi, op. cit., 90. 20 Ibn Warraq, "Studies on Muhammad and the Rise of Islam," in The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, 44-45. 21 Ibid., 27. 22 Ibid., 27-28. 23 Ibid., 26. 24 Ibid., 28. 25 Ibid., 29. 26 Ibid., 48. 27 Quoted by Ibn al-Rawandi, op. cit., 102-103. 28 Cited by Ibn Warraq, Muhammad, 49. 29 Cited ibid., 49. 30 Ibid., 49. 31 Ibn al-Rawandi, op. cit., 104-105. 32 Ibn Warraq, Muhammad, 33. 33 Ibid., 33. 34 al-Rawandi, op. cit., 96. 35 Ibid., 98. 36 Ibid., 98. 37 Patricia Crone, quoted by al-Rawandi, op. cit., 99.BILOXI, Miss. — From Washington to the Gulf, politicians and residents wonder why so few skimming vessels have been put to work soaking up oil from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Investment banker Fred D. McCallister of Dallas believes he has the answer. McCallister, vice president of Allegiance Capital Corp. in Dallas, has been trying since June 5 to offer a dozen Greek skimming vessels from a client for the cleanup. “By sinking and dispersing the oil, BP can amortize the cost of the cleanup over the next 15 years or so, as tar balls continue to roll up on the beaches, rather than dealing with the issue now by removing the oil from the water with the proper equipment,” McCallister testified earlier this week before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “As a financial adviser, I understand financial engineering and BP’s desire to stretch out its costs of remediating the oil spill in the Gulf. By managing the cleanup over a period of many years, BP is able to minimize the financial damage as opposed to a huge expenditure in a period of a few years.” A BP spokesman from Houston, Daren Beaudo, denied the allegation emphatically. He said, “Our goal throughout has been to minimize the amount of oil entering the environment and impacting the shoreline.” A report released Thursday by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform included a photo depicting “a massive swath of oil” in the Gulf with no skimming equipment in sight. The report concluded: “The lack of equipment at the scene of the spill is shocking, and appears to reflect what some describe as a strategy of cleaning up oil once it comes ashore versus containing the spill and cleaning it up in the ocean.” McCallister’s experience in trying to win approval for the Greek vessels, along with the frustrations others have expressed in offering specialized equipment, contradicts the official pronouncements from BP and the federal government about the approval process. For foreign vessels, that process is complicated by a 1920 maritime law known as the Jones Act. Coast Guard Rear Adm. James Watson, who oversees the Unified Command catastrophe response in New Orleans, determined in mid-June an insufficient number of U.S. skimming vessels is available to clean up oil, essentially exempting from the federal Jones Act foreign vessels that could be used in the response, said Capt. Ron LaBrec, a spokesman at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington. The Jones Act allows only vessels that are U.S. flagged and owned to carry goods between U.S. ports. To further clarify, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, promised expedited Jones Act waivers for any essential spill-response activities. “Should any waivers be needed,” Allen said at the time, “we are prepared to process them as quickly as possible to allow vital spill response activities being undertaken by foreign-flagged vessels to continue without delay.” LaBrec said 24 foreign vessels, two of them skimming vessels, have operated around the catastrophe site, in federal waters with no need for Jones Act waivers. He also said Watson has the authority to approve operation of foreign-flagged vessels near shore, where the Jones Act comes into play because of the port restrictions. Fred D. McCallister, Vice President, Allegiance Capital Corporation “If the unified area commander (Watson) decides that it’s a piece of equipment he needs, either BP would contract for it or he can do that himself,” LaBrec said. “If it’s something he decides is absolutely needed, he can get it in here without BP approval. “The equipment that has been offered — the foreign equipment that has been offered that is useful for the response — has either been accepted or is in the group of offers that is currently in the process of being accepted. That has been occurring since early in the response and will continue to occur.” Dealing with BP McCallister said none of his dealings have been with the Coast Guard. He submitted requests for Jones Act waivers to Unified Command, but said questions about the skimming vessels have come from BP. BP spokesman Beaudo said McCallister was notified his offer of skimming vessels has been declined because the vessels will not pick up heavy oil near shore. Beaudo said he did not know when McCallister was informed. McCallister said he received communications from BP on Thursday that indicated his proposal was still under review. In fact, he sent supplemental material Thursday, which was accepted, to show the skimming vessels will pick up heavy oil like that bombarding Mississippi’s coastline. The 60-foot vessels, he said, can skim high-density crude up to 20 miles offshore. Equipment on board separates the oil from water. Desperate for skimmers All the Gulf states dealing with oil have pleaded for more skimming vessels. The Deepwater Horizon Web site indicates 550 “skimmers” were at work before bad weather suspended operations. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s office has ordered private shipyards to build skimming vessels because so few have been working in state waters. George Malvaney, who heads the Mississippi Coast cleanup effort for BP subcontractor U.S. Environmental Services, said offers of skimming vessels and other equipment take time to review. He believes Mississippi will have a “substantial skimming effort” by late next week. “Just because it’s a skimmer doesn’t mean it’s effective,” Malvaney said. “There’s a lot of people out there saying, ‘We’ve got skimmers.’ Some are effective, some are not. That’s what we’re trying to wade through right now.” More than meets the eye? As the catastrophe reaches Day 73, McCallister, who grew up in Mississippi and has family on the Coast, believes there is just more to it. “Looking at it from a businessman’s perspective,” he said, “if I am BP, assuming I don’t have a conscience that would steer me otherwise, the best thing I can do for my shareholders, my pensioners, and everybody else, is to try to spread the cost of this remediation out as long as I can. “I am concerned it is seen by BP as being the most pragmatic financial approach. But they’re playing Russian roulette with the Gulf, the marine life in the Gulf and the people in the Gulf region.”WASHINGTON — In the three short weeks since a poor, unlicensed Tunisian fruit-seller set himself on fire after police seized his wares, protests have ousted his country's long-time authoritarian ruler and confronted Egypt's octogenarian president with the greatest challenge of his 30 years in power. Thousands of Yemenis inspired by Mohamed Bouazizi's death in Tunisia demanded an end to their ruling strongman's 32-year reign Thursday, and political ferment has been growing in Jordan as well as energy-rich Algeria and Moammar Gaddafi's Libya. Tunisian flags and slogans have appeared at protests in Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere, and Tunisians are offering advice to protesters in other countries via Facebook and Twitter such as carrying goggles and scarves to fend off tear gas. Mass protests have been called in Egypt, Yemen and Jordan Friday. Meanwhile, Lebanon appears to be headed into a new ethnic and religious upheaval. Here are brief descriptions of the tumultuous events and the underlying causes. EGYPT Since Tuesday, Egyptians have marched in the largest grassroots anti-regime demonstrations since 1977 riots over bread prices. There's no single organizer, and activists, students, and ordinary people have coordinated over cellular telephones, the Internet and social networking sites. U.S.-allied President Hosni Mubarak, who's ruled since 1981 and is expected to try to pass the office to his son, Gamal, has received billions of dollars in U.S. military and civilian aid. Egyptians are fed up with rampant corruption, repression, joblessness and rising prices — issues raised in chants and on homemade signs. At least six people have been killed, hundreds injured and nearly 1,000 arrested. President Barack Obama Thursday urged both the Egyptian government and protesters to avoid violence. Answering questions via YouTube, he insisted that he'd pressed Mubarak in the past about political and economic overhauls, and said Egypt's government must provide its people "mechanisms in order to express legitimate grievances." In the past, Washington has mostly ignored the regime's mass arrests and indefinite detention of political prisoners, particularly activists of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. YEMEN Tens of thousands of people marched Thursday in the capital, Sanaa, demanding an end to the 32-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who's been accused of corruption, nepotism and human rights abuses in one of the Arab world's poorest countries. Saleh also has angered Yemenis by allowing U.S. drone strikes on suspected al Qaida targets inside Yemen in exchange for a dramatic increase in U.S. counterterrorism aid. He's struggling with a rebellion by ethnic Houthi rebels in the north, a budding insurrection in the south and violence by an al Qaida faction that has staged several failed terrorist attacks against the U.S. Many Yemenis customarily carry guns. New protests were expected Friday, but Yemen's political opposition is fractured and it's uncertain if the mostly young demonstrators can sustain their momentum. Saleh has tried to defuse tensions, denying that he's grooming his son to succeed him and offered to talk with his opponents. The government organized its own pro-Saleh rallies on Thursday, but turnouts were low. "The opposition is calling for change of regime but they don't have answers," said Faras Sanabani, an adviser to Saleh's regime. "And I can assure you that people here don't want violence because then you would have 5 million guns in the streets, and people know how dangerous it is for the country to go into chaos." TUNISIA Tunisia's spontaneous popular uprising, which ousted authoritarian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, gave hope to pro-democracy activists in a region led by intractable monarchs, dictators and dynasties. However, Tunisians continue to protest daily in hopes of creating an interim government without any Ben Ali-era figures, and the state is struggling to restore order since the president's Jan. 14 ouster. It remains to be seen whether Tunisians will achieve one of their main goals: hauling Ben Ali back from exile for a public reckoning of his regime's alleged abuses. ALGERIA Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's military-backed government has been making major international grain purchases in an apparent bid to avoid
above to help out her teammates and deal a little bit of damage. The blasts hit the remaining wolves and she landed on her feet. Yang smiled and made a victory sign. However, she failed to notice one of the wolves coming at her. Blake and Weiss warned the brawler about the sneak attack and Yang turned around to see the wolf coming. She jumped back to avoid the attack. "Ha, you missed you!" Yang's gloating was cut short as she noticed a single golden hair fall in front her. She made a face Blake and Weiss knew all too well. Yang growled as she gritted her teeth. "YOU'RE DEAD!" Her lilac eyes now become blood red and her hair was glowing. She rushed over to the wolf and punched it directly into its face and sent it directly to the other side. To add to that, the wolf exploded as it crashed. The goddesses didn't know what to think of what they saw. "Oh, my. And here I thought she was the most carefree one." Vert stated. "Jeez. She has Vert's looks and Blanc's temper. Remind me not play hairdresser with her." Neptune added. While Blanc could say something about that, the other CPU was right. "And what's with her gauntlets? They sound like shotguns or something when she's firing them." The other two members walked up to Yang as the other girl calmed down. "That'll teach you to mess with my hair!" Weiss crossed her arms. "I guess even other dimension monsters should know better than to harm what she cherishes the most." Blake nodded in agreement. With that small talk out of the way, they all rushed to help out Ruby to take out the rest of the wolves. Speaking of the young leader, she was dealing the remaining wolves that were fighting her. Ruby used her sembalance to take them out quickly. They couldn't keep up with her as she cut through all of them with ease. They all fell one by one until Ruby shot the last one that tried to jump her. As it fell down, Ruby breathed out. She saw her sister and the rest of her team running up to her. "Hey, guys!" The sisters high-fived each other and Yang looked around. "Nice work sis. These things weren't so tough." This is one of the few times Weiss had to agree. They were much easier to deal than that dragon monster she had to fight the first time. However, something wasn't right. Blake felt the same way. "I don't think we're done yet." The two sisters looked at her. "Why's that Blake? We did a pretty good number on them." Blake recalled what happened when she fought with IF. "These monsters aren't done yet. I know because when they're killed, they turn into some flash of light." That reminded Weiss that the same thing happened when she saw Neptune one shot that monster. It turned into a bunch of lights as well. They all heard snarls and turned around to see the wolves standing back up. Even if they were heavily injured, they weren't about to give up. "Jeez. All of that was enough to take out a pack of beowolves and ursas. These things are the weakest?" Yang complained. "Well, we should've expected that. These aren't monsters we're used to hunting." Weiss stated. Ruby walked in front of the team. "Then let's finish them. TEAM FORMATION RWBY!" They all knew what that meant. All of them readied themselves. "WHITEROSE! BUMBLEBEE!" The other three smiled when they heard that. "Sounds good to me!" Yang shouted as she ran to the wolf pack with Blake right behind her. Ruby and Weiss followed suit. All of them knew the plan. Take out each half of the pack. However, Yang decided to add something extra. "First team to wipe their share tells the losing team whatever they do!" "You're saying that now!" Weiss shouted. She shook her head. Now wasn't the time for a petty squabble. Both teams came in close to their halves. Ruby jumped and hacked through one of the wolves and it turned into countless lights. Another one tried to attack her but a glyph blocked the attack. "Pay attention, you dunce!" Weiss thrust her rapier through the monster and it too turned into countless lights. Both of them stood back to back with their weapons ready. As their backs were touching, Weiss felt her heart beat increase. This always happens whenever she was near the red hooded girl. "Get it together. You can figure it out later." Meanwhile, over to Yang and Blake, the brawler of the group struck one of the wolves up and Blake jumped to slash it through. The wolf turned into countless lights and Blake threw the ribbon attached to the end of Gambol Shroud to Yang. While the blonde caught the ribbon, Blake turned her weapon into a gun again and began to shoot at the monsters below. As soon as she landed, Blake pulled her ribbon will everything she had along with Yang hold on to it. The Faunus girl threw the ribbon over where there was a group of wolves rushing at her. However, they were stopped and Yang punched one of them into the ground as the force of the attack sent the rest away from it. The wolf the blonde struck turned into countless lights and started to work on the next closest one. Blake slashed through her share of the wolves as they turned into countless lights. Weiss and Ruby made quick work with the monsters they had to deal with thanks to their teamwork. The same with Yangs and Blake's. One by one the monsters fell until there was only one left on each side. Keeping up with the flow, Ruby aimed her scythe at it while Weiss placed several glyphs in front of it. Blake used her sembalance to confuse the wolf while Yang was behind her. The wolf struck what it thought was Blake but it went through her with ease and Yang was up close to it. Ruby fired a round and went through the glyphs as they made the bullet more powerful. Blake was behind the wolf ready to strike. The two attacks simultaneously finished off the remaining monsters as the bullet tore through the wolf and Blake and Yang's cross attack crushed the other one. Both of them turned into countless lights and there were none left. All of them looked around then each other and cheered. While they did, the CPUs were also impressed at they did. "That was quite the show they did." Vert spoke. Noire nodded in agreement. "Yeah but it's hard to believe they're still in training." "Makes you wonder what the teachers are like." Neptune added. Team RWBY continued to cheer at their victory until they heard a loud howl. All of them stop as they took in the howl they had just heard. They all felt a chill go up their spine when they heard it. Whatever made that was most definitely a large howl. All of them turned to the forest that was ahead of them and saw something very large come out. It was a wolf but it was much larger and much more feral than the ones they had fought. It looked at the group of girls with its bloodthirsty eyes. Yang laughed nervously. "So…who wants to take that on?"Is this teenage Mongolian girl one of the last eagle hunters — or the first of a new breed? Updated In the remote mountains of north-western Mongolia, a teenage girl is her family's sole hope of keeping an ancient tradition alive. Akbota Baitilkarib, 14, petite and shy, is training to become a golden eagle hunter. With perhaps as few as 60 authentic eagle hunters left, it's feared the tradition could die out within a generation. So Akbota is taking on a weighty responsibility in trying to save it. In her conservative community, where most girls marry young and stick to child-rearing and household chores, Akbota is breaking boundaries. "Of course girls can do anything the boys do," she tells Foreign Correspondent. "We're resilient, and if you never give up, you can do anything." Her parents are backing her all the way. "The idea that women can only do domestic chores is ancient," her schoolteacher mother Takhau Oser says. "In today's world, girls need to be hardy and be competitive with boys — that's why I don't agree with that old thinking." Akbota takes some inspiration from another teenage girl hunter, Aisholpan — star of the international hit documentary The Eagle Huntress. But Akbota has been training for three years and following hunts for six — long before the movie shot Aisholpan to fame. Akbota's three older brothers have all gone to the distant city for education and work. So it's up to her to assume the mantle of her eagle hunter dad Orken. When Foreign Correspondent films Akbota at training, her eagle looks almost as big as her. It weighs close to eight kilograms, and sometimes she struggles with it. But in a couple of years Orken expects she can be a fully-fledged hunter, taking her golden eagle high into wintry mountains to bring down foxes, marmots and rabbits. "She is making good progress so that makes me proud. And I'm happy for her because she loves this very much," he says. "I want to encourage girls like Akbota and Aishalpan. They're going the right way." Introducing hunting culture to world The girls face resistance from old-timers like Khabyl Khakh — a weather-beaten veteran of 50 years of winter hunts in isolated steppes and valleys. "There have never been any eagle huntresses," he says. "In the past, women didn't go up the mountain. They got married and moved away. Being an eagle huntress is just a passing thing." The eagle hunters are Kazakhs. Many are nomads. They are clinging to their hunting culture in this corner of Mongolia; in neighbouring Kazakhstan the tradition was lost under Soviet rule. Older hunters fear their tradition is doomed. But there are youngsters, male and female, who are fighting to keep it alive. "My plan is to teach coming generations about how to train hunting eagles," Akbota says. "I also want to introduce our hunting culture to the world. "If I'm brave and determined, I'll keep doing this — after all, this is a Kazakh national treasure. I want to do my part and teach others to let it live on." The Last Eagle Hunters airs on Foreign Correspondent at 9.30pm on ABC TV. Topics: animals, human-interest, community-and-society, mongolia First postedAppalachian Trail Conservancy Teaches "Master" Leave No Trace Course Home News Appalachian Trail Conservancy Teaches "Master" Leave No Trace Course Published Aug 6, 2015 No organization, no matter how sincere or well organized, can change society. Society must change itself; however, because society is so dang antisocial, we must speak up and urge them to get its act together. That's why the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and Leave No Trace are working together to spread the news about "Leave No Trace." Our pals at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (especially Julie Judkins) and the folks we don't know so well at the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics will combine forces to teach Leave No Trace principles. To instruct the unshowered masses on the AT, the ATC has been proclaimed a "Master Educator Course Provider." Only ten other groups in the US are authorized to teach these advanced Leave No Trace materials to hikers and the general public. According to Javier Folgar: "As a Master Educator course provider, the ATC will be a catalyst for fostering positive change among the hiking and trail communities by offering premier training designed to curb harmful habits. This is ever more important due to the recent release of the movie "Wild" and the upcoming release of "A Walk in the Woods," which presents the ATC with a great opportunity, but also comes with its own set of challenges, due to the expected increase in usage on the Trail. The ATC will take on these challenges with education and awareness, two of the most important tools at the organization's disposal to reduce hiker impact and ensure the protection of the Trail and its resources for many years to come. "The Master Educator course enables the Appalachian Trail Conservancy to educate hikers about Leave No Trace Principles, and qualifies those who complete it to lead the courses themselves," said Marian Orlousky, northern resource management coordinator for the ATC. "The Leave No Trace Principles will supply you with the information and knowledge you need to enjoy the outdoors in a safe, responsible and gratifying way." The Leave No Trace course structure has three tiers devised to educate participants with varying experience and expertise. The one-day Awareness courses are constructed for anyone with an interest in Leave No Trace skills and ethics. The two-day Trainer courses are designed for educators, serious outdoor users and outdoor employees. The five-day comprehensive Master Educator course caters to individuals who are actively teaching backcountry skills and providing outdoor recreation information to other users. The ATC will offer two Leave No Trace Master Educator courses this year. In 2015 only, courses will be offered at the discounted rate of $400 exclusively for A.T. volunteers, Trail Club and Conservancy members, and agency partners. Beyond 2015, courses will be open to everyone. Over the course of five days, participants gain an in-depth understanding of the "why" behind the seven principles of Leave No Trace, and explore their personal backcountry ethics among fellow A.T. stewards and outdoor professionals. 2015 Leave No Trace Courses Konnarock Base Camp August 28th - September 1st Mount Rogers National Recreation Area 609 Flat Ridge Road Sugar Grove, VA 24375 Blackburn Trail Center September 14th - 18th 34899 Appalachian Trail Road Round Hill, VA 20141 To enroll in a Leave No Trace Master Educator course or to learn more about upcoming opportunities, e-mail leavenotrace@appalachiantrail.org. Tags: Attractions, Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Appalachian Trail, News, Conservation, leave no trace, and appalachian trail conservancy leave no traceEvery day I ask myself once again: “How low will they go?” And then something like this happens.. TPM: GOP Mailer In Pennsylvania Suggests Electing Obama Could Lead To Second Holocaust A reader sends in a nasty mailer that just hit Philadelphia-area in-boxes, blasted out by a GOP group called the Republican Jewish Coalition, suggesting that a vote for Barack Obama could lead to another “tragic outcome” for the Jewish people. “Concerned about Barack Obama? You should be,” the mailer warns. “History has shown that a naive and weak foreign policy has resulted in tragic outcomes for the Jewish people.” The mailer helpfully notes that the image is a pic of Obama speaking in Germany. Read more… Why is it that the only way the GOP can win this election is by scaring the holy shit out of people? They have NOTHING to offer in the way of moving this country forward, or fixing all that is broken in the wake of the Bush/Cheney Administration. This is so over the top, there aren’t words… So, here’s their message — their ONLY message: FEAR — SMEAR — FEAR — SMEAR — FEAR — SMEAR — FEAR — SMEAR… Well, are you afraid yet? Is THIS what you want for this country? Are these the people you want to lead us there? Are THESE the people you want deciding our policies and the direction our country needs to go? VOTE and make your voice heard on November 4th! : : : : : : : : : :Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar: “There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.” Elizabeth Warren should endorse the presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders before the New Hampshire primary or, in the alternative, Mr. Sanders should publicly state that if he receives the Democratic nomination his first act will be to ask Ms. Warren to run with him as his vice-presidential nominee in a historic and revolutionary campaign to bring back the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy to the leadership of the nation. The coming weeks will be one of the most important moments in the history of the American progressive movement. Hillary Clinton will begin her inevitable move toward the right, guided by her corporatist campaign consultants. It is possible Mr. Sanders will win both the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire, shock the political world, electrify the Democratic party and turn the presidential campaign from a sickening spectacle of personal insults and phony politics into a forum to create and bring to power a new progressive populist majority. It is also possible Mr. Sanders will ultimately lose the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, proceed to lose the Southern primaries that follow, and cease to be viable candidate for the presidency, in which case a triumphant Hillary Clinton will shift her tactics and begin her inevitable move toward the right with the false belief, guided by her corporatist campaign consultants, that this would be her path to victory in November. According to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, one of the favorite quotes of President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy was their version of one from Dante’s Inferno: the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis preserve their neutrality. With the future of the Democratic Party and the nation hanging in the balance, now is the time for Ms. Warren to end her neutrality in the presidential campaign and endorse Mr. Sanders, or for Mr. Sanders to take the revolutionary act and say that if nominated he would offer her the vice presidential nomination and seek to run on a Sanders-Warren ticket. Revolutions are won by boldness and daring that excites and mobilizes vast numbers of people behind causes that lift their lives and transform the future of their country. Here is what almost certainly happens if either of my suggestions becomes reality in the next few weeks: On the morning after the New Hampshire primary, a triumphant Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren will be standing on a platform in New Hampshire celebrating a great victory and taking their progressive populist vision from one corner of the nation to the other. The citizen-small donors who support the Sanders campaign will pour oceans of money into the coffers of his campaign that will shatter all historic records and create a true revolution in the history of campaign finance that would be one of the most democratizing events in America since Jefferson put pen to paper. The ratings-hungry corporatists and sensationalists who run political television and have turned TV political coverage into a distasteful freak show of falsehoods and insults will swarm over the Sanders-Warren victory like bees swarm to honey and take the Sanders-Warren message of government of the people, by the people and for the people to every living room across the nation. In an era when progressive populism has waves of support from voters that is not reflected by traditional politicians or media that covers them, suddenly—in what will appear as an immaculate conception to the old guard of conventional politics and media—the people of the nation will finally be presented with a choice for change that has a chance of prevailing and not echo of a decrepit status quo that seems to always prevail no matter how powerfully the voters express their demands for change. John Lennon once asked: “You say you want a revolution?” Revolutions, from 1776 until today, are not won by caution or calculation. They are won by boldness and daring that excites and mobilizes vast numbers of people behind causes that lift their lives and transform the future of their country. Mr. Sanders is the great champion in the presidential campaign of a progressive populist future in the tradition of the great Democratic presidents in American history. Ms. Warren is the great champion in the Congress of this vision of America in which a rising tide truly lifts all boats in an America where equality becomes a way of life and not merely a campaign slogan. If they come together before the New Hampshire primary the result will be a modern Lexington and Concord with revolutionary impact—in deed as well as words—that would bring real change that voters can truly believe in. I strongly supported the selection of Elizabeth Warren to lead the consumer protection agency that was born from her vision. That did not happen. Then I was one of the first columnists to call for a draft movement to bring her to the Senate seat once held by the incomparable giant Ted Kennedy. That did happen—and ever since then I have proudly written of Ms. Warren as the conscience of the Senate, which she is and will always remain so long as she serves in what was once called the great deliberative body but is now a Republican-controlled bastion of obstruction and dysfunction. Some Democrats have suggested, incorrectly in my view, that the best course for Ms. Warren is to remain neutral in the presidential race to “preserve her influence.” I believe this is nonsense. In the Republican-dominated Senate, through no fault of her own, no progressive senator has any influence at this time. Similarly, if Ms. Clinton sweeps to victory in Iowa and New Hampshire and becomes the de facto nominee shortly thereafter, many in the liberal base will be deeply disillusioned as Ms. Clinton begins her move to the right, confident that liberals have no place else to go in a general election against Republicans. By contrast, if the scenario I suggest unfolds, Ms. Clinton will almost immediately take more forceful progressive positions to meet the challenge, which would make her a better and more progressive candidate and, in my view, a more electable nominee and better president if she is ultimately nominated and elected. In the scenario I suggest the influence of both Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren would skyrocket no matter which candidate receives the nomination. If Mr. Sanders receives the nomination with a victorious progressive populist surge their influence would soar with the potential to lead the nation to a new era of historic progressive leadership. If Ms. Clinton receives the nomination Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren would be absolutely essential to her general election victory by first encouraging her to campaign on a strongly progressive agenda and then rousing all liberals and Democrats to come to the polls with an enthusiasm that only they can generate at the presidential campaign level. You say you want a revolution? The joining together of Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, one way of the other, is by far the best way to make it happen!In the end, they remained faithful electors. Amid protests across the country, members of the Electoral College on Monday formally confirmed Donald Trump as the next president of the United States. By early Monday evening, the president-elect clinched the 270 electoral votes required to officially win the White House. Hillary Clinton trailed far behind, with 166 votes, including 29 from New York. “With this historic step we can look forward to the bright future ahead. I will work hard to unite our country and be the President of all Americans. Together, we will make America great again,” Trump said in a statement. One “faithless elector” in Maine voted for Bernie Sanders instead of Clinton, but his vote was ruled improper and he had to vote for Clinton instead. “I cast my Electoral College vote for Bernie Sanders today to let those new voters who were inspired by him know that some of us did hear them, did listen to them, do respect them and understand their disappointment,” Maine elector David Bright wrote in a statement on Facebook. Another elector in Minnesota, Muhammad Abdurrahman, also refused to vote for Clinton, and was replaced by an alternate. A third elector in Colorado, Michael Baca, also declined to vote for Clinton, and was replaced. So far, no GOP electors have voted against Trump, despite a nationwide movement urging College members to go rogue and cast ballots for another candidate. Chris Suprun, a Texas elector, said he would support John Kasich, the Ohio governor and former GOP presidential candidate, but the vote wasn’t expected until later Monday. In Pennsylvania, protesters made a last-ditch effort to influence electors, screaming, “Vote your conscience” from the House gallery. At least 12 of the Keystone State’s 20 electors were given police protection as they voted, the Post Gazette reported. In Wisconsin, protesters braved frigid temperatures to demonstrate outside the state Capitol, and some chanted “shame” after all 10 electors cast ballots for Trump. New York’s vote in Albany was a solemn affair. Former President Bill Clinton, who cast a ballot of his wife, said afterward, “I was never prouder to cast a vote.” “I watched her work for two years. I watched her battle that bogus email deal … She prevailed against it all,” he said. “Then in the end we had the Russians and the FBI deal. She couldn’t prevail against that.” In the weeks before the historic vote, Democratic advocates waged an aggressive campaign by email, snail mail and social media to get electors to switch their vote against Trump. Some Electoral College members were even victims of cyber-bullying and received death threats. The unusually-high activity surrounding the Electoral College vote was part of a systematic effort to change the normally formal affair into something more fluid — and tip the outcome of November’s election away from Trump, who amassed 306 electoral votes in his stunning win over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. She ended up with 232 electoral votes. A host of B- and C-list celebrities, led by Martin Sheen, even teamed up to beg Republican electors to be “heroes” and vote against Trump. Former Senator Scott Brown, a Trump surrogate and a frontrunner to be the next head of the Veterans Affairs, called it an effort to “undermine this president-elect and all of the folks that have supported him.” see also Washington state electors go rogue The electors in Washington state have spoken, giving eight Electoral... “I take my job as an elector very seriously, and in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump won,” Mary Barket, a Pennsylvania elector, told the Post Gazette. “So any argument thereafter, especially about the nature of him being a president, is not going to have an effect on me,” she added. Democrats have questioned whether Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the emails of Clinton campaign staff members affected the election. Some Democratic electors asked for but did not receive an intelligence briefing before casting their votes Monday. Polling indicates that American voters believe the Electoral College should accept the will of the people, as expressed in the Nov. 8 presidential election. Forty-six percent say electors should vote for the candidate that won their state, while only 34 percent believe electors should be able to vote for someone else. The electoral votes won’t be formally tallied until Jan. 6, when Vice President Joe Biden, before a joint session of Congress, is expected to certify the results. If no one candidate gets the necessary majority to win the presidency — 270 votes — then the House of Representatives will vote on the next president. The House, of course, is controlled by the Republicans and would then almost certainly give the election to Trump. Electors are selected by each state to actually cast ballots for the president in the Electoral College.CANTON, Ohio -- For the Dallas Cowboys, the most memorable part of Pro Football Hall of Fame weekend begins Friday night when owner/GM Jerry Jones receives his gold jacket and ends Saturday when he is inducted into the Hall. The Cowboys' 20-18 win against the Arizona Cardinals in the Hall of Fame Game on Thursday will not be remembered for much besides being the first game of a preseason that the Cowboys hope will lead to Super Bowl XLII. But there are a few things worth commenting on, both good and bad. QB depth chart: Since starter Dak Prescott sat, Kellen Moore got the start and directed the Cowboys on two scoring drives in four tries in his first action since Dallas' 2015 season finale. Moore missed the 2016 season with an ankle injury, but he has been solid in camp. He finished with 182 yards on 12-of-17 passing, a touchdown and an interception in the first half. He showed touch underneath but was also able to hook up with receiver Brice Butler for a 46-yard gain. Moore might have gotten greedy on his interception, but he was giving receiver Noah Brown a chance to make a play in the end zone. There should be no qualms about Moore as the backup after what he showed against the Cardinals. Kellen Moore looked good in the Cowboys' first preseason game and will be a solid backup for Dak Prescott. Aaron Doster/USA TODAY Sports When it was starters vs. starters, the Cowboys looked …: Is "meh" a good enough description? Neither team played its true starters. Of the 22 projected regular-season starters for the Cowboys, only five started -- Jeff Heath, Byron Jones, Damien Wilson, La'el Collins and Jonathan Cooper. The defense gave up two touchdowns on the Cardinals' first two drives. Dallas' offense scored on two of its first three possessions. None of it was really great. None of it was too alarming. One reason to be concerned: You never want to get carried away over the first preseason game, especially the Hall of Fame Game, considering the Cowboys have had only six padded practices, but what could be considered the first-team defense allowed too many big plays. The Cardinals had four pass plays of more than 20 yards on their first two touchdown drives. That guy could start: Terrance Williams appears to be locked in as the No. 2 receiver, but Butler needs to be considered for the spot after his performance in the spring and thus far this summer. He had two catches for 78 yards Thursday, including the deep pass, but his second catch was even better, a diving 24-yarder to convert a third down. This is as sharp as Butler has looked since he joined the Cowboys via a trade in 2015. Rookie watch: Defensive end Taco Charlton, Dallas' first-round pick, saw a few plays and wasn’t noticeable. Why the Cowboys did not use him more is somewhat mystifying. He needs the work and needs to build his confidence. Cornerback Chidobe Awuzie, a second-rounder, nearly had an interception to close the first half but gave up a few completions. Rico suave: Before the game, tight end Rico Gathers' biggest claim to fame in camp was getting kicked out of a practice after a fight. The former college basketball player, who did not play college football, made the right kind of news Thursday with a 26-yard touchdown grab. After limited playing time last summer in his first foray into football since junior high, Gathers started Thursday and was able to post his first touchdown, using his big body to fend off an Arizona defender. He remains a project but there are pieces to work with. Injury report: Second-year cornerback Anthony Brown suffered a hamstring strain on the second drive and did not return. Brown started but is considered the Cowboys’ third corner behind Orlando Scandrick and Nolan Carroll. The severity of the injury is not yet known, but if Brown misses extended time, Awuzie will get a chance to win the nickelback job. Familiar face: Learning his new craft as a TV analyst, former Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo went through a mock broadcast of Thursday’s game with his new partner at CBS, Jim Nantz. Romo has had a number of practice games, but this was his first live call. His debut with CBS comes Aug. 25 when the Seattle Seahawks host the Kansas City Chiefs. Nantz is in town calling the PGA Tour’s WGC Bridgestone Invitational.(Part Two) Our investigation into the philosophical roots of social justice continues... Dr. Stephen Hicks is a Professor of Philosophy at Rockford College and the Executive Director of The Center For Ethics and Entrepreneurship. He joins me today to discuss the consequences of postmodernism as a political/education project. Discussed: - Words as weapons - Do the postmodernists of the mid-20th century set out to undermine the enlightenment? - The philosophical movement has a long philosophical lineage dating back to Rousseau and the German idealists, it comes to prominence in the 1960s - What's confusing for the novice here - These people looked back the enlightenment, reason as a starting point instead of faith and superstition, how did they look at dividends that were paid, that they were the beneficiaries of, science, engineering, medicine, free markets, abolition, spreading material wealth, emergence of leisure time, near universal literacy and not say this is something we could improve upon? But instead, this is something to be undone or attacked? - Postmodern art - Hypothesis: post-modernism is the crisis of faith for the academic left (it's how socialism moves forward) Bumper Music: "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" Timbuk 3 Well I'm well aware of the world out there, getting blown all to bits, but what do I care? "After the Gold Rush" Neil Young Look at Mother Nature on the run In the nineteen seventies. Please Support School Sucks Our Amazon Wish List Donate With Bitcoin Or Join the A/V Club Support Us On Patreon Shop With Us At Amazon Your continued support keeps the show going and growing, which keeps us at the top of the options for education podcasts and leads to new people discovering this message. This subscription also grants you access to the A/V Club, a bonus content section with 200+ hours of exclusive audio and video. If you are a regular consumer of our media, please consider making a monthly commitment by selecting the best option for you... A/V Club - Basic Access - $8.00/Month AP Club - "Advanced" Access - $12.00/Month Sigma Sigma Pi - Full Access - $16.00/Month Like this: Like Loading...Demba Ba, international soccer star and guiding light of San Diego’s NASL expansion team, chats with Katy Temple and SoccerNation’s Dike Anyiwo in Voice of San Diego’s podcast studio. He goes in depth about what sparked his life project and the close knit friend group behind it all. Demba illustrates for listeners what his upbringing looked like, shares his values and how he plans to infuse the new club in San Diego with a culture that truly reflects both the founders and the community. “I know that down the road you want to develop an Academy and complete this passion project – not only build a team but develop these players,” Temple says to Ba. “What is it that you would like them most to know about soccer and passion?” “We are going to build the Academy down the road. It’s going to take a few years probably, but we don’t have a problem with that. We’re going to be here for a long time,” Ba says. “And what we want to develop, what we want to give them is – before they are football players, they are men. They need to grow and they need to have values…We want to teach them how to play soccer, for sure, but how to be a good man as well. This is one of the most important things, at least for me and for the group of guys who are behind me, because football is 15, 20 years. And your life is way longer than that.” The announcement was just the beginning. Stay tuned, San Diego.We just got word from the EA server pipeline that an update is on its way, and what an update it will be!! Springfield’s most feared and loved, if that makes any sense, criminal Sideshow Bob is about to pounce on our Springfield’s. And he’s bringing backup by way of his family, the Terwilligers!! Tapped Out’s newest unique event is right around the corner and Homer’s New Year’s resolutions from 2014 is one step closer to being completed. We’re still pouring through the information at the moment so we’ll give you what we have. Find out what this criminal family is planning after the jump! Terwilliger Event As I said up front we’re still going through the information as we speak so all of the details are still not clear. What is clear is that Sideshow Bob is FINALLY coming to us as a playable character!!! Along with Bob, all of his family and much, MUCH more come with him. I’ll just briefly list what is about to hit. We’ll work out the details shortly. Characters Sideshow Bob Dame Judith Underdunk Francesca Terwilliger Gino Underdunk Terwilliger Cecil Terwilliger Dr. Robert Pet Mutant Plant Mutant Plant Bob Clone Mutant Seedling This appears to be the event’s spawnable item. Like zombies, snakes, gremlins, etc. Skins / Costumes Opera Krusty Captain Bob Cost: 100 donuts Buildings Monsarno Research Cost: Free Outdoor Opera Stage Cost: Free Springwood Minimum Security Prison (Cash Item) Museum Of Swordfish Cost: 70 donuts Springfield Farmers Market Cost: 60 donuts Old Simpson Farm (Cash Item) Republican Party HQ Cost: 90 donuts Italian Villa Cost: 150 donuts Its A Wonderful Knife Cost: 150 donuts Gas And Go Monsarno Library Monsarno Chimp Resources Monsarno Cafeteria Monsarno Human Resources Decorations Monsarno Founder Statue Willie’s Tractor Cost: 35 donuts Homer Decoy Rake Cost: 7 donuts SPD Blimp Welcomes Bob Sign Five Corners Cost: 70 donuts Sani-John Smokehouse Rolling Rock Cost: 80 donuts Cactus Patch Cane Field Outdoor Opera Seats Outdoor Opera Ticket Booth Monsarno Flower Wall Simpsons Houseboat Cost: 90 donuts Herbicide Dispenser Cost: Free Phew!! What a ton of stuff. We will update this post as well as put out much more pertaining to this event. Looks like EA is on a mission to top themselves with each new event. Can’t wait til this drops, and we hope you are as excited as we are. Stay tuned for LOTS more!! Mike S.This is Bold & Naked's logo, for some non-orgasmic reason Last year, a yoga studio in Chelsea phased out women and rebranded as Le Male Yoga, offering up all nude classes to a testosterone-fueled clientele. Le Male Yoga has now re-rebranded as Bold & Naked Yoga, and is welcoming women back into the fold—and along with them come women-only and coed naked yoga classes. But there's nothing sexual about it. The women-only classes will be different from the studio's all-male, over-55 naked classes: "We work a little more in emotional psychologies, to really help women to feel good about themselves," owner Joschi Schwarz told DNAInfo. "It's a different way of thinking in yoga land." As
! After reports from Twitter that Marvel Phase 3 film, Inhumans—slated for 2019—was pushed with no release date in sight, we here at Nerdist can now confirm that to be true. Though the news is not a total surprise, as on April 11, 2016, Kevin Feige spoke with Entertainment Weekly and explained that he expected the film to be pushed back. Today is the first confirmed indication from Marvel/Disney. Why the change of heart? Well, since the announcement of the Marvel film slate in 2014, there have been a lot of changes. The release dates of Captain Marvel and Black Panther were shifted to make way for new projects such as Thor: Ragnarok, and Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2017. Recently, Marvel also announced a sequel to the 2015 Ant-Man film, Ant-Man and Wasp. In addition, Disney has a few films of their own releasing within this time frame, so in order to not create friction, the Inhumans movie was moved. Feige confirmed with Collider that the Inhumans film will still happen, he is just not sure when: “Since we made our initial phase three announcement, we added Spider-Man, which was a big joyous coup for us. We added Ant-Man and the Wasp, which was a big fun continuation of that story for us. Walt Disney Company has announced an Indiana Jones film for right around that same time. So I think it will shuffle off the current date that it’s on right now. How far down it shuffles, I’m not sure yet.” If you watch Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., you already know they introduced the Inhumans by way of one of the main characters, Chloe Bennett. However, that only scratches the surface on the Inhumans. In fact, the Inhumans are a royal family of meta-humans lead by the king and queen of their species, Black Bolt and Medusa. Their powers originate from the Terrigen Mists, as younger members must travel into the mist to obtain their power. Feige is a huge fan of the Inhumans series and has been pushing for a film since the very beginning, so we’re far from ready to give up hope just yet. So, what do you think happened here? Did Marvel conduct focus groups and found that movie-goers were not excited about the Inhumans and decided to pull the plug for now? Or do you believe there’s something bigger behind-the-scenes that we do not know about? Negotiations between FOX and Disney regarding the film rights of the X-Men are becoming more favorable and a fourth Iron Man film are two of the things that have been floating around in the Internet. For more news and info regarding the Inhumans, please check this video out: http://nerdist.com/inhumans-no-longer-has-a-release-date/ Like this: Like Loading...Some strange creatures cropped up in the wake of one of Earth's biggest mass extinctions 252 million years ago. In 2014, scientists discovered a bizarre fossil--a crocodile-sized sea-dwelling reptile, Atopodentatus unicus, that lived 242 million years ago in what today is southwestern China. Its head was poorly preserved, but it seemed to have a flamingo-like beak. However, in a paper published May 6 in Science Advances, Dr. LI Chun, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his international team described two new specimens and revealed what was really going on--that "beak" is actually part of a hammerhead-shaped jaw apparatus, which it used to feed on plants on the ocean floor. It's the earliest known example of an herbivorous marine reptile. These two newly discovered specimens of Atopodentatus were collected from the Middle Triassic (Anisian) Guanling Formation of Luoping County, Yunnan Province, southwestern China. The new specimens clearly demonstrate that rather than being downturned, the rostrum was developed into a "hammerhead" with pronounced lateral processes formed by the premaxillae and maxillae in the upper jaw and mirrored by the dentary in the lower jaw, said the team. "We confirm the presence of fine and densely packed needle-shaped teeth in the ramus of the dentaries and maxillae, but the premaxillary teeth are arranged along the anterior edge of the element and are more robust and peg-like in form", said lead author LI Chun. The wide jaw of Atopodentatus was shaped like a hammerhead, and along the edge, it had peg-like teeth. Then, further into its mouth, it had bunches of needle-like teeth. "That arrangement wouldn't have been too useful for chewing prey", said study co-author Olivier Rieppel, Field Museum of Natural History, "It's more likely that Atopodentatus used its front teeth to nip algae or other plants from rocky surfaces and then, with its mouth closed, forced mouthfuls of water through its side teeth, which acted as a filter trapping the plants and letting the water back out, like how whales filter-feed with their baleen". Atopodentatus is thus the oldest known vegetarian among marine reptiles. It is older than other marine animals that ate plants with a filter-feeding system by about eight million years, said the team. Atopodentatus appeared during the Triassic Period relatively soon after the biggest mass extinction of species in Earth's history, illustrating that life recovered and diversified more quickly than previously thought. Other oddball creatures also swam the seas at the time, including a reptile called Dinocephalosaurus whose neck comprised half of its 17-foot (5.25 meters) length. "Atopodentatus, about 9 feet (2.75 meters) long, lived in a shallow sea in China's Yunnan province alongside fish and other marine reptiles, said study co-author CHENG Long, Wuhan Centre of China Geological Survey, "When thinking of hammerhead creatures, sharks may come to mind. But Atopodentatus' hammerhead feature differed in location and function from the sharks, whose eyes are on the end of lateral extensions on their head." "Overall, the creature is so unusual that it's difficult to tell where it fits on the reptile family tree", said Dr. Nicholas Fraser, co-corresponding author of the study, National Museums Scotland, "Because its fossils are relatively complete, paleontologists will probably need to unearth fossils of yet-to-be-discovered relatives to better figure this out. In the meantime, Atopodentatus seems to be most closely related to the plesiosaurs, the typically long-necked marine reptiles that often were top predators in dinosaur-era oceans." ### This work was supported by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Wuhan Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources.In the fall of 2009, when Mr. Tourre learned that he had become a target of investigators for helping to sell a mortgage security called Abacus, he protested that he had not acted alone. That fall, his lawyers drafted private responses to the S.E.C., maintaining that Mr. Tourre was part of a “collaborative effort” at Goldman, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. The lawyer added that the commission’s view of his role “would have Mr. Tourre engaged in a grand deception of practically everyone” involved in the mortgage deal. Indeed, numerous other colleagues also worked on that mortgage security. And that deal was just one of nearly two dozen similar deals totaling $10.9 billion that Goldman devised from 2004 to 2007 — which in turn were similar to more than $100 billion of such securities deals created by other Wall Street firms during that period. While Goldman paid $550 million last year to settle accusations that it had misled investors who bought the Abacus mortgage security, no other individuals at the bank have been named. Now, however, as criticism has grown about the lack of cases brought by regulators, the scope of the inquiries appears to be widening. The United States attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., has said publicly that his lawyers were reviewing possible charges against other Goldman officials in the wake of a Senate investigation that produced reams of documents detailing other questionable decisions that were made in the firm’s mortgage unit. The Senate inquiry was one of several in the past three years. These investigations by Congressional leaders and bankruptcy trustees — into the likes of Washington Mutual, Lehman Brothers and the ratings agencies — were undertaken largely to understand what had gone wrong in the crisis, rather than for law enforcement. Yet they uncovered evidence that could be a road map for federal officials as they decide whether to bring civil and criminal cases. One person who already has come under investigation is Jonathan M. Egol. A senior trader at Goldman who worked closely with Mr. Tourre, he had a negative view on the housing market early on, and took a lead role in creating mortgage securities like Abacus that enabled Goldman and certain clients to place bets that proved profitable when the housing market collapsed. Last year the S.E.C. examined Mr. Egol’s role in the Abacus deal in its lawsuit, according to a report by the commission’s inspector general. But Mr. Egol, now a managing director at the bank, was not named in the case, in part because he was more discreet in his e-mails than Mr. Tourre was, so there was less evidence against him, according to a person with knowledge of the S.E.C.’s case. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Though Mr. Tourre was a more junior member of the Goldman team, the S.E.C. case against him was bolstered by colorful e-mails he wrote, calling mortgage securities like those he created monstrosities and joking that he sold them to “widows and orphans.” Photo The S.E.C. declined to comment about its focus on Goldman and Mr. Tourre, beyond pointing to a section in its complaint that said that Mr. Tourre had been “principally responsible” for the Abacus deal in the case. A spokesman for Goldman, Lucas van Praag, did not dispute that Mr. Tourre had worked on the Abacus deal as part of a collaborative team. But he said that the bank had disagreed with many of the conclusions about its mortgage unit contained in the recent Senate report. Mr. Egol and his lawyer did not respond to inquiries for comment. As the government continues to investigate the activities of Goldman and other banks, it is uncertain whether other individuals will be named. Neil M. Barofsky, who as the first inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the federal bank bailout program, investigated whether banks had properly obtained and handled the money they received, said prosecutors should look as high up as possible. “Obviously in any investigation that results in charges against a company,” he said, “you’d like to see the highest-ranking person responsible for the conduct at the company to be held accountable.” A Booming Market A math whiz who got his undergraduate degree at the École Centrale in Paris, Fabrice Tourre joined Goldman in 2001 after getting a master’s degree at Stanford. As the housing market and the demand for mortgages boomed over the next few years, Goldman went from creating just $3 billion of mortgage securities called collateralized debt obligations in 2002 to at least $22 billion in 2006, according to Dealogic, a financial data firm. The C.D.O.’s were linked to the performance of underlying mortgages that were bundled into securities; as long as homeowners stayed current on payments, investors who bet that the housing market would stay healthy made money. Only if many borrowers defaulted would the investors lose money. Goldman’s mortgage desk worked as a tight team. Dan Sparks was the head of all mortgage operations, including the Abacus team, which Mr. Egol led. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The team worked so closely that its members shared a group e-mail address, “Ficc-mtgcorr-desk.” Nearly all of the e-mails about the Abacus deal in the S.E.C.’s case, as well as those about other, similar deals, were sent by Mr. Tourre or his colleagues using the shared e-mail address. The 2007 memo that proposed the Abacus deal to higher managers at Goldman was signed by all seven members of the group. The marketing materials for Abacus, and other complex mortgage securities, often listed around 15 people in addition to Mr. Tourre, with their contact numbers. Abacus and related mortgage securities deals were a huge success for Goldman, allowing the firm to earn tens of millions of dollars in fees by selling securities to investors and to place bets on the securities that helped Goldman perform better than most other banks during the crisis. But Mr. Tourre’s world would soon be turned upside down. In fall 2009, the S.E.C. issued him a Wells notice, a formal warning that he was likely to be named in a civil fraud suit for his role in the mortgage deals. Mr. Egol also received such a notice in 2010. In their Oct. 10 response to the S.E.C., Mr. Tourre’s lawyers, including Pamela Chepiga of Allen & Overy, made an argument that they have not emphasized publicly. They contended that “singling Mr. Tourre out for criticism regarding the content of this clearly collaborative effort is unreasonable.” These legal replies, which are not public, were provided to The New York Times by Nancy Cohen, an artist and filmmaker in New York also known as Nancy Koan, who says she found the materials in a laptop she had been given by a friend in 2006. Photo The friend told her he had happened upon the laptop discarded in a garbage area in a downtown apartment building. E-mail messages for Mr. Tourre continued streaming into the device, but Ms. Cohen said she had ignored them until she heard Mr. Tourre’s name in news reports about the S.E.C. case. She then provided the material to The Times. Mr. Tourre’s lawyer did not respond to an inquiry for comment. In the drafted replies, lawyers for Mr. Tourre named the other Goldman employees who they say worked closely on the Abacus deal with him: In addition to Mr. Egol, they included David Gerst, a securities lawyer in the Abacus group and Darren Littlejohn, another lawyer at Goldman who worked on the deal; Cactus Raazi and Gail Kreitman, sales representatives; Shin Yukawa, a credit ratings specialist; and others. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The S.E.C. focused in the complaint on disclosures in the marketing of Abacus, saying that the sales documents had failed to tell investors that the deal was devised with the help of John A. Paulson, the billionaire hedge fund manager, who was not named in the case. Mr. Paulson’s firm suggested that the deal be linked to mortgages for which he expected a high rate of default, the S.E.C. said; when that came to pass, the bets he placed against the securities proved very profitable for him. But investors on the other side lost more than $1 billion, according to the S.E.C. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Mr. Tourre’s lawyers wrote that their client was “simply one member of a large team that worked on the 2007-AC1 transaction” — referring to the Abacus deal — “and was entitled to rely on Goldman Sachs’s institutional processes to ensure that disclosures were properly drafted.” He was not a lawyer, they argued. Legal counsel on a deal, in this case Mr. Littlejohn and Mr. Gerst, typically review documents and decide what must be disclosed to investors. The S.E.C. has not said why it focused on just one Abacus deal, even though other mortgage securities created by Goldman and other banks had similar designs and disclosures. In many of the securities, for example, there was an investor like Mr. Paulson or Goldman itself betting against the housing market, and often that party helped devise the deal, according to four former Goldman employees familiar with the securities. Indeed, there was at least one other security that had involved Mr. Paulson, according to the 2007 memo written by Mr. Tourre’s desk. It was Mr. Egol’s name that came up most prominently in Mr. Tourre’s legal response to the S.E.C., as well as in interviews with traders knowledgeable about the Abacus deals. A former colleague on Goldman’s mortgage desk who now works for another financial firm said he did not understand why Mr. Tourre had been singled out. “That has baffled me from the very beginning. I just can’t even begin to tell you how junior and insignificant his role was,” said this person, who asked not to be named because it could damage his career. Mr. Tourre’s lawyers also pointed to an e-mail that February from Mr. Egol, which said “the cdo biz is dead we don’t have a lot of time left.” The S.E.C. pointed to that line as evidence that Mr. Tourre had known of the trouble in the market. Mr. Tourre’s lawyers responded that those views were Mr. Egol’s and “not necessarily” Mr. Tourre’s. The newly released Senate report also cites e-mails that it has made public, where Mr. Egol seems to have the stronger views. On Jan. 29, 2007, for instance, Mr. Egol wrote to Mr. Tourre that “the mkt is dead.” Mr. Tourre replied, “ouahhh, what do you mean by that? Do you have any insight I don’t?” In April 2010, when the S.E.C. filed its case against the bank and Mr. Tourre, the young banker told friends that he believed Goldman had been chosen to be the commission’s “case study,” according to several who spoke on the condition that they not be identified. The friends also said they were concerned that Mr. Tourre’s dependence on Goldman for advice and legal counsel was not in his best interest. Advertisement Continue reading the main story In September 2009, for instance, Mr. Tourre told friends he thought he had to use a lawyer from a list of lawyers at three firms that Goldman gave him. Robert Follie, a lawyer in Paris, said Mr. Tourre told him he was not authorized to use lawyers other than those Goldman selected. Mr. Follie said he cautioned Mr. Tourre that his interests might diverge from Goldman’s, so he should consider hiring his own counsel. Video “As a practitioner, I mentioned to him that I felt the risk in the long run was that the lawyer who was acting for him might end up in a near conflict-of-interest situation,” Mr. Follie, whose daughter is friends with Mr. Tourre, said in an interview last December. After the S.E.C. case was filed in summer 2010, Mr. Follie wondered how Mr. Tourre had wound up as the only defendant. “I felt that somewhere down the line, he must have done or not done the proper things to get out of this. I was personally wondering if he had sufficient representation disassociated from Goldman,” he said. Mr. van Praag, the Goldman spokesman, said the bank did not impose lawyers on its workers and had not done so on Mr. Tourre. He said that “ultimately the decision is for the individual and counsel to determine whether they are right for each other.” For the last year, Mr. Tourre has been on paid leave from Goldman’s London office, where he was transferred after the United States mortgage trading business dried up. Mr. van Praag also pointed to testimony released this year to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, created by Congress to identify the cause of the economic crisis, as evidence that might help Mr. Tourre’s case because it included statements supporting his claim that the deal had been created properly and independently of Mr. Paulson. No Criminal Case Even as Mr. Tourre awaits trial in the civil fraud case, it seems that he will not face criminal charges. When the S.E.C. referred the case to the Justice Department, the commission’s top enforcement lawyer, Robert S. Khuzami, told his counterparts there that he did not believe it was a criminal case, according to two people briefed on the discussions. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Since Mr. Tourre was named in the case, other inquiries into the causes of the financial crisis have put the spotlight on activities of a number of Wall Street firms. This year, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission released a 633-page report, and the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued its own 650-page report. While the S.E.C. focused solely on the single Abacus deal, the Senate’s report raised questions about a handful of other Goldman mortgage securities. The report also detailed Goldman’s aggressive valuation of its customers’ mortgage holdings. Goldman’s “senior management knew its sales force was selling C.D.O. securities at inflated prices” and knew that those prices were dropping, the report said. It quoted from a Goldman sales representative’s e-mail saying: “Real bad feeling across European sales about some of the trades we did with clients.” In addition, the Senate said that two Goldman employees, Deeb Salem and David Swenson, tried to manipulate prices of securities used to bet against mortgages. Both tried to help Goldman pile on larger bets against the mortgage market, and they wanted to be able to buy such negative bets more cheaply, the report said. Goldman, as a broker, was able to affect prices in the market through the bids and offers it gave out. Mr. Swenson wrote in May 2007 that the bank should try to “start killing” prices on certain positions so that Goldman would be able to “pick some high quality stuff,” according to the Senate report. The strategy, Mr. Swenson wrote, would “have people totally demoralized.” The pair were unsuccessful in their attempt, and both denied making it to the Senate committee. Mr. van Praag said last week that the report had no evidence of manipulation. Still, the Senate report said that “trading with the intent to manipulate market prices, even if unsuccessful, is a violation of the federal securities laws.” Goldman is not the only firm to have been scrutinized in public reports. Washington Mutual and Deutsche Bank, for instance, were also cited in the recent Senate report. And last year, a trustee examining the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy uncovered questionable accounting maneuvers at that firm. Companies like Bank of America, the American International Group and Moody’s Investors Service have been featured in other hearings and reports. Former United States prosecutors said there were limits to how these materials could be used in court. Still, they said, the reports should have given the government a head start on cases. “They are good starting points,” said Juliet Sorensen, a professor at Northwestern University School of Law. “They are indicators of witnesses who would be subjects for additional interrogations; the reports may introduce documents which lead federal criminal investigators to do additional digging.”CLOSE The House and the Senate have passed different versions of President Trump's tax reform bill so now it goes to a conference committee. Here's what that means. USA TODAY President Trump speaks about tax reform at the St. Charles Convention Center in St. Charles, Mo. Wednesday. (Photo11: Whitney Curtis, Getty Images) The GOP tax overhaul passed both chambers of the U.S. Congress, although a lot remains to be done before a bill can reach the President’s desk. Still, there are a lot of changes in store for energy, and because much of the discrepancy between the two chambers is focused on some big-ticket tax items — and not energy — we can be reasonably confident about what to expect from the legislation in regard to the energy sector. On its face, the GOP tax proposal seems to be a big win for oil and gas. The most obvious item is the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which, if not for the multi-trillion-dollar tax overhaul in question, would be a blockbuster proposal on its own. Republicans have pushed for years — decades — to open up ANWR to drilling, but have been stymied by opposition from the other side of the aisle. It’s hard to believe that the opening of ANWR, tucked into the tax bill, has received so little attention. But there are bigger fights these days. The inclusion of the ANWR language was critical to securing Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s vote, and because the margin for error in the Senate is razor thin, there is little chance of that provision getting touched when the House and Senate try to reconcile their respective pieces of legislation. A few months ago, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration’s Interior Department was quietly working on rules to allow seismic testing in ANWR, in the event that Congress acted to open up the refuge for oil and gas drilling. It seems that with the passage of the GOP tax bill likely, the Interior Department might allow the industry to hit the ground running. Still, the remote location and lack of knowledge on the prospect for oil production in ANWR means that drilling won’t suddenly take off, particularly with shale in the Lower 48 offering a better business case. But, as the obstacles are removed, the industry will probably get its chance. But ANWR isn’t the only aspect of the tax bill affecting the energy industry. CLOSE Speaker of the House Paul Ryan called the tax bill passed by the Senate early Saturday "monumental reform" as he and other Republican leaders continued to celebrate the bill's progress, which was sent to a conference committee Monday evening. (Dec. 5) AP Renewable energy could be hit hard The House bill slashes tax credits for wind and solar, while the Senate version retains them. Those tax credits, readers may recall, were extended at the end of 2015 in exchange for a lifting of the decades-old ban on crude oil exports. The subsidies were supposed to last until the end of the decade, before phasing out by 2022. A more obscure provision — the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT) — would be scrapped under the Senate bill. It’s a complicated provision, but it would subject multinational renewable developers to a new 100% tax, which would be “devastating” to the entire industry, according to a letter sent to Congress by the American Council on Renewable Energy and other clean energy groups. Renewables projects would no longer be able to take advantage of tax equity, and the tax equity market would “collapse,” which would lead to “a dramatic reduction in wind and solar energy investment and development.” Also, the last-minute inclusion of the Alternative Minimum Tax in the Senate bill could put other clean energy tax credits out of reach for the industry. In addition, the House retroactively changed how wind projects qualified for a tax credit — a move that the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) estimates would put 60,000 jobs and $50 billion worth of investment at risk. The provision, AWEA says, “would kill over half of new wind farms planned in the U.S.” (Photo11: Getty Images) Oil and gas would emerge unscathed In fact, a last-minute provision tucked in by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, allows oil and gas companies to be taxed at a lower rate. How this works is that energy companies classified as “master limited partnerships” could be taxed under the reduced “pass-through” rate. Other tax breaks enjoyed by the oil and gas sector are left untouched, save for one credit for producers of “marginal wells” and for “enhanced oil recovery.” To be sure, there are a lot of changes afoot given that both chambers need to reconcile their differences. For instance, the inclusion of the AMT, most analysts seem to think, was an eleventh-hour move in the Senate to make the bill comply with budgetary rules. There is speculation that it won’t survive the final bill, although removing it means that revenue will have to be made up elsewhere. However, overall, the final tax bill will likely carry out what the Trump administration has tried to do for much of its first year: reward oil and gas while taking aim at renewables. Oilprice.com is a USA TODAY content partner offering energy industry news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY. More top reads from Oilprice.com: Chinese M&A Wave Could Be Bad News For Investors China Launches World’s First All-Electric Cargo Ship Rosneft Takes On Record Debt As U.S. Sanctions Weigh Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2BbBBm6This is a guest post by my friend Pinkesh Patel, a data scientist at Facebook. Pinkesh has a PhD in physics from Caltech during which he worked on LIGO, the gravitational wave detector. He then did research in computational biology at Stanford after which he moved to Facebook. Pinkesh is thus ideally poised to think about the whole spectrum of scientific domains and cultures, from hard physics to “soft” sociology. The post was sparked by a conversation we had in which I lamented the gaping chasm I felt existed between the discovery of inflation and our inability to design even simple drugs against diseases like cancer or Alzheimer's. Pinkesh reminded me that this is because even a supposedly overarching science like physics actually has a very limited set of domains of applicability and that science is really all about “domain expertise”; as Pinkesh puts it, we have to distinguish the scale of a science from its reach. Most importantly, he underscores the sense of wonder that all of us should feel about any scientific discovery, no matter what field it is in. Great discoveries are not about specific fields; they are about a convergence of everything that humanity has achieved since its beginnings, and of this we should all be proud. I agree. “How are you feeling, mom?” asked Eric, a thirty something chemist who wasn’t sure how exactly he would answer that question himself after having spent a large portion of his day modeling the ATP binding pocket of an obscure protein. He was visiting his sixty five year old mother who was convalescing after a particularly brutal course of chemotherapy that the doctors had hoped would deliver the coup de grace to her breast cancer. “I haven’t felt better in ages!” said Helga, clearly grimacing as she turned to face her son. Given his puzzled look, she corrected herself “Oh, the chemo is terrible, especially the constant nausea, however its quite something to think that we can answer questions about the possibility that we live in a multiverse and that gravity is a quantum phenomenon after all.” “Been surfing the old Internet have we?” quipped Eric. “Oh the news just keeps rolling in and this whole Internet thing has been quite a hoot for somewhat amateur followers of science like myself. Take this Sean Carroll fellow and his wonderful writing for instance…” said Helga, her enthusiasm only interrupted by a thirty second bout of coughing. “I am glad that this news has piqued your curiosity and taken your mind off of this awful ‘treatment’ regimen,” said Eric, while straightening his ailing mother’s hair. He continued “But why does this stuff interest you so? You are an experimental condensed matter physicist and have always been interested in esoteric things like two-dimensional electron gases and their ilk.” “You see my son, when you get to my age, or perhaps once you are wise enough to realize that you are not special, you start looking for grandeur elsewhere and what is more special than …” said Helga, interrupted by another bout of coughing. “See, this is what I don’t get. How can we, the ape that looked forward, the only intelligent thing in the known universe, understand concepts such as what happened a few trillionth of a second after the big bang and yet not cure this awful illness?” asked Eric. “How come I cannot even make my simulation code not run for more than a few nano-seconds, with only a few hundred atoms to deal with, whilst we can simulate the impact of quantum fluctuations of space and time and detect their impact on light 400,000 years later, that too after 13.8 billion years of travel?” A smile appeared over Helga’s face. She had obviously pondered along similar lines countless times, mostly driven by the ostensibly innocent questions of her students. “Eric, it's because you are giving too little credit to the other sciences and because you are confusing the scale of an idea with its reach. When the Bohr model of the atom could explain the Balmer emission spectra, he had not explained everything that was to be known about electrons and protons. Far from it, he had barely scratched the surface. Dig a little deeper and you see the Zeeman effect of the fine splitting of these spectral lines and oh boy, you have a decade more of work and new concepts such as the exclusion principle that need to be invented. And that was just the hydrogen atom. You think that just because the scale of physics is large, that its reach is also large. I am a physicist and I know some of the limitations of my field. It works wonderfully in small boxes of the universe or if we consider the universe itself as a big box, where we abstract away all the things that we, the ape that looked forward, hold dear” said Helga. “That’s all well and good and I applaud the work done by physicists, but in my own little corner of science it feels like we are savages who cannot even understand the basic tenets of our endeavor,” lamented Eric. “That is because you think that the ideas that are needed to make progress in your field are a subset of the ideas about the entire universe, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Yes your piece of the universe is a subset of the universe as a whole, however in that case we have abstracted things like galaxies and human beings away as what we call ‘higher order terms’. Zoomed out, pesky things like human beings don’t impact the universe, and it is not the scale of your pursuit that determines its difficulty. So in essence physics is the first order approximation of the universe, but we all live in the world of second, third, … fifty-fifth order approximations and the first order sheds no light on these ‘higher orders’“ replied Helga. “Yes, yes I have heard all that. Physics is the easiest of the sciences as it is the most controlled, limited in scope etc. But these seem to be bedtime stories that we biologists tell ourselves to sleep soundly” said Eric. “We cannot even understand what is making your cells grow wildly and kill you in the very same organ that nourished me in my first moments, whilst we know what nourished the universe in its first moments. How do I reconcile with these facts?” continued Eric. “It is again because you think that physics discovered this and that you biologists didn’t have anything to do with it” replied Helga. Noticing his puzzled look, she carried on “See, think about the chain of events that make us think that the inflationary theory is true: We have a representation of space and time in our heads and a representation of the known facts about the universe such as its flatness, homogeneity etc. We make a leap of faith from this representation and reconcile it with other known facts about the universe to predict that if such and such is true, then these fluctuations ought to leave a signature in the cosmic microwave background photons. We then use our knowledge of the Earth and decide to put up our observatory to detect these photons, which happen to be in the microwave band and are readily absorbed by moisture, in the driest place on the planet. Leave alone the fact that we have not evolved to live or work there, but we manage to do it regardless and transport this machine there. We use the latest in condensed matter physics and our understanding of quantum mechanics to make the most sensitive possible instruments. We store the data we collect using other fields of knowledge such as the giant magneto resistance and then we use error correcting codes to transmit this data without errors from objects we set up orbiting the planet to our homes. This data is then processed using other wonderful instruments known as computers, which I admit to not understanding fully. We then display it using liquid crystal display technology using a medium of scientific representation such as graphs. Then comes the crazy part, we jump across these umpteen series of representations to the bare fact that the universe underwent inflation. Try explaining how this is “Physics” and not hundreds of other human endeavors to an alien.” “And why stop there, what made it possible for us to have the free time to ponder such questions in the first place? Inventions such as agriculture, law and order, money to name just a few. The tapestry of science is woven using all the threads of all fields of human endeavor. You cannot just disentangle one and say that that one is advanced and the others are lagging behind. The victories and defeats of all of these fields belong to all of us. Yes, I wish we could cure this accursed disease and many others like it, but we will get there my son. The same evolutionary process that accidentally made me joyful due to some abstract coarse grained simulation of the universe in my head, also makes me not care for my own well being, but of humanity’s as a whole. I will die, but we will solve these and other problems together, not as physicists, chemists, barbers and politicians, but as human beings” said Helga, as another bout of coughing made it impossible to continue the conversation any further that evening.President Obama on Wednesday raised money for House and Senate candidates at the home of Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn and his wife Cindy, in an effort to boost Hollywood contributions in advance of what looks to be a difficult midterm election season for Democrats. Among the 90 or so in attendance were Barbra Streisand, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Tom Rothman and James Brolin, according to a pool report. Guests had dinner under a tent in the Horns’ backyard. Acknowledging that despite a list of accomplishments that there is still a “disquiet around the country” as well as “an anxiety, and a sense a frustration,” Obama said that “the challenges out there remain daunting and we have a Washington that’s not working.” Obama warned of “a self-fulfilling prophesy” during a midterm election year where “people who have the most at stake in a government that works opt out of the system; those who don’t believe government can do anything are empowered; gridlock reigns, and we got this downward spiral of even more cynicism and more dysfunction. And we have to break out of that cycle and that’s what this election all about,” Obama said, in remarks that lasted about 15 minutes. He added that his travels to other countries have led him not to “buy this notion
et. Wie der Europa-League-Sieger am Donnerstag mitteilte, unterzeichnete der kopfballstarke Angreifer bei den Andalusiern einen Dreijahresvertrag. Für den Transfer sei keine Ablösesumme fällig geworden. Der 30-Jährige hatte sich zuvor mit dem italienischen Meister auf eine vorzeitige Auflösung des bis 2017 laufenden Vertrags geeinigt. Llorente spielte bei Juventus in den Planungen des Trainerstabs kaum noch eine Rolle. Mit dem Transfer spart Juve sich die Gehaltszahlungen. Der FC Sevilla hatte für den Angriff bereits den Italiener Ciro Immobile vom Bundesligisten Borussia Dortmund verpflichtet. +++ Thiago verlängert bei Bayern München +++ Der FC Bayern München hat in dem spanischen Fußball-Nationalspieler Thiago Alcántara einen weiteren Leistungsträger langfristig an sich gebunden. Der deutsche Meister verlängerte den Vertrag mit dem 24 Jahre alten Edeltechniker vorzeitig um zwei Jahre bis 2019. „Wir sind froh, dass Thiago sich dafür entschieden hat, langfristig beim FC Bayern zu bleiben“, erklärte Vorstandschef Karl-Heinz Rummenigge am Donnerstag: „Er ist jung und ein wichtiger Spieler für die Zukunft des Clubs.“ Thiago war 2013 für rund 25 Millionen Euro vom FC Barcelona verpflichtet worden. Der Mittelfeldspieler war seinerzeit der erklärte Wunschtransfer des neuen Trainers Pep Guardiola („Thiago oder nix“). Guardiola hatte Thiago in Barcelona zum Profi geformt. +++ Torhüter Nübel wechselt vom SC Paderborn zum FC Schalke 04 +++ Torhüter Alexander Nübel wechselt vom SC Paderborn zum FC Schalke 04. Vorbehaltlich der Gesundheitsprüfung wird das 18 Jahre alte Talent beim Fußball-Bundesligisten aus Gelsenkirchen einen Dreijahresvertrag unterschreiben. Über die Höhe der Ablöse vereinbarten beide Seiten Stillschweigen. „Der SCP erhält dafür eine beträchtliche Transferentschädigung“, hieß es in einer Mitteilung der Paderborner von Donnerstag. Bei seinem neuen Club trifft Nübel auf seinen einstigen SC-Trainer André Breitenreiter. Mittwoch, 26. August +++ Inui verlässt Frankfurt und wechselt zu SD Eibar +++ Takashi Inui verlässt Eintracht Frankfurt und sucht eine neue Herausforderung in Spaniens Primera Division. Der japanische Nationalspieler hat seinen bis zum Saisonende gültigen Vertrag am Mittwoch aufgelöst und wechselt für eine nicht genannte Ablösesumme zu SD Eibar. Inui war im Sommer vom VfL Bochum zum hessischen Fußball-Bundesligisten gekommen, für den er in 75 Spielen sieben Tore erzielte. „Ich hatte hier drei tolle Jahre und möchte mich dafür bei allen Beteiligten und den Fans herzlich bedanken. Die Zeit bei der Eintracht wird mir immer in guter Erinnerung bleiben“, sagte Inui. +++ Hosogai-wechsel in die Türkei fix +++ Herthas Mittelfeldspieler Hajime Hosogai (29) wechselt auf Leihbasis zum türkischen Erstligisten Bursaspor. Der japanische Nationalspieler, seit 2013 bei Hertha BSC (53 Spiele) unter Vertrag, wird ab sofort für ein Jahr an den letztjährigen Tabellensechsten der „Süper Lig“ aus der westtürkischen Stadt Bursa ausgeliehen. Dienstag, 25. August +++ Petr Jiracek wechselt vom HSV zu Sparta Prag +++ Der Wechsel des tschechischen Nationalspielers Petr Jiracek vom Hamburger SV zu Sparta Prag ist perfekt. Der 29-Jährige habe den Medizincheck bestanden und einen Vierjahresvertrag unterzeichnet, teilte Sparta am Dienstag mit. Jiracek soll den derzeit verletzten Lukas Vacha im defensiven Mittelfeld ersetzen. Er war im August 2012 für vier Millionen Euro Ablöse vom VfL Wolfsburg zum HSV gekommen, hatte die Erwartungen aber nie erfüllt. Wechselkandidaten auf Leihbasis sind beim HSV auch die Mittelfeldspieler Kerem Demirbay und Mohamed Gouaida. Demirbay steht laut übereinstimmenden Medienberichten kurz vor einer Ausleihe an den Zweitligisten Fortuna Düsseldorf. +++ Japaner Hosogai wird sich bei Hertha BSC wohl verabschieden +++ Hajime Hosogai wird Hertha BSC offenbar verlassen. Der 29 Jahre alte Mittelfeldspieler nahm am Dienstag nicht am Mannschaftstraining der Berliner teil. Hertha-Trainer Pal Dardai, unter dem der Japaner zuletzt keine Rolle mehr gespielt hatte, wollte zu dieser Personalie keine näheren Auskünfte geben und verwies an den Manager. „Sicherlich wird bei Hosogai etwas passieren, aber da muss man Michael Preetz fragen“, sagte er. Vereine aus dem In- und Ausland sollen Interesse an Hosogai haben. Denkbar wäre auch eine Ausleihe. +++ SC Paderborn verpflichtet Kevin Stöger vom VfB +++ Der SC Paderborn holt sich den Mittelfeldspieler Kevin Stöger vom VfB Stuttgart. Der 22-jährige Österreicher soll einen Dreijahresvertrag erhalten, teilt der Bundesliga-Absteiger mit. "Kevin ist ein absoluter Wunschspieler von mir", sagte SCP-Cheftrainer Markus Gellhaus. "Er kann die entscheidenden Impulse im Zentrum setzen, ist selbst torgefährlich und kann finale Pässe spielen." Pierre-Emile Höjbjerg (hier links im Trikot des FC Augsburg) spielt künftig für Schalke 04 - zumindest für eine Saison. Foto: dpa +++ Florian Kohls unterschreibt Profi-Vertrag bei Hertha BSC +++ Hertha BSC hat das Talent Florian Kohls mit einem Profi-Vertrag bis 2017 ausgestattet. Das teilte der Verein am Dienstag mit. Der 20-Jährige ist nach Maximilian Mittelstädt und Torwart Nils Körber bereits der dritte Akteur aus der Hertha-Akademie, der in diesem Sommer einen Lizenzspielervertrag bei den Berlinern erhält. Kohls hatte in den Trainingslagern in Bad Saarow und Schladming einen guten Eindruck bei Trainer Pal Dardai hinterlassen. +++ Mario Balotelli kehrt zum AC Mailand zurück +++ Mario Balotelli ist zum Medizin-Check beim AC Mailand eingetroffen. Der 25 Jahre alte italienische Nationalspieler fuhr am Dienstagmorgen vor einer Mailänder Klinik vor. Anschließend sollte der Stürmer vom FC Liverpool bei dem Traditionsklub einen Vertrag unterschreiben und seine Rückkehr in die Serie A perfekt gemacht werden. Italienischen Medienberichten zufolge leiht der AC Mailand den Stürmer zunächst für ein Jahr aus, sein bisheriger Verein FC Liverpool zahlt demnach einen Teil des Gehalts weiter. Balotelli war vor einem Jahr für 20 Millionen Euro Ablösesumme zu Liverpool gewechselt, konnte sich in der Premier League aber nicht durchsetzen. In der vergangenen Saison erzielte er in 16 Einsätzen nur ein Ligator. Montag, 24. August +++ Hoffenheim verpflichtet Eduardo Vargas +++ Die TSG Hoffenheim hat den chilenischen Nationalspieler Eduardo Vargas verpflichtet. Der 25 Jahre alte Offensivspieler erhält einen Vertrag bis zum 30. Juni 2019. Der 48-malige Nationalspieler stand seit 2012 beim SSC Neapel unter Vertrag, war allerdings zuletzt erst an den FC Valencia und in der vorigen Saison an die Queens Park Rangers in England ausgeliehen. Der Torschützenkönig der Copa América, der mit Gastgeber Chile auch den Titel holte, hatte am Samstag bereits den Medizincheck bestanden. +++ Nürnberger Trainer bestätigt Wechsel von Niklas Stark +++ Nürnbergs Trainer René Weiler hat den Transfer von Defensivspieler Niklas Stark zu Hertha BSC in die 1. Liga bestätigt. „Er wird nach Berlin wechseln und künftig für Hertha BSC spielen“, erklärte Weiler am Montag nach dem Training des Fußball-Zweitligisten. Bei der ersten Übungseinheit des 1. FC Nürnberg in der neuen Woche war der U19-Europameister von 2014 schon nicht mehr dabei. Er absolvierte bereits den Medizincheck in der Hauptstadt. Nach Tagesspiegel-Informationen soll Niklas Stark bereits ab der Trainingseinheit am Montag um 16 Uhr teilnehmen. Laut „Bild“-Zeitung (Montag) soll das 20 Jahre alte Abwehr-Talent Stark für eine Ablösesumme von etwa drei Millionen Euro nach Berlin kommen und einen Vertrag bis 2019 unterzeichnen. Stark hatte am Sonntag beim 1:2 in Bochum noch für den „Club“ gespielt und war der beste Akteur der Franken. Weiler bedauerte den Abgang sportlich, sagte aber mit Blick auf die angespannte finanzielle Situation seines Arbeitgebers: „Wenn das Transfergeld dem Verein gut tut, dann muss man diese Entscheidung als Trainer auch akzeptieren.“ Stark kann sowohl im defensiven Mittelfeld als auch in der Abwehr spielen. Eine offizielle Bestätigung des Transfers gab es von Hertha zunächst nicht. Stark wurde in Neustadt a.d. Aisch nahe Nürnberg geboren und kam schon als Neunjähriger zum Club. In der Bundesliga absolvierte er 24 Spiele, in der 2. Liga kam er zu 30 Einsätzen. Heung-Min Son verlässt die Bundesliga Richtung England. Foto: dpa +++ Hertha BSC vor Verpflichtung von Niklas Stark +++ Fußball-Bundesligist Hertha BSC steht nach einem Bericht der „Bild“-Zeitung (Montag) vor der Verpflichtung von Abwehr-Talent Niklas Stark. Der 20-Jährige soll für eine Ablösesumme von etwa drei Millionen Euro vom Zweitligisten 1. FC Nürnberg kommen. Der U19-Europameister von 2014 erhalte einen Vertrag bis 2019. Stark soll im Team von Trainer Pal Dardai vor allem in der Innenverteidigung eingesetzt werden. Durch die anstehende Verpflichtung von Niklas Stark ist ein Transfer von Alexander Madlung für die Hauptstädter nach Angaben der "BILD" vom Tisch. Der Vertrag des 33-Jährigen war in diesem Sommer bei der Frankfurter Eintracht ausgelaufen, zuletzt wurde der Innenverteidiger mit Berlin und Braunschweig in Verbindung gebracht. (dpa) +++ Ronny vor Wechsel nach Riad? +++ "Ich habe von dort etwas Schriftliches für Ronny vorliegen. Das Ziel ist es, zu wechseln", bestätigte Ronny-Berater Dino Lamberti laut "BILD" ein Angebot von Al-Nasr aus der saudi-arabischen Hauptstadt Riad. Neben Al-Nasr soll sich nun auch Al-Ittihad um den Brasilianer bemühen, der derzeit auf sein Visum für Saudi-Arabien wartet. Donnerstag, 20. August +++ Chelsea holt Pedro +++ Nach seinem Fehlstart in der Premier League hat der FC Chelsea den spanischen Nationalspieler Pedro Rodríguez vom FC Barcelona verpflichtet. Nach Angaben von Barça einigten beide Klubs sich auf eine Ablösesumme von 30 Millionen Euro, von denen 3 Millionen erfolgsabhängig sein sollen. +++ Augsburg reagiert auf Baba-Abgang +++ Der FC Augsburg hat nach dem Millionentransfer von Abdul Rahman Baba zum englischen Meister FC Chelsea einen weiteren Außenverteidiger verpflichtet. Vom Bundesliga-Konkurrenten Bayer 04 Leverkusen wechselt der griechische Nationalspieler Konstantinos Stafylidis zum FCA. Der 21 Jahre alte Linksverteidiger, der in der vergangenen Saison an den FC Fulham ausgeliehen gewesen war, erhält beim Europa-League-Teilnehmer einen Zweijahresvertrag bis 2017 mit einer langfristigen Verlängerungsoption, wie der FCA am Donnerstag mitteilte. Der Grieche wird in Augsburg unter anderem mit Philipp Max um den Platz auf der linken Außenverteidigerposition kämpfen müssen. Den 21 Jahre alten Max hatte der FCA für über drei Millionen Euro vom Zweitligisten Karlsruher SC verpflichtet. Florian Kohls erhält bei Hertha einen Vertrag bis 2017. Foto: Imago Mittwoch, 19. August +++ Antonio Rüdiger wechselt zum AS Rom +++ Nach wochenlangen Spekulationen verlässt Nationalspieler Antonio Rüdiger den VfB Stuttgart und wechselt zunächst auf Leihbasis zum AS Rom. Wie die Schwaben am Mittwoch mitteilten, hat der Vizemeister aus Italien nach einem Jahr eine festgeschriebene Kaufoption für den derzeit noch verletzten Innenverteidiger. Zur Laufzeit des Anschlussvertrages machte der VfB keine Angaben. Laut Medienberichten soll sich Rüdiger mit dem AS Rom auf einen Vertrag bis 2020 geeinigt haben. Die Leihgebühr soll dem Vernehmen nach bei vier Millionen Euro liegen, für den endgültigen Wechsel kassiert der VfB dann weitere neun Millionen. +++ Mittelstädt erhält Profivertrag bei Hertha +++ Hertha BSC hat auf den Weggang von Nico Schulz zu Borussia Mönchengladbach reagiert und Nachwuchsspieler Maximilian Mittelstädt bis 2018 an den Verein gebunden. Der 18-Jährige, der seit Beginn der Sommer-Vorbereitung bei den Profis mittrainiert, unterschrieb nach Vereinsangaben vom Mittwoch einen Lizenzspielervertrag. Nach den Stationen Hertha Zehlendorf und SC Staaken durchlief Mittelstädt die Nachwuchsmannschaften der Blau-Weißen und wurde im Mai mit der U19 von Hertha BSC DFB-Pokalsieger der Junioren. +++ Inler gibt Schalke einen Korb +++ Der Schweizer Nationalmannschafts-Kapitän Gökhan Inler wechselt vom SSC Neapel zu Leicester City in die Premier League. Der 31 Jährige entschied sich damit auch endgültig gegen ein Engagement beim FC Schalke 04. Inler unterzeichnete beim aktuellen Tabellenzweiten der englischen Meisterschaft einen Dreijahresvertrag. Zu erledigen seien nur noch einige Formalien, darunter auch die notwendige Arbeitserlaubnis, hieß es in der Vereinsmitteilung vom Mittwoch. Der Schweizer Mittelfeldakteur spielte seit 2011 für den SSC Neapel und verabschiedete sich in einem Brief auf Twitter von den Fans. Michael Preetz wird am Transfermarkt aktiv. Foto: dpa Dienstag, 18. August +++ Nico Schulz unterschreibt in Gladbach +++ Nach 15 Jahren bei Hertha BSC ist der Abgang von Nico Schulz perfekt. Der 22-Jährige bestand am Dienstag den Medizincheck und unterschrieb anschließend für vier Jahre bei Borussia Mönchengladbach. Immerhin bekommt Hertha noch eine Ablöse, sie soll bei etwa drei Millionen Euro liegen. +++ Real Madrid holt Mateo Kovacic +++ De Kroate Mateo Kovacic wechselt von Inter Mailand zu Real Madrid. Wie der spanische Rekordmeister am Dienstag mitteilte, erhält der 21-Jährige einen Sechsjahresvertrag. Die Ablösesumme wurde in spanischen Medien auf etwa 30 Millionen Euro beziffert. Kovacic sollte sich an diesem Mittwoch in Madrid einem medizinischen Test unterziehen und anschließend offiziell vorgestellt werden. Der in Linz in Österreich geborene Mittelfeldspieler gehört zum Stamm der kroatischen Nationalelf. Sonntag, 16. August +++ Baba-Wechsel zum FC Chelsea perfekt +++ Der Wechsel von Abdul Rahman Baba vom FC Augsburg zum FC Chelsea ist perfekt. „Es ist nicht nur eine Auszeichnung für seine Leistungen, sondern auch für unsere Arbeit, wenn ein internationaler Spitzenclub wie der FC Chelsea Interesse an einer Verpflichtung zeigt“, sagte Manager Stefan Reuter. Den Medizincheck bei Chelsea hatte der talentierte 21 Jahre alte Ghanaer bereits zuvor bestanden. Für den Linksverteidiger, der aus Fürth nach Augsburg gekommen war, sollen die Schwaben laut Medieninformationen angeblich die vereinsinterne Rekordsumme von bis zu 30 Millionen Euro Ablöse erhalten. Offiziell vereinbarten die Klubs Stillschweigen über die Modalitäten. Freitag, 14. August +++ Idrousson stürmt jetzt in der Oberliga +++ Dem KFC Uerdingen ist mit der Verpflichtung des früheren Bundesligaprofis und WM-Teilnehmers Mohamadou Idrissou ein spektakulärer Transfer gelungen. Der Krefelder Klub aus der fünfklassigen Oberliga Niederrhein konnte den Angreifer laut Vereinsmitteilung für zwei Jahre unter Vertrag nehmen. Der 35 Jahre alte Idrissou wechselt mit der Erfahrung von 139 Bundesligaspielen (27 Tore) für Hannover, Duisburg, Freiburg und Mönchengladbach nach Uerdingen und kam zudem in 164 Partien (68 Treffer) in der 2. Liga zum Einsatz. Bei der WM 2010 lief Idrissou für sein Heimatland Kamerun auf. Zuletzt war er beim mazedonischen Erstligisten KF Shkendija aktiv. Donnerstag, 13. August +++ Philp verlässt Augsburg +++ Der FC Augsburg hat Verteidiger Ronny Philp in die 2. Liga zum 1. FC Heidenheim verkauft. Der 26-Jährige verlässt den FCA nach drei Jahren, in denen er es nur auf 14 Liga-Einsätze brachte. In der vergangenen Rückrunde war er an die SpVgg Greuther Fürth ausgeliehen. Philp sollte noch am Donnerstag bei seinem neuen Verein in Heidenheim vorgestellt werden. Antonio Rüdiger jubelt künftig auf italienisch. Foto: dpa Mittwoch, 12. August +++ Dzeko-Wechsel zum AS Rom perfekt +++ Der Wechsel des früheren Bundesliga-Torjägers Edin Dzeko von Manchester City zum AS Rom ist perfekt. Der bosnische Nationalstürmer kommt zunächst bis zum Ende der Saison auf Leihbasis in die Serie A, wie die Italiener am Mittwoch mitteilten. Zudem sicherte sich der Champions-League-Teilnehmer eine Kaufoption für 11 Millionen Euro. Zuvor hatte der Angreifer, der 2010 beim VfL Wolfsburg Bundesliga-Torschützenkönig geworden war, den Medizin-Check in Rom absolviert und bereits mit seinem neuen Team trainiert. +++ Gacinovic verstärkt Eintracht Frankfurt +++ Der Wechsel von U20-Weltmeister Mijat Gacinovic zu Eintracht Frankfurt ist perfekt. Der 20 Jahre alte Offensivspieler aus Serbien unterschrieb am Mittwoch einen Vierjahresvertrag bei den Hessen. Gacinovic kommt vom FK Vojvodina Novi Sad und soll die Frankfurter Offensive auf dem linken Flügel verstärken. „Mit Mijat Gacinovic haben wir einen hoch talentierten Spieler für uns gewinnen können. Er ist schnell, wendig und hat für sein junges Alter schon viel Erfahrung sammeln können. Es ist eine Investition in die Zukunft“, sagte Eintracht-Sportdirektor Bruno Hübner. Montag, 10. August +++ Leverkusen holt Aranguiz +++ Der Wechsel des chilenischen Nationalspielers Charles Aránguiz von Internacional Porto Alegre zu Bayer Leverkusen ist laut brasilianischen Medien perfekt. Das berichtete die Zeitung „O Globo“ am Montag unter Verweis auf Angaben des Präsidenten Vitorio Piffero. Demnach soll die Ablösesumme für den 26-Jährigen bei rund 50 Millionen Real (13 Millionen Euro) liegen. Der Mittelfeldspieler gewann Anfang Juli mit Chile erstmals die Südamerikameisterschaft, er schoss zwei Tore und verwandelte seinen Schuss beim Elfmeterschießen im Finale gegen Argentinien. Einen Wechsel zum englischen Premier-League-Club Leicester City hatte Aránguiz zuvor abgelehnt. Nico Schulz spielte beim FC Augsburg zum letzten Mal für Hertha BSC. Foto: dpa Freitag, 7. August +++ Abdellaoue verlässt Stuttgart +++ Der VfB Stuttgart kann Stürmer Mohammed Abdellaoue von seiner Gehaltsliste streichen. Wie der schwäbische Bundesligist am Freitag mitteilte, wechselt der 29-Jährige mit sofortiger Wirkung zu seinem früheren Club Valerenga Oslo. Über die Transfermodalitäten wurde Stillschweigen vereinbart. Abdellaoue erhält in seiner Heimat Norwegen einen Vertrag bis 2019. Sein Trainer dort ist der ehemalige Hertha-Profi Kjetil André Rekdal. Abdellaoue kam im Sommer 2010 aus Oslo zu Hannover 96 in die Bundesliga. Drei Spielzeiten später wechselte er zum VfB. Auch aufgrund von Verletzungen konnte er aber nie richtig Fuß fassen. Für die Stuttgarter bestritt der 33-malige Nationalstürmer gerade einmal zwölf Bundesligaspiele und erzielte dabei ein Tor. +++ Hradecki-Wechsel nach Frankfurt fix +++ Eintracht Frankfurt hat den finnischen Nationaltorwart Lukas Hradecky als Nachfolger für seinen abgewanderten Kapitän Kevin Trapp verpflichtet. Der 25 Jahre alte Schlussmann mit slowakischen Wurzeln kommt vom dänischen Club Bröndby IF Kopenhagen. Er unterschrieb in Frankfurt einen Dreijahresvertrag. Edin Dzeko freut sich auf den AS Rom. Foto: dpa Donnerstag, 6. August +++ Westermann folgt van der Vaart nach Sevilla +++ Heiko Westermann hat doch noch einen neuen Verein gefunden. Der 31-Jährige hat am Donnerstag einen Zweijahresvertrag bei Betis Sevilla unterschrieben. Dort spielt der Abwehrspieler wieder mit Rafael van der Vaart zusammen, der den HSV schon vor ein paar Wochen verlassen musste. Westermann hatte nach fünf Jahren in Hamburg keinen neuen Vertrag mehr erhalten. +++ Di Maria geht zu Paris St. Germain +++ Argentiniens Nationalspieler Ángel di María wechselt von Manchester United zu Paris St. Germain. Der 27 Jahre alte Profi habe einen Vierjahresvertrag unterzeichnet, teilte der französische Meister am Donnerstag mit. Bei Paris wird der Flügelstürmer Kollege des deutschen Torwarts Kevin Trapp (25). Die Höhe der Ablösesumme wurde vom Verein nicht bekanntgegeben. Französische und britische Medien hatten in den vergangenen Tagen von einer Einigung auf 63 Millionen Euro gesprochen. Damit wäre der Wechsel von di María nach der Verpflichtung von Edinson Cavani durch Paris für 64 Millionen im Sommer 2013 der zweitteuerste Einkauf in der Geschichte der Ligue 1. Di María war erst im Sommer 2014 für rund 75 Millionen Euro vom damaligen Champions-League-Sieger Real Madrid nach Manchester gewechselt. Unter Trainer Louis van Gaal konnte er in England jedoch nie an seine Top-Leistungen anknüpfen. +++ Neuer Stürmer für Karlsruhe +++ Zweitligist Karlsruher SC hat auf seinen schwachen Saisonstart reagiert und den griechischen Stürmer Dimitris Diamantakos verpflichtet. Der 22-Jährige kommt zunächst für ein Jahr auf Leihbasis vom griechischen Serienmeister Olympiakos Piräus, für die Zeit danach hat sich der KSC eine Kaufoption gesichert, teilte der Verein am Donnerstagabend mit. „Dimitris ist in unseren Augen ein hochinteressanter Spieler. Er ist jung, hat aber bereits einiges an Erfahrung sowohl in Griechenlands erster Liga als auch bei zwei Einsätzen in der Champions League gesammelt“, erklärte Sportdirektor Jens Todt. Charles Aranguiz verstärkt das Leverkusener Mittelfeld. Foto: AFP +++ Zoua-Wechsel perfekt +++ Stürmer Jacques Zoua wechselt vom Hamburger SV zum französischen Erstliga-Aufsteiger GFC Ajaccio. Das teilten beide Clubs am Donnerstag mit. Der 23 Jahre alte Kameruner, der ablösefrei nach Korsika wechseln soll, war im Juli 2013 vom FC Basel zum HSV gekommen. Bei den Hanseaten konnte sich der Stürmer aber nicht durchsetzen. In 27 Bundesliga-Spielen erzielte er drei Tore. In der vergangenen Saison war er an den türkischen Erstligisten Kayseri Erciyesspor verliehen worden. Auch für die neue Saison plante Trainer Bruno Labbadia nicht mit ihm. Zouas Vertrag in Hamburg sollte ursprünglich bis 2016 laufen. +++ Elia wechselt nach Rotterdam +++ Der Wechsel von Werder Bremens Eljero Elia zu Feyenoord Rotterdam ist perfekt. Der Offensivspieler unterschrieb beim niederländischen Erstligisten einen Zweijahresvertrag. Dies bestätigte der Bundesligist am Donnerstag. Elia wechselt laut Werder-Angaben ablösefrei, nach übereinstimmenden Medienberichten sollen die Bremer allerdings an einem möglichen Weiterverkauf des 28-maligen Nationalspielers beteiligt sein. Elia kam 2012 für rund 5,5 Millionen Euro von Juventus Turin an die Weser. Für die Hanseaten absolvierte der 28-Jährige 66 Bundesliga-Einsätze. Unter Trainer Viktor Skripnik kam der Stürmer allerdings nicht mehr zum Zuge. Nach einer Ausleihe zum FC Southampton in der vergangenen Rückrunde war in der neuen Saison für Elia kein Platz mehr im Werder-Kader. Mittwoch, 5. August +++ Boateng-Wechsel geplatzt +++ Eigentlich schien der Wechsel von Kevin-Prince Boateng zu Sporting Lissabon nur noch Formsache zu sein. Doch erstens kommt es anders und zweitens als man denkt und letztlich bleibt der ghanaische Nationalspieler zunächst einmal auf Schalke. Mehr hier. +++Schalke-Profi Itter geht nach Österreich+++ Pascal Itter zum SV Grödig in die österreichische Top-Liga. Nach Schalke-Angaben vom Mittwoch unterschrieb der 20-Jährige einen Zweijahresvertrag. Zu den Ablösemodalitäten teilten die Vereine nichts mit. Itters Kontrakt bei den Gelsenkirchenern lief ursprünglich bis zum 30. Juni 2017. Der ehemalige Junioren-Nationalspieler gehörte seit Juli 2014 zum Schalker Profikader, bestritt aber kein Pflichtspiel für die Lizenzspielermannschaft. Für Schalkes U23 absolvierte Itter in der vergangenen Saison 18 Einsätze in der Regionalliga West und erzielte dabei einen Treffer. +++Hamburgs Zoua vor Wechsel nach Frankreich+++ Jacques Zoua vom Fußball-Bundesligisten Hamburger SV steht vor einem Wechsel zum französischen Erstliga-Aufsteiger GFC Ajaccio. Der Spieler sei sich mit dem möglichen neuen Club über den Transfer einig, die Vereine „klären jetzt vertragliche Details“, teilten die Hanseaten am Dienstagabend via Twitter mit. Der kamerunische Stürmer war vor zwei Jahren zum HSV gewechselt und steht noch bis Juni 2016 unter Vertrag. Dienstag, 4. August +++Ex-Mainzer Ivanschitz spielt künftig für Seattle+++ Der frühere Mainzer Bundesliga-Profi Andreas Ivanschitz spielt künftig für die Seattle Sounders. Die Verpflichtung des 69-maligen österreichischen Fußball-Nationalspielers gab der Club aus der Major League Soccer am Dienstag bekannt. Der 31 Jahre alte Ivanschitz hatte zuletzt für UD Levante in Spanien gespielt. Von 2009 bis 2013 absolvierte der Mittelfeldspieler für den FSV Mainz 05 insgesamt 104 Bundesligaspiele, in denen ihm 22 Tore gelangen. +++1860 München leiht Stürmer Rodri nach Valladolid aus+++ Zweitligist TSV 1860 München hat Stürmer Rodri abgegeben. Der zuletzt bereits ausgemusterte Profi wechselt für ein Jahr auf Leihbasis zu Real Valladolid in die zweite spanische Liga. Der 25-Jährige war 2014 zu den „Löwen“ gekommen, enttäuschte seitdem aber mit nur zwölf Einsätzen und einem Tor. Trainer Torsten Fröhling hatte den lustlosen Rodri schon am Ende der vergangenen Saison aus dem Kader verbannt, und auch zuletzt spielte er im Team keine Rolle mehr. „Ich denke, damit haben wir für beide Seiten eine gute Lösung gefunden“, sagte der neue Sportchef Necat Aygün. Bei den Sechzigern hat der Spanier noch einen Vertrag bis 2017. +++ Augsburg verpflichtet Philipp Max +++ Der FC Augsburg hat sich die Dienste des umworbenen Linksverteidigers Philipp Max vom Karlsruher SC gesichert. Wie der Klub am Dienstag mitteilte, unterschreibt der 21-Jährige einen Vertrag bis 2017. Über die Transfermodalitäten machten die Vereine keine Angaben. Max war in den vergangenen Tagen immer wieder als Nachfolgekandidat für Abdul Rahman Baba gehandelt worden, der unmittelbar vor einem Wechsel zum FC Chelsea steht. +++ 1. FC Kaiserslautern leiht Colak aus +++ Zweitligist 1. FC Kaiserslautern hat für ein Jahr auf Leihbasis den Stürmer Antonio Colak verpflichtet. Das gab der Verein am Dienstag bekannt. Der 21-Jährige war zuletzt vom 1. FC Nürnberg an den polnischen Erstligisten Lechia Danzig ausgeliehen worden und wechselte dann im Sommer zu 1899 Hoffenheim. In Danzig erzielte Colak in 30 Ligaspielen zehn Tore. „Antonio ist ein Spieler, der genau die richtige Mentalität für den Betzenberg mitbringt. Er ist ein willensstarker Spieler, der auf dem Platz viel für das Team arbeitet und weite Wege geht“, sagte Sportdirektor Markus Schupp. Der FCK suchte nach dem Verkauf von Philipp Hofmann an den FC Brentford noch dringend einen Stürmer. +++ Kevin-Prince Boateng zu Sporting Lissabon +++ Der Wechsel von Kevin-Prince Boateng von Schalke 04 zu Sporting Lissabon ist nach portugiesischen Medien-Berichten nahezu perfekt. Der 28-jährige ghanaische Nationalspieler solle noch am Dienstag nach einer medizinischen Untersuchung in Lissabon einen Vertrag unterzeichnen, berichtete unter anderem die Tageszeitung „Diario de Noticias“. Boateng werde auf Leihbasis zum portugiesischen Pokalsieger kommen, hieß es. Sporting Lissabon bestreitet sein erstes offizielles Saison-Spiel am Sonntag gegen Landesmeister Benfica Lissabon. Beim Duell um den portugiesischen Supercup wird im Estádio Algarve in Faro Sporting-Neutrainer Jorge Jesus im Mittelpunkt stehen. Der 60-Jährige hatte in diesem Sommer mit dem brisanten Wechsel von Benfica zum Stadtrivalen für viele Schlagzeilen gesorgt. Mit Jesus wollen die „Leões“, die Löwen, endlich den ersten Liga-Titel seit 2001/2002 holen. Heiko Westermann war lange Führungsspieler beim HSV. Viel Grund zum Jubeln gab es dort aber zuletzt nicht mehr für ihn. Foto: dpa +++ Werder Bremen holt Aron Jóhannsson +++ Stürmer Aron Jóhannsson wechselt nach Angaben seines Klubs AZ Alkmaar zu Werder Bremen. Man habe eine Vereinbarung mit Werder über einen Transfer von Jóhannsson erreicht, teilte der niederländische Erstligist am Dienstag auf seiner Internetseite mit. Nach Angaben der niederländischen Zeitung „De Telegraaf“ soll die Ablösesumme zwischen vier und fünf Millionen Euro liegen. Der amerikanische Nationalspieler, der auch einen isländischen Pass besitzt, reiste am Dienstag schon nicht mehr mit Alkmaar zum Europa-League-Rückspiel bei Istanbul Basaksehir. Auf Jóhannsson wartet in Bremen zunächst die obligatorische sportärztliche Untersuchung. Der Angreifer soll im Werder-Kader die Lücke schließen, die durch den Wechsel von Torjäger Franco Di Santo zum FC Schalke 04 entstanden ist. Der torgefährliche Stürmer, der von US-Coach Jürgen Klinsmann auch für die WM 2014 in Brasilien nominiert worden war, hatte bei den Niederländer noch einen Vertrag bis Sommer 2018. Für Alkmaar erzielte er in der vergangenen Saison in 21 Spielen 9 Tore, hinzu kommen drei Vorlagen. In die Ligue 1? Hamburgs Jacques Zoua verlässt den HSV wohl in Richtung Frankreich. Foto: imago Montag, 3. August +++ Peter Niemeyer unterschreibt in Darmstadt +++ Bei Hertha BSC war er nur noch auf dem Abstellgleis, nun hat Peter Niemeyer einen neuen Klub gefunden. Der frühere Hertha-Kapitän hat einen Dreijahresvertrag bei Aufsteiger Darmstadt 98 unterschrieben. "Niemeyer ist ein Wunschspieler von uns. Durch ihn gewinnt unser Kader weiter deutlich an Qualität", erklärte 98-Trainer Dirk Schuster bei Twitter. An gleicher Stelle äußerte Niemeyer seine große Freude auf die neue "Herausforderung." US-Nationalspieler Aron Johannsson (r.) soll Werders Angriff verstärken. Foto: AFP Samstag, 1. August +++ Süle verlängert in Hoff
ington Camp in Dorset. On May 13, 1935, Lawrence was out riding his motorcycle near Clouds Hill, his cottage close to Wareham. According to the official version of the story, he came to a dip in the road. As he rode up the rise, he found himself about to hit two boys on bicycles. Swerving, he lost control and was flipped over the handlebars of his motorcycle, sustaining a mortal head wound, but not without clipping one of the boys. Lawrence died six days later: May 19, 1935. An inquest was held at Bovington Camp, and Lawrence was buried in a local graveyard. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. Almost immediately, rumors cropped up of a mysterious black car that ran Lawrence off the road. And shadowy sources alleged that Lawrence was killed by MI-5 on the orders of Winston Churchill. Rumors are wonderful things. They can be born out of thin air and take on lives of their own. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with Lawrence. Dorset historian Rodney Legg and Lawrence biographer Desmond Stewart both believed that Lawrence was assassinated. Four witnesses stated that they saw the mysterious black car: the two children who were involved in the incident; a man in a delivery van; and a soldier, one Private Catchpole, who happened to be in a nearby field. The children were kept incommunicado in a hospital and did not testify at the inquest, which was conducted, oddly enough, at Bovington Camp, and controlled by MI-5 rather than the local police. Catchpole did testify about the black car, but he, conveniently, killed himself shortly thereafter. The inquest was held in the morning; Lawrence was buried the same afternoon. But why? Why would Lawrence be considered a threat? The answer has to do with his political leanings. Around the time of his death, Lawrence was aligning himself with Sir Oswald Moseley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. And when he sustained the injuries that led to his death, Lawrence had been on his way to see his good friend, Hawthornden Prize winner Henry Williamson, who was facilitating a meeting between Lawrence and Adolph Hitler. Lawrence, like other veterans of World War I, abhorred the idea of yet another war in Europe, and, like Moseley and Williamson, saw dialogue with Hitler as a necessary first step to preventing it. In 1935, Lawrence was still a national hero. Moseley advocated peace, but there was an active war lobby in England. It is thought that Lawrence was about to publicly embrace the peace movement. This would have been very embarrassing to the war lobby. At this far a remove, it would be difficult to prove Lawrence’s fatal injuries were other than accidental, but the circumstantial evidence is considerable. Forensic examination in this instance would provide little. It doesn’t take a political historian to realize that the recruitment of a national figure like Lawrence would have boosted Moseley’s movement. But only the release of information from MI-5 and the British government could potentially shed any light on the circumstances of the accident, and that is highly unlikely to happen. Like much of his life, the details of T.E. Lawrence’s death will remain in the shadows. See these and other excellent photos at The Life of T.E. Lawrence tmblr. When Tony Hays isn’t traveling the world, teaching students, and adopting puppies, he takes time out to write the Arthurian Mystery series from Tor/Forge. See all posts by Tony Hays for Criminal Element.Above & Beyond are a dance music anomaly. While most of the group’s trance contemporaries have been rendered obsolete by EDM and tech-house, or have become unlikely theme song providers for lower-league football clubs (Dagenham & Redbridge walk out to Chicane’s Poppiholla), they have managed to scale ever-greater heights. While most trance artists stick to hands-in-the-air, Ministry of Sound-endorsed TUNES!, Above & Beyond aim to create songs that work just as well on the 675 bus to work on a dreary Monday morning. The song titles on this third studio album read like motivational corporate jargon: Quieter Is Louder, Blue Sky Action and the David Brentesque Sink the Lighthouse. Sticky Fingers, a song about a lingering love interest that is built on an utterly flawed metaphor, feels like it could be a Lonely Island skit. Still, this overwrought, nigh-on comical take on dance music has got them this far, so why stop now?WASHINGTON -- The Department of Veterans Affairs said Monday it would boost employee drug testing and inspections amid rising cases of opioid theft and missing prescriptions, acknowledging gaps that had allowed thousands of doctors, nurses and other staff to go unchecked for signs of illicit drug use. Testifying at a House hearing, Carolyn Clancy, a deputy VA undersecretary for health, said the department was moving aggressively to stem VA drug crimes. She said the VA was adding some inspectors to help check drug inventories across a network of 160 medical centers and 1,000 clinics. Computer systems also were being fine-tuned to ensure that all employees subject to drug testing were flagged for monitoring. Trump taps Obama appointee to head VA dept. In the last week, she said, the VA held a conference call with hundreds of health clinics to develop action plans of improvement. The department was also considering more internal audits to make sure hospitals are complying with VA policy. “The use of illegal drugs by VA employees is inconsistent with the special trust placed in such employees who care for veterans,” Clancy told the House Veterans Affairs subcommittee on oversight. “We actually need to up our game.” The panel held a hearing Monday aimed at the VA’s efforts to deter drug theft. The Associated Press reported last week on government data showing a sharp increase since 2009 in opioid theft and drugs that had simply disappeared at the VA, amid rising opioid abuse in the U.S. Reported incidents of drug losses or theft at federal hospitals jumped from 272 in 2009 to 2,926 in 2015, before dipping to 2,457 last year, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. “Federal hospitals” include the VA’s facilities as well as seven correctional hospitals and roughly 20 hospitals serving Indian tribes. Out of those cases, only a small fraction of VA doctors, nurses or pharmacy employees were disciplined. About 372 VA employees were dismissed, suspended or reprimanded for a drug or alcohol-related issue since 2010, according to VA data obtained by AP. Roughly translated, VA employees were disciplined in 3 percent of cases. Adding to the problem is that some VA hospitals have been lax in tracking drug supplies. Congressional auditors said spot checks found four VA hospitals skipped monthly inspections of drug stocks or missed other requirements. Pressed to estimate what percentage of VA’s total facilities likely had notable problems with inspections, Randall Williamson, health care director at the Government Accountability Office, cited between 85 percent and 90 percent. He referred to “not a great track record” of accountability at the VA. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., who chairs the House panel, said he was troubled by the reports, coming after repeated audit warnings dating back to at least 2009 of gaps in VA’s monitoring programs. “Unfortunately, the news has recently been filled with story after story of drug diversion within VA,” Bergman said. “In case after case, what we see are examples of drugs being diverted for personal use or personal gain, yet there does not seem to be much progress being made by VA.” Eighteen dead in three days from opioid overdoses in Cleveland area “We are in the midst of an opioid epidemic, and it is time for VA to start making effective changes to avoid putting veterans and the employees who serve them at risk.” Rep. Ann Kuster of New Hampshire, the panel’s top Democrat, said she worried that the VA may not be receiving adequate resources to stem drug theft. She pointed to President Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze. “Without adequate support staff in place, VA medical facilities will struggle to comply with the procedures and programs they must follow to ensure our veterans receive safe, high quality care,” she said. VA acknowledged it has had spotty compliance with drug inspections and employee drug testing and said most reform efforts were already underway. Among other problems, the VA inspector general’s office found the department had failed to test 70 percent - or 15,800 - prospective employees over a 12-month period who would serve in sensitive VA positions such as doctor, nurse or police officer. At the Atlanta medical center, mandatory drug testing for new hires did not occur at all for a period of at least 6 months between 2014 and 2015. Clancy said the VA was now committed to “100 percent testing” of new hires in sensitive VA positions and would fix gaps that had allowed nearly 1 in 10 employees subject to random drug testing to avoid being monitored at all. She also cited strong policies, such as 72-hour inventory checks and “double lock and key access” to drugs, to keep VA drug crime in check. Keith Berge, a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist who chairs its Medication Diversion Prevention group, said drug theft was serious and patients could be seriously harmed if deprived of medication. Conducting drug tests before hiring at the VA was critical, he said. “It is not good enough to merely have effective policies and procedures on the books; they must actually be rigorously followed.”A judge in Florida has ordered a man accused of domestic violence to take his wife on a date for her birthday, including flowers, Red Lobster and bowling. Joseph Bray’s wife, Sonya, told Broward County Judge John “Jay” Hurley that she had gotten mad at her husband because he failed to wish her a happy birthday, according to the Sun Sentinel. “Having an altercation in the kitchen, Joseph grabbed her arm, pushed her on the couch, put his hand around her neck, held up his fist to hit her, but didn’t actually hit her,” the police report said, according to Hurley. Bray’s wife said that although this wasn’t the first time she had to call the police, she loved her husband very much and didn’t want “nothing bad to happen to him.” “I want him to come home,” she added. “I’m going to order that when he comes home tonight — do you have a favorite restaurant?” the judge asked. “I like going bowling,” the wife replied. “I go to Red Lobster.” “I like Red Lobster,” Hurley agreed. “What we’re going to do is, he’s going to be out of jail by three o’clock today. And he’s going to stop by somewhere and he’s going to get some flowers — he’s going to get a card, he’s going to get flowers. And then he’s going to go home, pick up his wife, take her to Red Lobster. And then after they have Red Lobster, they’re going to go bowling. Alright?” “Does he have to let her win?” someone in the court asked. “No,” the judge said. “But what you’re going to do tomorrow night — tomorrow afternoon, you’re going to sit down and figure out where you’re going to go to counseling, alright? So, flowers, birthday card, Red Lobster, bowling. You got your work cut out for you.” Shakesville blogger Melissa McEwan pointed out that the wife should not have been asked if she feared further violence while her abuser was in the courtroom. “I desperately hope that Sonja Bray is safe,” McEwan wrote. “And I hope that Judge Ha Ha Chuckles is removed from the bench immediately. He literally facilitated what could very well be part of a pattern of escalating abuse: Violence, elaborate display of romance, violence. No one who thinks that sentence is appropriate, no one who fails to recognize how it fits into a recognized abuse cycle, has any fucking business presiding over domestic abuse cases.” Watch this video from Sun Sentinel, broadcast Feb. 7, 2012. (H/T: Alternet)By Christopher R Rice Underground Newz A group of fifty police officers from around the country, said they had been ordered to write at least 12 tickets per 12-hour shift or face repercussions. American cities have long had a reputation for their speed traps, but the allegations made by the police officers are particularly stunning since ticket quotas are illegal under most state laws. The fines paid by motorists are a big money-maker. According to most city's budgets, about half of their revenue comes from "court fines" from tickets issued. From hard working law-abiding citizens. This monies not used to keep our parks safer or to make our schools better, America has the worst public education system of any industrialized nation in the world. This money makes it so city Mayors and administrators can take home six figure salaries. While being wined and dined by lobbyist and special interest groups. The officers filed a complaint with the Inspector General's Office seeking protection under the Whistleblower Act. The officers said they were forced to go public because of the failure to conduct an investigation after they filed a formal complaint about the quotas, the mismanagement of evidence and other problems, according to the complaint.Doug Mataconis · · No comments And, deservedly so: (CNN) – A New Hampshire state legislator resigned his office Thursday after becoming the second Democrat in as many days to speculate about Sarah Palin’s death on Facebook. State Rep. Timothy Horrigan made the remarks Wednesday night in a thread discussing the Alaska plane crash that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens. “Well a dead Palin wd be even more dangerous than a live one…she is all about her myth & if she was dead she cldn’t commit any more gaffes,” Horrigan wrote. Horrigan was commenting on another post by a Democrat running for the state house, party activist Keith David Halloran, who found himself in hot water Wednesday after writing about the crash: “Just wish Sarah and Levy [sic] were on board.” After the controversy quickly gained steam Thursday, Horrigan sent a letter to the Speaker of the New Hampshire House offering his resignation. “I apologize for thoughtless remarks I made which have brought this House into disrepute,” Horrigan wrote. “I enjoyed my time in the House and I thank you personally for your support over the years.”British rock band Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970. Their classic line-up was Freddie Mercury (lead vocals and piano), Brian May (lead guitar and vocals), Roger Taylor (drums and vocals), and John Deacon (bass guitar). Their earliest works were influenced by progressive rock, hard rock and heavy metal, but the band gradually ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works by incorporating further styles, such as arena rock and pop rock. Before forming Queen, May and Taylor had played together in the band Smile. Mercury was a fan of Smile and encouraged them to experiment with more elaborate stage and recording techniques. He joined in 1970 and suggested the name "Queen". Deacon was recruited before the band recorded their eponymous debut album in 1973. Queen first charted in the UK with their second album, Queen II, in 1974. Sheer Heart Attack later that year and A Night at the Opera in 1975 brought them international success. The latter featured "Bohemian Rhapsody", which stayed at number one in the UK for nine weeks and helped popularise the music video. The band’s 1977 album News of the World contained "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions", which have become anthems at sporting events. By the early 1980s, Queen were one of the biggest stadium rock bands in the world. "Another One Bites the Dust" (1980) became their best-selling single, while their 1981 compilation album Greatest Hits is the best-selling album in the UK and is certified eight times platinum in the US. Their performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert has been ranked among the greatest in rock history by various publications. Mercury gave his last performance at Knebworth, England, in August 1986, with Queen. In 1991, he died of bronchopneumonia, a complication of AIDS, and Deacon retired in 1997. May and Taylor have performed under the Queen name with vocalists Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert since. Estimates of Queen's record sales range from 170 million to 300 million records, making them one of the world's best-selling music artists. Queen received the Outstanding Contribution to British Music Award from the British Phonographic Industry in 1990. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. Each member has composed hit singles, and all four were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2005, Queen received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. In 2018 they were presented the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. History 1968–1974: Early era In 1968, guitarist Brian May, a student at London's Imperial College, and bassist Tim Staffell decided to form a band. May placed an advertisement on a college notice board for a "Mitch Mitchell/Ginger Baker type" drummer; Roger Taylor, a young dental student, auditioned and got the job. The group called themselves Smile.[1] While attending Ealing Art College, Tim Staffell became friends with Farrokh Bulsara, a fellow student who had assumed the English name of Freddie. Bulsara felt that he and the band had the same tastes and soon became a keen fan of Smile. In 1970, after Staffell left to join the band Humpy Bong, the remaining Smile members, encouraged by now-member Bulsara, changed their name to "Queen" and performed their first gig on 18 July.[2] The band had a number of bass players during this period who did not fit with the band's chemistry. It was not until February 1971 that they settled on John Deacon and began to rehearse for their first album. They recorded four of their own songs, "Liar", "Keep Yourself Alive", "The Night Comes Down" and "Jesus", for a demo tape; no record companies were interested.[3] It was also around this time Freddie changed his surname to "Mercury", inspired by the line "Mother Mercury, look what they've done to me" in the song "My Fairy King".[4] On 2 July 1971, Queen played their first show in the classic line-up of Mercury, May, Taylor and Deacon at a Surrey college outside London.[5] Having attended art college, Mercury also designed Queen's logo, called the Queen crest, shortly before the release of the band's first album.[6] The logo combines the zodiac signs of all four members: two lions for Leo (Deacon and Taylor), a crab for Cancer (May), and two fairies for Virgo (Mercury).[6] The lions embrace a stylised letter Q, the crab rests atop the letter with flames rising directly above it, and the fairies are each sheltering below a lion.[6] There is also a crown inside the Q and the whole logo is over-shadowed by an enormous phoenix. The whole symbol bears a passing resemblance to the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, particularly with the lion supporters.[6] The original logo, as found on the reverse-side of the cover of the band's first album, was a simple line drawing. Later sleeves bore more intricate-coloured versions of the logo.[6][7] Queen guitar (right, next to a Rolling Stones guitar) at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, marking a 31 October 1970 Queen concert at the venue In 1972, Queen entered discussions with Trident Studios after being spotted at De Lane Lea Studios by John Anthony. After these discussions, Norman Sheffield offered the band a management deal under Neptune Productions, a subsidiary of Trident, to manage the band and enable them to use the facilities at Trident to record new material, whilst the management searched for a record label to sign Queen. This suited both parties, as Trident were expanding into management, and under the deal, Queen were able to make use of the hi-tech recording facilities used by other musicians such as the Beatles and Elton John to produce new material.[8] Roger Taylor later described these early off-peak studio hours as "gold dust".[9] In 1973, Queen signed to a deal with Trident/EMI. By July of that year, they released their eponymous debut album, an effort influenced by heavy metal and progressive rock.[10] The album was received well by critics; Gordon Fletcher of Rolling Stone called it "superb",[11] and Chicago's Daily Herald called it an "above average debut".[12] However, it drew little mainstream attention, and the lead single "Keep Yourself Alive" sold poorly. Retrospectively, it is cited as the highlight of the album, and in 2008 Rolling Stone ranked it 31st in the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time", describing it as "an entire album's worth of riffs crammed into a single song".[13] The album was certified gold in the UK and the US.[14][15] The group's second LP, Queen II, was released in 1974, and features rock photographer Mick Rock's iconic image of the band on the cover.[16] This image would be used as the basis for the 1975 "Bohemian Rhapsody" music video production.[16][17] The album reached number five on the British album chart and became the first Queen album to chart in the UK.[14] The Freddie Mercury-written lead single "Seven Seas of Rhye" reached number ten in the UK, giving the band their first hit.[14] The album is the first real testament to the band's distinctive layered sound, and features long complex instrumental passages, fantasy-themed lyrics, and musical virtuosity.[18][19] Aside from its only single, the album also included the song "The March of the Black Queen", a six-minute epic which lacks a chorus. The Daily Vault described the number as "menacing".[20] Critical reaction was mixed; the Winnipeg Free Press, while praising the band's debut album, described Queen II as an "over-produced monstrosity".[21] AllMusic has described the album as a favourite among the band's hardcore fans,[22] and it is the first of three Queen albums to feature in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[23] 1974–1976: Sheer Heart Attack to A Night at the Opera In May 1974, a month into the band's first US tour opening for Mott the Hoople, Brian May collapsed and was diagnosed with hepatitis, forcing the cancellation of their remaining dates.[18] While recuperating, May was initially absent when the band started work on their third album, but he returned midway through the recording process.[24] Released in 1974, Sheer Heart Attack reached number two in the United Kingdom,[25] sold well throughout Europe, and went gold in the United States.[15] It gave the band their first real experience of international success, and was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.[26] The album experimented with a variety of musical genres, including British music hall, heavy metal, ballads, ragtime, and Caribbean. At this point, Queen started to move away from the progressive tendencies of their first two releases into a more radio-friendly, song-orientated style.[27] Sheer Heart Attack introduced new sound and melody patterns that would be refined on their next album, A Night at the Opera. The single "Killer Queen" from Sheer Heart Attack reached number two on the British charts,[14] and became their first US hit, reaching number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.[28] It combines camp, vaudeville, and British music hall with May's guitar virtuosity. The album's second single, "Now I'm Here", a more traditional hard rock composition, was a number eleven hit in Britain, while the high speed rocker "Stone Cold Crazy" featuring May's uptempo riffs is a precursor to speed metal.[24][29] In recent years, the album has received acclaim from music publications: In 2006, Classic Rock ranked it number 28 in "The 100 Greatest British Rock Albums Ever",[30] and in 2007, Mojo ranked it No.88 in "The 100 Records That Changed the World".[31] It is also the second of three Queen albums to feature in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[23] In January 1975, the band left for a world tour with each member in Zandra Rhodes-created costumes and accompanied with banks of lights and effects. They toured the US as headliners, and played in Canada for the first time,[32] after that they played in seven cities of Japan from mid-April to the start of May. In September, after an angry split with Trident, the band negotiated themselves out of their Trident Studios contract and searched for new management. One of the options they considered was an offer from Led Zeppelin's manager, Peter Grant. Grant wanted them to sign with Led Zeppelin's own production company, Swan Song Records. The band found the contract unacceptable and instead contacted Elton John's manager, John Reid, who accepted the position.[33] In late 1975, Queen recorded and released A Night at the Opera, taking its name from the popular Marx Brothers movie. At the time, it was the most expensive album ever produced.[34] Like its predecessor, the album features diverse musical styles and experimentation with stereo sound. In "The Prophet's Song", an eight-minute epic, the middle section is a canon, with simple phrases layered to create a full-choral sound. The Mercury penned ballad, "Love of My Life", featured a harp and overdubbed vocal harmonies.[35] The album was very successful in Britain,[14] and went triple platinum in the United States.[15] The British public voted it the 13th greatest album of all time in a 2004 Channel 4 poll.[36] It has also ranked highly in international polls; in a worldwide Guinness poll, it was voted the 19th greatest of all time,[37] while an ABC poll saw the Australian public vote it the 28th greatest of all time.[38] A Night at the Opera has frequently appeared in "greatest albums" lists reflecting the opinions of critics. Among other accolades, it was ranked number 16 in Q Magazine's "The 50 Best British Albums Ever" in 2004, and number 11 in Rolling Stone's "The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time" as featured in their Mexican edition in 2004.[39] It was also placed at number 230 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2003.[40] A Night at the Opera is the third and final Queen album to be featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[23] The album also featured the hit single "Bohemian Rhapsody", which was number one in the UK for nine weeks.[14] Mercury's close friend and advisor, Capital London radio DJ Kenny Everett, played a pivotal role in giving the single exposure.[41][42] It is the third-best-selling single of all time in the UK, surpassed only by Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997", and is the best-selling commercial single (i.e. not for-charity) in the UK. It also reached number nine in the United States (a 1992 re-release reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks).[28] It is the only single ever to sell a million copies on two separate occasions,[43] and became the Christmas number one twice in the UK, the only single ever to do so. "Bohemian Rhapsody" has also been voted the greatest song of all time in three different polls.[44][45][46] The band decided to make a video to help go with the single and hired Trilion,[47] a subsidiary of the former management company Trident Studios, using new technology to create the video; the result is generally considered to have been the first "true" music video ever produced,[48][49][50] and popularised the medium.[51] Although other bands, including the Beatles, had made short promotional films or videos of songs before, most of those were made to be aired on specific television shows. On the impact of "Bohemian Rhapsody", Rolling Stone states: "Its influence cannot be overstated, practically inventing the music video seven years before MTV went on the air."[50] Ranking it number 31 on their list of the 50 key events in rock music history, The Guardian stated it ensured "videos would henceforth be a mandatory tool in the marketing of music".[52] The album's first track "Death on Two Legs" is said to have been written by Mercury about Norman Sheffield (and the former management at Trident who helped make the video so popular) because the band was broke despite the success of the previous album.[8][53] The second single from the album, "You're My Best Friend", the second song composed by John Deacon, and his first single, peaked at number sixteen in the United States[28] and went on to become a worldwide top-ten hit.[43] The band's A Night at the Opera Tour began in November 1975, and covered Europe, the United States, Japan, and Australia.[54] 1976–1979: A Day at the Races to Live Killers By 1976, Queen were back in the studio recording A Day at the Races, which is often regarded as a sequel album to A Night at the Opera.[55][56] It again borrowed the name of a Marx Brothers movie, and its cover was similar to that of A Night at the Opera, a variation on the same Queen Crest.[57] The most recognisable of the Marx Brothers, Groucho Marx, invited Queen to visit him in his Los Angeles home in March 1977; there the band thanked him in person, and performed "'39" a cappella.[58] Musically, A Day at the Races was by both fans' and critics' standards a strong effort, reaching number one in the UK and Japan, and number five in the US.[14][57] The major hit on the album was "Somebody to Love", a gospel-inspired song in which Mercury, May, and Taylor multi-tracked their voices to create a 100-voice gospel choir. The song went to number two in the UK,[14] and number thirteen in the US.[28] The album also featured one of the band's heaviest songs, May's "Tie Your Mother Down", which became a staple of their live shows.[59][60] During 1976, Queen played one of their most famous gigs, a free concert in Hyde Park, London.[61] A concert organised by the entrepreneur Richard Branson, it set an attendance record with 150,000 people confirmed in the audience.[61][62] On 1 December 1976, Queen were the intended guests on London's early evening Today programme, but they pulled out at the last-minute, which saw their late replacement on the show, EMI labelmate the Sex Pistols, give their infamous expletive-strewn interview with Bill Grundy.[63][64] During the A Day at the Races Tour in 1977, Queen performed sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden, New York, in February, and Earls Court, London, in June.[17][65] The band's sixth studio album News of the World was released in 1977, which has gone four times platinum in the United States, and twice in the UK.[15] The album contained many songs tailor-made for live performance, including two of rock's most recognisable anthems, "We Will Rock You" and the rock ballad "We Are the Champions", both of which became enduring international sports anthems, and the latter reached number four in the US.[28][66] Queen commenced the News of the World Tour in November 1977, and Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times called this concert tour the band's "most spectacularly staged and finely honed show".[67] In 1978, the band released Jazz, which reached number two in the UK and number six on the Billboard 200 in the US.[68] The album included the hit singles "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Bicycle Race" on a double-sided record. Reviews of the album in recent years have been more favourable.[69] Another notable track from Jazz, "Don't Stop Me Now", provides another example of the band's exuberant vocal harmonies.[70] In 1978, Queen toured the US and Canada, and spent much of 1979 touring in Europe and Japan.[71] They released their first live album, Live Killers, in 1979; it went platinum twice in the US.[72] Queen also released the very successful single "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", a rockabilly inspired song done in the style of Elvis Presley.[73][74] The song made the top 10 in many countries, topped the Australian ARIA Charts for seven consecutive weeks, and was the band's first number one single in the United States where it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks.[28][75] Having written the song on guitar and played rhythm on the record, Mercury played rhythm guitar while performing the song live, which was the first time he ever played guitar in concert.[74] In December 1979, Queen played the opening night at the Concert for the People of Kampuchea in London, having accepted a request by the event's organiser Paul McCartney.[74] 1980–1984: The Game to The Works Queen on stage at the Oakland Arena, Oakland, California, July 1980 Queen began their 1980s career with The Game. It featured the singles "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "Another One Bites the Dust", both of which reached number one in the US.[28] After attending a Queen concert in Los Angeles, Michael Jackson suggested to Mercury backstage that "Another One Bites the Dust" be released as a single, and in October 1980 it spent three weeks at number one.[76] The album topped the Billboard 200 for five weeks,[77] and sold over four million copies in the US.[15] It was also the first appearance of a synthesiser on a Queen album. Heretofore, their albums featured a distinctive "No Synthesisers!" sleeve note. The note is widely assumed to reflect an anti-synth, pro-"hard"-rock stance by the band,[78] but was later revealed by producer Roy Thomas Baker to be an attempt to clarify that those albums' multi-layered solos were created with guitars, not synths, as record company executives kept assuming at the time.[79] In September 1980, Queen performed three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden.[17] In 1980, Queen also released the soundtrack they had recorded for Flash Gordon.[80] At the 1981 American Music Awards in January, "Another One Bites the Dust" won the award for Favorite Pop/Rock Single, and Queen were nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Band, Duo, or Group.[81] In February 1981, Queen travelled to South America as part of The Game Tour, and became the first major rock band to play in Latin American stadiums.[71] The tour included five shows in Argentina, one of which drew the largest single concert crowd in Argentine history with an audience of 300,000 in Buenos Aires[82] and two concerts at the Morumbi Stadium in São Paulo, Brazil, where they played to an audience of more than 131,000 people in the first night (then the largest paying audience for a single band anywhere in the world)[83] and more than 120,000 people the following night.[84] In October of the same year, Queen performed for more than 150,000 fans on 9 October at Monterrey (Estadio Universitario) and 17 and 18 at Puebla (Estadio Zaragoza), Mexico.[85] On 24 and 25 November, Queen played two sell out nights at the Montreal Forum, Quebec, Canada.[86] One of Mercury's most notable performances of The Game's final track, "Save Me", took place in Montreal, and the concert is recorded in the live album, Queen Rock Montreal.[87] It was very excessive [the style of life]. I think the excess leaked out from the music into life and became a need. Queen was a wonderful vehicle and a wonderful, magical combination, but I think it came close to destroying us all. [We] were the biggest thing in the world for a moment in time and everything that goes with that really messes up your mind somehow. We've all suffered. Freddie, obviously, went completely AWOL, which is why he got that terrible disease. He was utterly out of control for a while. In a way, all of us were out of control and... it screwed us up. —Brian May on the most turbulent period in the band during the early 1980s.[88] Queen worked with David Bowie on the single "Under Pressure". The first-time collaboration with another artist was spontaneous, as Bowie happened to drop by the studio while Queen were recording.[89] Upon its release, the song was extremely successful, reaching number one in the UK and featuring at number 31 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the '80s.[90] In October that year, Queen released their first compilation album, titled Greatest Hits, which showcased the group's highlights from 1974 to 1981.[91] It is the best-selling album in UK Chart history, and has spent 450 weeks in the UK Album Chart.[92] The album is certified eight times platinum in the United States, and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide.[15][93] Taylor became the first member of the band to release his own solo album in 1981, titled Fun in Space. In 1982, the band released the album Hot Space, a departure from their trademark seventies sound, this time being a mixture of rock, pop rock, dance, funk, and R&B.[94] Most of the album was recorded in Munich during the most turbulent period in the band's history, and Taylor and May lamented the new sound, with both being very critical of the influence Mercury's personal manager Paul Prenter had on the singer.[95] May was also scathing of Prenter, who was Mercury's manager from the early 1980s to 1984, for being dismissive of the importance of radio stations, such as the US networks, and their vital connection between the artist and the community, and for denying them access to Mercury.[96
consider sharing it with those who rank far lower. To that end, there are also quick links to charitable organizations on the site so you can share your wealth.2017 NFL Draft Scouting Reports - Choose Player 2017 NFL Draft Scouting Reports - Home Jamal Adams, S, LSU Montravius Adams, DT, Auburn Jonathan Allen, DT, Alabama Ryan Anderson, LB, Alabama Chidobe Awuzie, CB, Colorado Budda Baker, S, Washington Derek Barnett, DE, Tennessee Garett Bolles, OT, Utah Tyus Bowser, OLB, Houston Caleb Brantley, DT, Florida Jake Butt, TE, Michigan Taco Charlton, DE, Michigan Nick Chubb, RB, Georgia Gareon Conley, CB, Ohio State Dalvin Cook, RB, Florida State Zach Cunningham, LB, Vanderbilt Julie'n Davenport, OT, Bucknell Corey Davis, WR, Western Michigan Jarrad Davis, LB, Florida Pat Elflein, G, Ohio State Evan Engram, TE, Ole Miss Gerald Everett, TE, South Alabama Dan Feeney, G, Indiana Devonte Fields, OLB, TCU Isaiah Ford, WR, Virginia Tech D'Onta Foreman, RB, Texas Reuben Foster, LB, Alabama Leonard Fournette, RB, LSU Wayne Gallman, RB, Clemson Myles Garrett, DE, Texas A&M Davon Godchaux, DT, LSU Charles Harris, DE, Missouri Marquis Haynes, DE, Ole Miss Malik Hooker, S, Ohio State O.J. Howard, TE, Alabama Marlon Humphrey, CB, Alabama Adoree' Jackson, CB, USC Roderick Johnson, OT, Florida State Josh Jones, S, N.C. State Sidney Jones, CB, Washington Zay Jones, WR, East Carolina Brad Kaaya, QB, Miami Alvin Kamara, RB, Tennessee Chad Kelly, QB, Ole Miss Desmond King, CB, Iowa Kevin King, CB, Washington DeShone Kizer, QB, Notre Dame Tanoh Kpassagnon, DE, Villanova Cooper Kupp, WR, Eastern Washington Forrest Lamp, G, Western Kentucky Marshon Lattimore, CB, Onio State Jourdan Lewis, CB, Michigan Lowell Lotulelei, DT, Utah Pat Mahomes, QB, Texas Tech Marcus Maye, S, Florida Christian McCaffrey, RB, Stanford Malik McDowell, DT, Michigan State Takkarist McKinley, DE/LB, UCLA Raekwon McMillan, LB, Ohio State Obi Melifonwu, S, Connecticut Joe Mixon, RB, Oklahoma Fabian Moreau, CB, UCLA David Njoku, TE, Miami Jabrill Peppers, S, Michigan Ethan Pocic, C, LSU Ryan Ramczyk, OT, Wisconsin Haason Reddick, LB, Temple Cam Robinson, OT, Alabama John Ross, WR, Washington Curtis Samuel, WR, Ohio State Juju Smith-Schuster, WR, USC Dawuane Smoot, DE, Illinois Jalen Tabor, CB, Florida Cordrea Tankersley, CB, Clemson Solomon Thomas, DE, Stanford Mitch Trubisky, QB, North Carolina Anthony Walker, LB, Northwestern Demarcus Walker, DE, Florida State DeShaun Watson, QB, Clemson T.J. Watt, LB, Wisconsin Davis Webb, QB, California Tre'Davious White, CB, LSU Marcus Williams, S, Utah Mike Williams, WR, Clemson Tim Williams, DE, Alabama Jordan Willis, DE, Kansas State Quincy Wilson, CB, Florida Chris Wormley, DE, Michigan Jarrad Davis, 6-1/238 Linebacker Florida Jarrad Davis Scouting Report By Charlie Campbell Very good instincts Fast Explosive flying around the field Sudden athlete Twitchy Violent tackler Can buckle an offensive lineman with speed to power Has the ability to shed blocks Can get off blocks and make tackle Gifted pass-coverage linebacker Impressive man-coverage ability versus tight ends and running backs Can drop into zone coverage Ball skills Rangy Good size Tough run defender Good tackler a lot of the time Quick Diagnosis skills Very quick to read his keys Read-and-react skills Fits a 4-3 or 3-4 defense Fits perfectly as a Will Always around the ball Quick to the flat Upside Plays hurt Experienced Great team leader Field general Passionate; loves football Hard worker Upside Overaggressive at times Goes for knockout blows, sometimes doesn't wrap up Banged up throughout 2016 season and predraft process 2017 NFL Draft Scouting Reports - Choose Player 2017 NFL Draft Scouting Reports - Home Jamal Adams, S, LSU Montravius Adams, DT, Auburn Jonathan Allen, DT, Alabama Ryan Anderson, LB, Alabama Chidobe Awuzie, CB, Colorado Budda Baker, S, Washington Derek Barnett, DE, Tennessee Garett Bolles, OT, Utah Tyus Bowser, OLB, Houston Caleb Brantley, DT, Florida Jake Butt, TE, Michigan Taco Charlton, DE, Michigan Nick Chubb, RB, Georgia Gareon Conley, CB, Ohio State Dalvin Cook, RB, Florida State Zach Cunningham, LB, Vanderbilt Julie'n Davenport, OT, Bucknell Corey Davis, WR, Western Michigan Jarrad Davis, LB, Florida Pat Elflein, G, Ohio State Evan Engram, TE, Ole Miss Gerald Everett, TE, South Alabama Dan Feeney, G, Indiana Devonte Fields, OLB, TCU Isaiah Ford, WR, Virginia Tech D'Onta Foreman, RB, Texas Reuben Foster, LB, Alabama Leonard Fournette, RB, LSU Wayne Gallman, RB, Clemson Myles Garrett, DE, Texas A&M Davon Godchaux, DT, LSU Charles Harris, DE, Missouri Marquis Haynes, DE, Ole Miss Malik Hooker, S, Ohio State O.J. Howard, TE, Alabama Marlon Humphrey, CB, Alabama Adoree' Jackson, CB, USC Roderick Johnson, OT, Florida State Josh Jones, S, N.C. State Sidney Jones, CB, Washington Zay Jones, WR, East Carolina Brad Kaaya, QB, Miami Alvin Kamara, RB, Tennessee Chad Kelly, QB, Ole Miss Desmond King, CB, Iowa Kevin King, CB, Washington DeShone Kizer, QB, Notre Dame Tanoh Kpassagnon, DE, Villanova Cooper Kupp, WR, Eastern Washington Forrest Lamp, G, Western Kentucky Marshon Lattimore, CB, Onio State Jourdan Lewis, CB, Michigan Lowell Lotulelei, DT, Utah Pat Mahomes, QB, Texas Tech Marcus Maye, S, Florida Christian McCaffrey, RB, Stanford Malik McDowell, DT, Michigan State Takkarist McKinley, DE/LB, UCLA Raekwon McMillan, LB, Ohio State Obi Melifonwu, S, Connecticut Joe Mixon, RB, Oklahoma Fabian Moreau, CB, UCLA David Njoku, TE, Miami Jabrill Peppers, S, Michigan Ethan Pocic, C, LSU Ryan Ramczyk, OT, Wisconsin Haason Reddick, LB, Temple Cam Robinson, OT, Alabama John Ross, WR, Washington Curtis Samuel, WR, Ohio State Juju Smith-Schuster, WR, USC Dawuane Smoot, DE, Illinois Jalen Tabor, CB, Florida Cordrea Tankersley, CB, Clemson Solomon Thomas, DE, Stanford Mitch Trubisky, QB, North Carolina Anthony Walker, LB, Northwestern Demarcus Walker, DE, Florida State DeShaun Watson, QB, Clemson T.J. Watt, LB, Wisconsin Davis Webb, QB, California Tre'Davious White, CB, LSU Marcus Williams, S, Utah Mike Williams, WR, Clemson Tim Williams, DE, Alabama Jordan Willis, DE, Kansas State Quincy Wilson, CB, Florida Chris Wormley, DE, Michigan RELATED LINKS: Prior to the 2015 season, Davis was an unknown and teammate Antonio Morrison was the linebacker who was considered a prospect for the NFL. That changed during Davis that season. In 2015, Florida featured one of the best defenses in the nation that led the program to a SEC East Championship and a surprising spot in the SEC Championship. While there were future first-round picks in the secondary with Keanu Neal and Vernon Hargreaves III, Davis was the player who may have been the Gators' biggest breakout star of the 2015 season and was a much better linebacker than Morrison. NFL sources raved about David late in the 2015 season as he was all over the field for the Gators. When other players like Hargreaves seemed to take their foot off the pedal late in the season, Davis was playing like a man on fire. He totaled 94 tackles with 11 tackles for a loss, four passes broken up, an interception and 3.5 sacks in 2015. Late in the year, the junior really had a huge presence for Florida.As a senior, Davis was often hurt and tried to play through a leg injury. He was never the same player as he was in 2015. Davis played nine games while hobbling around in some contests and not finishing some of them. He totaled 60 tackles, two sacks and four passes broken up in 2016. The rehab from injuries kept Davis from participating in the Senior Bowl and combine. However, he was tremendous at his pro day with a 40 of 4.5 seconds. His 40 time, broad jump and vertical jump would have been the best numbers of any linebacker at the combine.Davis is a rare linebacker with a great skill set. He is very fast with sideline-to-sideline speed that allows him to cover a ton of ground. Davis is explosive as a runner and as a hitter with some real shock that surprises offensive linemen and ball-carriers. He also is a team leader who loves football. The senior is the epitome of the field general to call the plays, make the checks, and be a motivator in the huddle. Players who have played against Davis, have told WalterFootball.com that he is the real deal and is a terrific player.Davis is all over the field as a run defender for the ground game. Routinely, one would see plays where Davis was phenomenally quick at reading the play and darting into the backfield to blow the play up. Not only does he explode into the backfield, he flies to the sideline, and throws his body around at the line of scrimmage.For the most part, Davis is a good tackler and can hit with authority. He can be a little overaggressive and over-pursue, but generally he is sound about getting the ball-carrier on the ground. Davis is very physical at hitting running backs, quarterbacks, receivers, and offensive linemen. There are plays where he buckles offensive linemen with his dynamic speed and power crashing into them. Davis has a great motor as well.Davis also demonstrated skills for the passing game and is a dangerous blitzer. In the short to intermediate zone, he does well with picking up receivers and also has shown some ball skills. As a professional, Davis could be an asset as a linebacker weapon to neutralize receiving-threat tight ends and running backs in man-to-man coverage. Davis should be a true three-down defender in the NFL.Sources across the league love Davis. One scout said, "Jarrad is a more explosive player, and he was dynamic as a junior. Had an injuries as a senior, but he's actually more stable an all-around prospect than Reuben Foster and less maintenance than Reuben. Plus, you're not losing any speed or explosive play-making ability. He had some dominant games in 2015 where he took over. Plus, he can quarterback the defense. Jarrad can buckle an OL. He has speed and range to carry routes and make the play. Twitchy, fast, stout frame. Jarrad is faster, more explosive athletically, and finishes with more violence than Zach Cunningham. Jarrad's injury was ongoing since preseason, so I gave him credit for playing through it. It validated how tough everyone said he is." In the NFL, Davis has three down starting potential as soon as his rookie season. Being a run-and-chase Will (weakside) linebacker in a 3-4 defense would be a great fit for Davis. In a 4-3 defense, he could be a Will (weakside) linebacker or a Mike (middle) linebacker. In the 2017 NFL Draft, Davis has a shot to be a first-round pick in the back half. Some sources have Davis graded in the second round and believe that he will go there.Sources have compared Davis to Vilma, which makes a lot of sense. Vilma (6-1, 230) was a fast and instinctive linebacker who could do everything in the NFL. He was the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and three-time Pro Bowler while being a leader on the Saints' 2009 Super Bowl Championship team. Davis' game is very similar to Vilma's, and Davis could be an excellent pro linebacker like Vilma was.Miami, Detroit, New York Giants, Houston, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Los Angeles Chargers, Oakland, Denver, Kansas City, Cincinnati, San Francisco and ArizonaThere are a lot of teams who could consider drafting Davis in the late first round and into Round 2. Miami had a big need at linebacker entering the offseason and even after free agency, the team could consider Davis in the first or second round. The Lions could use more linebacker talent, too. Davis would be a great fit for Detroit in Round 1 or 2.The Raiders have a huge need at middle linebacker as the interior of their defense was shredded last year. Davis would be an instant upgrade. Staying in the AFC West, the Chargers are switching to a 4-3 defense and let Manti Te'o leave in free agency. If Davis makes it to Round 2, he could form a nice tandem with Denzel Perryman. Denver could use a linebacker upgrade after losing Danny Trevathan a year ago. Kansas City also could consider Davis as an understudy to Derrick Johnson.The Texans need a linebacker upgrade next to Benardrick McKinney as Brian Cushing has become a liability on the field. Davis would be a perfect fit for what the Texans need and an immediate upgrade over Cushing. Houston has bigger needs in round one, but if good talent isn't available at one of those positions, the organization could opt for Davis. The rival Colts need a linebacker upgrade, too, and Davis would be a great pick for them in the second round.The Bills could use a Will (weakside) linebacker to add to their change to a 4-3. Davis could form an exciting tandem with Reggie Ragland.The Bengals could use more linebacker talent next to Vontaze Burfict, and Davis could be a fit for them in Round 2.The 49ers could use an inside linebacker upgrade, and Davis could be in play for them at the top of Day 2. Staying in the NFC West, Arizona needs an inside linebacker upgrade after moving on from Kevin Minter.Exploring mighty Caucasus mountains Marshrutka from Didube bus station takes about 3 hours up the windy mountain roads and costs 10 GEL, you pay to the driver and they leave when full. If you are planning to climb Kazbegi (5033m) you will need a guide or at least someone with solid mountaineering skills. Mostly because you will have to cross Gergeti Glacier at 3000m. We had a much less ambitious plan, just to reach the Holy Trinity Church and get to a view point of the glacier. As soon as we got out of marshrutka we were surrounded by old women offering a room. We picked one and got a room and food for 70 GEL. You can get a jeep up to the church, or hike up to Gergeti and take a trail bending the hill on the left side. It takes about 1,5-2 hours to reach the Church, there are only couple of spots where you can refill your water bottle. Once you get to the top this when you get to enjoy the view. The church is very pretty and it gets rather busy with both tourists and pilgrims. After a quick photo session we decided not to waste any time and push on to the view point. The trails is not too steep and easy to follow, it only took us another 2 hours to get there and see this thing of beauty. Mighty Kazbegi towering over the glacier. We could see some tents camping just below the glacier, we were told that this was the only place you could refill your water after the Church.When Apple announces the next iPhones on Tuesday, one thing is a pretty safe bet: It won’t have a headphone jack. The company famously removed it from the iPhone 7 models, saying the old analog jack had to go, in part because space in the devices was “at a premium,” as Apple executive Phil Schiller said at the phone’s launch last year. The move spurred an outsized amount of clamor as the company pushed people towards wireless solutions like their $159 Bluetooth AirPods. But Scotty Allen, an American with a very strong do-it-yourself streak known for building his own iPhone from spare parts he procured in Shenzhen, China, decided to add a headphone jack back into the device; he’s just published a video thoroughly explaining how he did it. Ultimately, he says the process took him about four months and thousands of dollars—you can watch the full 33-minute step-by-step video below. The project, he explains over Skype from Shenzhen, was born out of his practical desire to use his wired headphones, but he was also intrigued by the “engineering problem” with installing one back in the device himself. It wasn’t a “philosophical crusade,” he says, so much as an opportunity to tell a good story.It’s been nearly 15 years since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but the U.S. has hardly made any net gains against the brand of radical extremism that inspired al Qaeda and similar groups, co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission claimed Wednesday. “We’re not winning; we’re simply at a stalemate,” former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean (R) told reporters during a conference call. ADVERTISEMENT “The obvious fact is that we haven’t had a major attack such as 9/11 in those 15 years,” he said. “On the other hand, we’ve had a lot of small attacks … and around the world, the situation is probably even more dangerous than it was on 9/11,” he added, noting the rise of groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as well as extremists across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. The comments, days before the fifteenth anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks this Sunday, are a dispiriting reflection of the state of U.S. and global security. The government underwent a massive overhaul in the years following 9/11, including the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and has spent untold billions of dollars on improving nearly every conceivable point of vulnerability. Yet in some places, that ramp-up has only replaced one fumbling bureaucracy with another, Kean and 9/11 Commission co-chair former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) suggested. “We’ve got to crank it up and do better what we’re doing and do some things that we haven’t been doing, with a great deal of robust implementation,” Hamilton said. “We don’t want to go another 15 years before we get our strategy right.” In 2004, the 9/11 Commission offered what has been taken to be a definitive accounting of the failures in U.S. intelligence and security ahead of the Sept. 11 attacks. Among other points, it highlighted bureaucratic oversights that made it difficult for intelligence agencies to communicate with one another, and criticized policies at the border and points of entry into the U.S. The commission also called for a robust system of congressional oversight, which the two co-chairmen said Wednesday remains sorely lacking. “Before 9/11 nobody was doing the oversight and there were problems. And right now we’re not doing an effective job at oversight,” said Kean, noting the multiple congressional committees in some way charged with overseeing the sprawling mandate of the Department of Homeland Security. “And until the Congress decides that its going to have a single oversight committee for homeland security, and not this panoply of 94 different committee, that’s not oversight. That’s a total lack of oversight. “In my opinion, that’s probably our most important recommendation that still hasn’t been acted on.” Later this year, Kean and Hamilton are planning to launch a new task force at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank, to examine themes from the 9/11 Commission’s original report which have yet to be addressed.Tattoos, selfies, and soul-crushing levels of long-term debt: These are America’s millennials, ladies and gentlemen. Born between the early 1980s and the year 2000, millennials were raised during a largely fruitful time in American history. But they were too young to take advantage of cheap higher education and credit like their parents did. And then the Great Recession hit. So an entire generation has had its wheels stuck in the mud. It’s a future different from what many pictured growing up during the ’90s and early 2000s, in which the economy was humming and the world was more or less on stable footing. Selling Beanie Babies or Pogs on eBay isn’t going to get the millennials out of the hole. So it begs to be asked: How exactly did an entire generation end up in such a gigantic rut? An infographic, put together by Chicago-based psychiatric center Yellowbrick, gives a pretty good overview of not only where the debt came from, but its overall impact on daily life. “Credit cards, student loans, mortgages, car payments — today’s millennials have more debt than ever, and studies show that there can be a long-term health effect on the stress this causes,” Yellowbrick’s study says. “Two-thirds of millennials aged 23 to 35 have at least one source of long-term debt, while one-third have more than one source.” So how did it come to this? Millennials and debt Digging deeper doesn’t offer much comfort. According to the infographic, almost 40% of Americans are loaded with credit card debt — with an average amount of $16,000 — and another 37% of the under-40 crowd have student loan debt, at an average of $40,000. These aren’t balances that can be paid off in short order, either. The average salary for millennials is less than $35,000. If you had to point to one thing in particular Yellowbrick highlights with its release is it has to come down to student loans. Student debt really seems to be the main factor millennials are struggling to deal with. And Yellowbrick even highlights in the middle of its graphic that “if the U.S. government were a private company, it would be the most profitable in the world purely from student loans.” As we’ve highlighted before, student debt really has made a significant impact on the lives of millennials. While baby boomers and older Americans have largely looked at “lifestyle choices” for the main reasons behind the millennials’ refusal to “grow up,” the signs all point back to a hefty amount of student loan debt — debts in quantities previous generations didn’t have to deal with. Wheels in the mud This is the main reason millennials are reluctant to move out of their parents’ houses, get married, or buy cars. They don’t make enough money, and there’s too much debt. There’s no easy or fast way to fix the problem, as entire industries have been built on a cycle of revolving student debt. Yellowbrick goes on to show student debt can actually cause further debts, as the inability to make payments might lead to personal loans or credit card debt, which might lead to lower credit scores and higher payments. It’s a cycle, and that’s not even getting into the emotional and psychological damage that’s being done. Obviously, there are a lot of factors at play. But according to Yellowbrick, the issues that millennials are facing largely come back to the fact that they were all herded into colleges and universities and saddled with monstrous loans. Although personal responsibility does enter the conversation, we know these loans are pushed onto students who don’t really know the gravity of their situations. And because the loans can’t be discharged through bankruptcy, lenders and schools don’t have any skin in the game. So they keep dishing them out. Other debt The main sticking point, at least according to Yellowbrick’s research, is student debt. But there are also other types of debt that come into play. Not everyone goes to college, after all. And debt, in general, is a very serious issue for more than just Generation Y. But a look at the average American household reveals debt is a multi-generational problem. According to a NerdWallet report, the average household in the U.S. carries a total debt load of nearly $135,000. For households carrying a specific type of debt, we’re looking at averages of roughly $50,000 in student loan debt, $29,000 in auto loan debt, and almost $17,000 in credit card debt. The biggest piece of the debt pie, per NerdWallet, are mortgages. Per NerdWallet, the average American household owes more than $176,000 on their home loans. But we know many millennials have put off buying a house. So it’s hard to gauge how big of an issue that is for Gen Y. Getting paid enough It’s worth going back and touching on another important element: earnings. Average millennial salaries are still below $35,000. That will improve with time, as the generation ages and becomes more experienced. The next generation up, “Generation Z,” will then start moving into these positions. The important thing to remember is when it comes to salaries, millennials were entering the workforce during the Great Recession. Research shows people who enter the workforce during recessions or economic contractions have their lifetime earnings stunted. One study said graduates entering the workforce during a recession see, on average, a 9% shock to their initial earnings, for example. There are ways to overcome those initial losses. But for millions of Americans, the simple timing of their entry into the workforce is the problem. And it is going to hamstring their earnings for years to come. This is an issue we’ve seen all across the country. Employers, who were able to get away with paying low wages during and after the recession, are resisting pay increases. It’s yet another complicated piece of an already complicated puzzle. You can read through Yellowbrick’s release to see even more statistics. But the point is this: Millennials were hosed, and there’s not much anyone can do to fix it. More from Money & Career Cheat Sheet:PARIS -- What do crash test simulations, medical vaccines, and Pixar all have in common? They could all be heating your home in the future. A French company called Qarnot Computing is channeling computing power and using its byproduct to warm Parisian homes during the inevitably cold winter. Computing generates heat -- no surprise to anyone who owns a laptop. Large companies and research industries often rely on external data centers for high-performance computing (HPC) to run simulations or other processes that take time and energy. These centers, essentially warehouses full of digital servers, not only take up physical space, but also require hefty budgets to air-condition them in order to prevent the hardware from malfunctioning. While data centers require mass amounts of electricity for cooling, some nine million French people are actually lacking energy for heat every year. The team at Qarnot is rethinking data centers by breaking up the collection of servers and dispersing them into Parisians' homes or other buildings in the form of digital radiators. "The idea was to generate the waste in the only place where it is not a waste -- directly in people's homes," Danuta Pieter, an engineer and partner at Qarnot Computing said. This new service could provide an enticing alternative to traditional, yet costly data centers while helping bring heat to those who can't afford it. With nearly 40% of France's data centers located in the crowded and energy-hungry Parisian region, server access is expensive to build and maintain. Electricity has become so scarce that no new centers can be built within 5 kilometers of Paris. While Google, for instance, opened a $273 million center in Finland to cut costs on cooling by opting for a colder climate, Qarnot developed a more innovative approach to the problem. Heat, the byproduct of computing cycles, can easily emit from Qarnot's radiators when a client taps into the network for some extra processing power. The heaters and clients can connect through the internet, ideally a fiber optic connection. Pieter says that in France, nearly 80% of data center's costs is related to cooling, but by cutting cooling costs essentially to zero, Pieter said Qarnot can offer clients CPU hours for as little as 7% of the standard rate in France. To demonstrate the effectiveness of their system, Qarnot outfitted two housing projects in Paris this July with their radiators, providing free heat to low-income families. The implementation comes as electricity prices rise five percent this year and next, some of the highest hikes in the last ten years. The heaters have summer modes that allow them to emit as little heat as a normal laptop, meaning that the digital radiators are still viable in warmer weather conditions. In addition to providing free heating through the radiators, called Qrads, Pieter said that a huge advantage of their system is that they can provide low-cost computing to researchers who otherwise may not have had access to pricier data centers. "We have a model whereby we can give access to public researcher for a cost or even for free," she said. The radiators are meant to operate at 50% capacity, which means that during a slow day or a cold spell when heat is needed, Qarnot can offer computing to low-budget research groups. This means that scientists looking to map genomes or to develop vaccines could more efficiently create their models by using Qarnot's technology. All they need is an internet connection. Qarnot then sells processing by the minute, allowing small companies to purchase a few hours of processing time for projects that would otherwise take days to complete. Architects, graphic designers, animators, weather forecasters, and various other potential clients could all benefit from such processing power. Qarnot is working with various clients and is set to have between four 400 and 500 heaters in place by the end of the year, which Pieter said already represents a significant amount of computing. Emails roll in constantly from those interested in using the Qrads, including a desperate tomato farmer seeking an inexpensive way to heat his greenhouse year-round. While the possibilities are endless, Pieter said Qarnot is taking it little by little before marketing to individuals. Photo: InterFreePress Facebook servers / Qarnot example of Qrad heaters This post was originally published on Smartplanet.comThanks to an increased focus on sexual assaults on college campuses – mostly due to an overblown statistic claiming 20 percent of college women have been sexually assaulted – young college men are starting to rethink how they talk to women. At first glance that might seem like a good thing – men learning to be more respectful of women and not be so rapey – but that’s not what this is. This is about men actually avoiding contact with women because they’re afraid a simple kiss or date could lead to a sexual assault accusation. Bloomberg reporters John Lauerman and Jennifer Surane interviewed multiple men from colleges like Harvard and Stanford who expressed concern over what was once known as a "hook-up culture" but is now labeled by feminists as " rape culture." The change in terminology ensures that all responsibility is placed on men, just because of their gender. Take Malik Gill of Harvard University, who said he wouldn’t even give a female classmate a beer. “I don’t want to look like a predator,” Gill told Bloomberg. “It’s a little bit of a blurred line.” Gone are the days of buying a woman a drink – even if it’s just to be nice. Gill also told Lauerman and Surane that after he passed on the contact information of a woman who said she was interested in his fraternity brother, his friend was hesitant to call her. “Even though she was interested, he didn’t want to pressure her,” Gill said. “He was worried about making her feel uncomfortable.” William Pollack, a Harvard Medical School psychologist, told the Bloomberg reporters about a patient who was kissing a girl during a party and began thinking about what would happen if things went further. “‘I want to go to law school or medical school after this,’” the student said, according to Pollack. “‘I said to her, it’s been nice seeing you.’” Pollack also noted that the media attention to campus sexual assault has led to a “witch-hunt” mentality. “Most males would never do anything to harm a young woman,” Pollack told the Bloomberg reporters. But the current focus is “starting to scare the heck out of the wrong people.” Like Clark Coey, who will be a freshman at East Carolina University in North Carolina this year. He’s worried that the definition of consent might not be clear exactly what it means. “I haven’t learned anything about consent since I was a freshman in a health class,” Coey told Bloomberg. “They have to give you a better understanding of what’s right and what’s wrong.” Oscar Sandoval of Stanford University said a female friend asked if he wanted to hang out. His friend was drunk when she arrived, Sandoval told Bloomberg. She flirted, but he just walked her to her dorm. “Among the people I hang out with, there’s more hesitancy to hook up with someone when there’s alcohol involved,” Sandoval said. “Something that you might have thought would be okay when you were drunk might not be okay later on.” Joshua Handler of New York University’s comments brought up another interesting consequence of so much media attention: Having to talk to women in a very specific manner. Handler told the Bloomberg reporters that he is now very clear about what he wants when he talks to women. Because now, apparently, women can’t interpret conversations and need to be spoken to like children (my words, not his). I would also remind readers of Kevin Parisi, who was accused of – but found not responsible for – raping a fellow student at Drew University. He certainly has reason to be wary of women, and he told the Washington Examiner that he’s afraid that what happened to him at Drew could happen at other schools. “I don’t see any way that this — I don’t see how these — the laws at hand don’t protect me from this happening again,” he said. We’re facing a cultural shift where soon men might be afraid to talk to women at all for fear of being labeled rapists. Without presumed innocence on college campuses, the only way this will be fixed is after universities have to start paying out millions of dollars to students after being sued for denying them due process. And with the current landscape – that might not be too far in the future.- A Georgia Tech student, who disappeared late last week, will undergo spinal surgery on Wednesday. Monday morning, James "Jimmy" Hubert, 24, was found unresponsive along railroad tracks near DeKalb Avenue and Arizona Street. Friday night, the Phi Delta Theta fraternity member attended a formal before he was reported missing. Investigators said he left the party on his own free will. Hubert's mother, Diane Hubert, said her son jumped on a MARTA train after leaving the party and when he got off the train he was "jumped, beaten up, robbed and left for dead." She said her son was not on drugs and was not drunk. On Facebook, she said her son was suffering from: broken vertebrae, broken ribs, a broken scapula, a punctured lung, blood on the brain and paralysis on his left side, which she hopes is temporary. Over the weekend, investigators said Hubert's fellow students, fraternity brothers and friends rallied together and formed their own search party. On Sunday they stayed out until midnight finding possible "pings" from Hubert's phone along with a friend's phone left in his jacket. "They're tech students, they can know how to track everything," Georgia Tech Police Chief Robert Connolly joked at a news conference Monday while praising the student search party. Police Chief Connolly said Hubert's phone was pinging off of locations and the students could see last known locations where the phone was. The students went back to the site of the party and they combed the areas around there, never giving up on their friend. Hubert's high school friend, and Georgia State University student, Emma Jeffery was the the one who found him. "He is one of my best friends and he needed to be found," said Jeffery. "We were about to turn around and I looked and said 'is that a person,' ran over and sure enough it was Jimmy." Police said the last GPS coordinate on Hubert's phone showed him to be on Auburn Avenue heading toward DeKalb Avenue. "The students are the ones to be commended because they thought it was unusual for their friend to go missing," said Lt. Charles Hampton with Atlanta Police. "I am just really happy," a tearful Diane Hubert told FOX 5 News on Monday. "Really happy I have both my boys, couldn't ask for anything else." Police said they will wait for Hubert to feel better before talking to him to get more information about what led to his disappearance. Hubert, who is from Alpharetta and studying aerospace engineering at Ga. Tech, will undergo surgery on Wednesday to fuse 4 broken vertebrae together in the middle of his back. They hope the procedure will help him be able to move his left leg again. The Huberts said their son is suffering from paralysis on his left side, but he can feel his leg, which is a good sign. Hubert's parents wants to emphasize how grateful they are to those who have reached out to wish them well and they ask people to keep praying for their son. Georgia Tech said they will work with them to make sure that Hubert is able to complete his studies after he fully recovers Parents of Missing Georgia Tech Student Speak Jimmy Hubert’s parents walked outside Grady Memorial Hospital on Tuesday evening to talk with reporters about their son’s weekend ordeal as well as the injuries he suffered in the more than 50 hours he was missing after a Georgia Tech sorority party. No parent should endure the terror they experienced throughout the weekend as search parties, mostly Georgia Tech students and fraternity brothers, fanned out across Northeast Atlanta to search for Hubert. He was found Monday morning face down near railroad tracks
forever searching for the new Messiah, like Jeff Grosso said that that was what everybody wanted (Steve) Rocco to be. Now they have kind of given you that card. You are the new direction. Are you aware of that stuff? Definitely there is a lot of eyes now on what we are doing. I'm aware of that. But, you know, it's not only me or Polar, there are a bunch of people out there—like what Bill Strobeck is doing with Supreme, I'm still really excited to see what Fucking Awesome does and so on. But yeah, Palace and Polar is definitely on the radar in a lot of people's eyes. And they're excited because they feel that we can maybe bring something out that they haven't seen before. Or maybe we can do something different. Everybody is always searching for the miracle. Just like the video title. I feel like skateboarding has been searching for that forever. Searching for Chin. Trying to find the magic. Yeah. I think as much as I want to say skateboarding is in a great position, I also want to say that I'm really really tired of this… I mean it's a business yes, and it's all those things. But I have to say the biggest thing that really destroys skateboarding now is the way we are consuming skateboarding. Right now, to make something that is… The pressure on my shoulders or on anybody's shoulders that takes this stuff seriously… To make something that is really really going to make a change—just to get that attention from people today, to get people to actually sit down and watch something for 25 minutes is hard. These days when there is just so much web clips, every week, it's just a new company video released on Thrasher or on Transworld or on the Berrics or whatever website and everybody is competing for views. People are just hammering out clips left and right. Fuck the quality or what it is even, it's just like "Fuck it, put it out." Clips, clips, and clips. What's the point? Just pumping out shit. Just more, more, more skating. Okay, but shouldn't maybe someone stop and think at some point like, "What is this about?" Filming a bunch of skate tricks, throwing it together to a song, and dumping it on the web? Isn't there more to our culture that we should try and talk about or try and express and connect to? Isn't that the culture at large too though? Outside of skateboarding, it's like a human problem. Yeah. For sure. Everywhere, everything is just overloaded right now. Just an overload of information and it's really hard to try and make something that can stand out or be really something different. If you succeed with that, then maybe there's a chance that people will actually stop and watch, and think, and feel—like really watch, not just skim through once. But you can't just get away with a cool clip any more. There has to be so much more to it for it to even to stand out. At the same time it's actually really easy to stand out because the everything that people put out is just the same shit over and over—week after week. "I'd rather shut down the company than wash it out." Let me ask you about the direction of skating specifically. Obviously the return of no-complies, wallrides, and slappies it all makes sense. But is it another trend? Like when the one-foot came, everybody had to have a tailgrab one-foot, then it was the impossible, then it was the pressure flip or whatever and onwards. To me the no-complies, fastplants, slappies and all that are almost like a rebellion to the Street League kind of ledge/rail format. Does that make sense? Yeah. But I think it's just also like, people want to have fun. Those tricks are fun. People can connect to it. If you watch say those types of Street League type of skateboarders—who are super amazing skateboarders that can push these crazy tricks down rails and stairs, like switch tre down fifteen stairs or whatever trick they do—it's amazing to see that level of skating, but if you are an average Joe living in a small town you're just like, "I'm never going to be able to kickflip back noseblunt twenty-stair rails". That's always the biggest trick. If you ask me it's like, "What videos do you really enjoy?" The videos that you can some how relate to. Like, "Hey, I could actually do some of these tricks." You connect to it and you feel like you can picture yourself being a part of the whole thing. When people put out these amazing super stunt skateboarding videos, pushing it to the furthest level possible, that's rad in one sense, but to me personally as a kid I could never in my wildest dreams believe that I could do that too. I respect it. I understand it. But does it make me want to go skate? No. It's not accessible. Right. Whereas then I see some other video with some guys just having a fun time and shredding, with good style and they're smiling and enjoying cruising down the street—still doing hard stuff, don't get me wrong. Still doing cold raw street skating but maybe not stuntmen skating. People see that and think, "Yeah, I can do some of those tricks". I think the mixture between a couple of bangers, a couple of cruisy dope lines, some fun, good looking spots or streets and the whole mixture of everything—that's how I always wanted it. That's how I see skateboarding. When you go out and skate, some days you're having fun, some days there is a banger, some times there is nothing special and the videos themselves should represent that. They should represent the average day, the amazing day, and everything in between. Like, "This is how it is." It seems like it has always gone in that cycle. When Powell was too stale H-Street/World/Plan B, etc… came with all the crazy technical progression, then when the technical stuff went too far, Stereo/Girl etc… came with the cruisier stylish side again, then once the schoolyards got boring, Eastern Exposure came again with the wallies, pole jams, and raw streets… and onwards… Yeah. For sure. And that's the thing too, there's room for everything either way. There's room for the fun stuff. There's room for the stuntman stuff. But maybe right now the fun stuff is more popular again because people can relate to it. It makes sense. We're just having fun and other people just want to have fun riding their skateboards. That's a big thing and it still somehow gets lost. We don't want to kill ourselves. We just want to cruise around a bit. But I think that is still very much only a California thing. In California people are pushing the boundaries of what it is possible on a skateboard. Which is cool, but the rest of the world—the East Coast, Europe, Japan—everywhere else in the world outside of California—or outside of America at least, people are just out riding a skateboard trying to have a good time. We're not trying to kill ourselves or change skateboarding. We just want to enjoy it. Or maybe push it in different ways—style, flavor, and creativity maybe. Making small things out of nothing but maybe it's more interesting to watch. Like the Japanese scene—they're not pushing 20-stair-rails, they're just trying all these other directions and playing around with it. It's all creativity. Yeah. The Japanese scene has been rad over the past few years. And it's all about communicating a feeling. It's our language. Does this language speak to you? Does this video give you feelings and vibes. People have definitely been feeling the videos you guys have put out. To be honest, I'm just trying, every single day—I work six days a week—I'm just trying to wake up, make good looking products that are good quality and so on, trying to put out rad skateboard graphics, that when people see them in the store they have a laugh or maybe just think like, "Yes, this is sick. I want to ride this board. Or I want to hang it on my wall or whatever", then just trying to make videos that people are hyped on. Something that they watch and then they go, "Man, I just watched this video for 20 minutes and now I'm hyped on skateboarding and the culture and all I want to do is ride a skateboard all day long.” I thought it was interesting how you talked about the board brand being central and then riding for different board brands you could really feel when you had the cool card or not. Like you mentioned that on Mad Circle you were the shit and then you got on Arcade and people treated you like night and day differently. It seems kind of fickle in that sense. Like there are a lot of guys out there that are just sort of cool by default. Yeah. I think that's really just the way it is, you know. You ride for Mad Circle and they make cool shit and make you look good, they do cool graphics/art direction and present you in a cool package. Same kid moves to another company and maybe all of a sudden that package isn't so attractive. And all of a sudden people are like, "Well, maybe that cool guy isn't that cool anymore." It's funny, you see a lot of examples like that through the years. Some really sick guys have changed sponsors and all of a sudden the package changes. Sometimes even a bad shoe sponsor can kill it. Yeah. And again, it's about expression. And all of those things do matter. The brands you represent matter because those brands are going to represent your personality. Those brands become who you are in a way. These kids ride for the cool brands, with sick sponsors, so they must be cool. But that's also why it's so sensitive. All those things matter. I like that about it though. Like, "Hey, this guy is super good but he has stinky sponsors. He's not going anywhere." Meanwhile, there's another guy that is just as good or maybe even not as good, but he has sick sponsors so he's got the whole world in his hands. It's weird but that's the way it goes. You are your paycheck sort of. Yeah. And sometimes there are limits of course, where things just get a little bit too cool. But bottom line, these days I'm older and I'm not as caught up in all of that. I met a lot of fucking assholes that just because they ride for certain brands and think that they are the hottest shit in the world—which they probably are as well—but a lot of the time these guys have been absolute dicks. It's like, "Well, cool for you that you have all that going—that's great for you—but to me you're just a fucking dick and that's it." Then you have some guys that aren't the coolest shit, like they didn't get on the cool brand but there still super rad skaters and you can have the best session together. There have been all kinds of versions of it, like the super cool guys with super cool sponsors, or just the super cool guys all the way—either way, bottom line, being on the cool company doesn't give you some free card to be an asshole. We've seen that way too many times. I've been a dick. I've been caught up in bullshit. I've been caught up in thinking I'm the hot shit or whatever. You get older and you learn, "Well, I'm just a human just like everybody else." Nobody is above anybody else. What about the company cycle. Like how Powell was hot then they became not hot, H-Street and World came and were hot, then they both burned out, then Girl and Stereo came and so on. That cycle from this amazing creative seed blossoming into a business and then eventually it becomes a mall brand seems to be inevitable. Will Polar be the same? It's an evil circle I can tell you that much. It's always the same. It starts like, "Hey, there's this cool new brand. It's small. It's underground. It's run by these cool guys and we love it because we can't get a hold of it." Like when World (Industries) first started it was exactly like that. And then all of a sudden there's all this demand and then that brings hype and then slowly the companies get their shit together. They get their business model together, the production, the distribution, and everything. And then, of course, when a companies growing, the company's costs are also growing so it's like, "Oh shit, now we have to widen our distribution channels to make enough money to supply the riders, team, video production, ads, and all of those things that you have to do. And then all of a sudden people look at it and are like, "Well, it's kind of big now. I don't know. It's not cool anymore." And then all of the sudden they lose some of that support and all of a sudden it's like, "Well, we don't have the core support anymore but we have this massive company with all these bills." So you widen the channels more and more and more. Until you get to Flameboy territory. (Laughs.) Yeah. So there's always that balance; you have to keep it small and tight—not blow it out but at the same time you have to some how keep it sustainable. Because small and tight is not really sustainable for very long. Eventually you have to pay the team. Eventually you have to pay your artists. Eventually you have to pay for the music in the videos. Eventually you have to pay the filmer. That's when it gets tricky. “The world wants Jake to ride for Polar. But nobody knows what Jake wants (Laughs.)” At the end of the day too, skateboarding is a youth culture rebellion thing too. The new kids coming in want to knock over what the older people before them built. Yeah. It's all inevitable. It's a challenge. Now we've been around for almost four years and people are still excited about what we do. That's great. But it's a challenge to be able to keep going without becoming stale. The real trick—when people know your next move, when people know what you're going to do—then you're dead. People will have no interest in it anymore because they can calculate every move this or that brand is going to do. It's not exciting that way. It's about how good of a chess player you are and how much you can surprise people. I thought (Alien) Workshop was a good example of that. It just had the best possible roots and creative vibe, artwork, everything, and slowly even that became formulaic and kids don't feel it the way we did when we saw Memory Screen (1991). Yeah. Exactly. You become kind of like a prisoner of your own art. Like, "I created this thing and people love it. Now I'm stuck with it." You have to sort of paint the same painting for the rest of your life. You almost have to kill your own art to move on, but the next thing you do might not necessarily be received as well as the first idea was. If you got to that point with Polar, where you knew that you either had to start shrinking it to keep it authentic and exciting or just let it become blown out—would you kill your own art so to speak? I don't know. I think for me I do this company for the main reason that I want it to be relative in the skateboard culture. When kids start to feel like we're not doing cool shit and they're not hyped on it then I'm not hyped on it. I definitely don't want to do this just because it's a job and I need to pay the bills. Just putting a bunch of graphics on a board and shipping it out and that's it. I don't want it to just be a big machine. I still want people every time they watch a video we have made to be like, "Whoa, that was something else. We haven't seen that before." But of course, there is a limit to how much one person can do. There's a limit to how much one artist can do. As far as the riders too, there's a limit to how much effect they can have. After a certain number of video parts it's hard to keep making exciting new ones. But I think ten years is a good life span for a company. I think after that it's time for other people with fresh ideas and fresh energy to take over. I think it's a natural cycle. It's like the music industry or any other culture where there is a mix of creativity and business. There is a time for new people with young ideas to come in and be the new pioneers shaping the future of skateboarding. I accept that. I grew up in skateboarding and I've seen those cycles. I'm not planning on holding on to this just because. If I feel like our shit is old and I can't be relative, then that's it. I'd rather shut down the company than wash it out. That's rad. When is this full-length video coming out? That's the next step for us. I got pretty much all the footage; it's ready to go. I just don't have time to edit at the moment. I have a planned editing schedule from January through May 16th—which is the official release date and is also my 35th birthday. But May 16th is what I told my riders as far as a deadline. The plan is to have a birthday party and have the premiere. It's all filmed and done though. We've been collecting for maybe a year and half or two. We've built up a nice archive. I'm excited about it though. There are still so many people that don't know anything about our team so it will be cool to showcase that. It seems like Polar blew up just from people knowing you and the graphics. The team hasn't even really been a huge factor yet? Yeah. There have been things leaking out here and there but never like an official thing like, "Here is actually the full team in full action so to speak." People might have small Instagram clips or web clips here and there but this will be the full story. Everyone wanted Jake (Johnson) to get on there (Polar). It didn't work out huh? Yeah. We all wanted Jake to ride for Polar. The world wants Jake to ride for Polar. But nobody knows what Jake wants (Laughs.) I don't know. I heard several rumors that he was on Krooked, and then I heard that he was back on Alien, then I heard that there was some new company called Mother starting from one of the Alien guys. I still don't know who he rides for. Was it cool when he stayed with you in Malmö? Yeah. He stayed like 10 days over here. It was good. Jake I think is just going through stuff in his life and with himself. He had that motorcycle accident at the beginning of the year and was still recovering from his knee injury, recovering from losing Alien, losing other sponsors and trying to figure everything out. It takes energy all that stuff. For sure, it would be great if he skated for us but at the same time he's my friend and I just want him to be happy. Our door is open and he knows that. I just want him to do whatever makes him happy. Because when we have a happy Jake in the world we're gonna see rad skating come out. Do you know if TOA is growing at the same rate as Polar? People have sort of compared it to the new World/Blind/101/Rocco conglomerate. Theories is a distribution company and it's also Josh (Stewarts)' own little brand. I would say his business is definitely growing. I couldn't really say anything else. Is the relationship more him just as the US Distributor or is Polar tied to TOA like a brand home? He's the US distribution for us, Magenta, Traffic, Hopps, etc… His whole thing is just trying to push that platform like he did before with his videos. To sort of push an alternative to the California scene. I see them as very separate. There is the California scene and then there is the kind of East Coast and global scene. I feel like the East Coast, Europe, Japan, and Australia are all kind of connecting now and on the side of that is the California scene where they kind of do what they do. You're somewhat anti-California it seems. No. I'm not at all. It's like a symbol of the old order to you. Yeah. The industry is there. They do things their way and that's the way they've always done it. And then there is outside of California where we kind of do things differently. It's just different. I'm not hating on it I just think it's different. They have their vibe and we have ours. The kids here in LA are basically into the same stuff as the kids out East or in Europe too. I wouldn't call it a revolution or anything, but there is new shit, there is new energy coming in. There is the Supreme videos coming out, there's Fucking Awesome, there's us, there are alternatives and people are hyped on it. People are still hyped on the old stuff too. It's not like that's just over with either. There is room for all styles—that's what's exciting about skateboarding—there should be different visions of it. And then as a customer and as a skateboard fan you can decide like, "Well, this is who I fit and connect to. I want to ride Baker boards because that's my cup of tea, or I want to ride a Krooked board, or I identify with Antihero, Girl, Chocolate or whatever." I don't see it as a big competition. I don't see it as, "Hey, to be the biggest brand we have to take these guys out because we're the shit." We just do what we do, they do what they do and in the end it's up to the kids to say if they want to buy Polar boards or Girl and Chocolate. What about the geographic distance? Yeah. I'm so far away too. I'm in Malmo, Sweden. I'm isolated from absolutely everything, just here doing what I do every day. If people like it and back it that's rad. But that's what Alien did too. They moved themselves to Ohio. They moved themselves from the heart of the industry. I think that location wise it's good to be a bit removed. I think there is a bad side effect of everything being in LA. If everything is coming from the same place, it gets hard to come up with new perspectives. Sometimes it's good to be far away from everything. All time favorite Swedish skater? For new guys, not that I want to hype my riders or anything (laughs) but I'm a big fan of Oski (Oskar Rosenberg-Hallberg). For the older skaters, I always like Gorm Boberg. For me, just the way he was skating back in the day, like he would just skate that little fountain. It was super tight with shit tranny and it was just rad to see all the stuff that he managed to do on it. All time favorite board company from the past? Basically everything that Marc McKee was involved with. Early days of Blind/World/101/even Liberty. All those graphics were just so amazing to me as a kid. I loved it. Favorite part from Five Flavors ('98)? I gotta say Karl Watson. I love that song (Ween, "The Mollusk"). I remember when I watched it it was so emotional, just beautifully edited. I've always been a bit of an emotional dude and I like when the skate films have a bit of feeling. I always loved those H-Street videos for that. Those 16mm slow motion montages, like the skate camp one (Hokus Pokus) are so good. "I don't want to talk shit on my colleagues in the industry and say what they should do or not do." Favorite part from Gumbo ('99)? Steve Hernandez. Steve was rad. Or that guy Tyler Moore. Favorite part/memory from Europa ('00)? Jeremie (Daclin) for sure. I was with him at the time and the way he was charging with his skating was really impressive. He was running a company at the same time and going out every lunch doing a crazy trick and then going back to work. Do you ever talk to Jeremie (Daclin) anymore? It seems like he would have good advice on all of it. Yeah. After I quit Cliché there was a bit of a beef because I left and all that. But then time goes by and you re-become friends. I would see him at tradeshows all the time here and there and now we talk and email each other. He sort of went through the same journey starting Cliché. Just doing everything by yourself. Hustling and dealing and working 7 days a week and still filming and skating. He went through the same things that I'm going through now. We talk about that. He also just sent me that Marc McKee "Last Supper" board they did. They seem to be doing well as a company though. It's rad to see. Favorite part from Strongest of the Strange ('05)? Scott Bourne was a big contributor to that whole film. Just meeting him in Mongolia, being with him on that trip, and getting to know him. It was sick. Right at that time he was sort of over the whole US and was moving to Paris and just told me that he had a whole video part just waiting at home. It was cool that he believed in the project enough to put that part in it. I had never even done a video at that point. Favorite part from In Search of the Miraculous ('10)? Johan Lino-Waad—the guy that has the last part in the video. He's a good friend and he just had a knee injury again so he kind of can't skate anymore. Before that video part he was one of the new kids in the city during the late '90s and then he blew his knee out, got all fucked up on alcohol and everyone was saying it was over. It was sick for that part because he came back and killed it. He was my skate mate at the time and we just went on all of these fun missions and trips. He meant a lot to that project and worked hard to make it happen. Favorite memory from Promo 1 (Wallride, Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah)? Maybe just all the TBS (Train Bank Spot) footage. The stuff I had in the beginning was actually meant to be for an Emerica part. I had filmed all of that and showed it to Emerica and they weren't really feeling it. That was the moment when I realized that they couldn't really see my vision. After that I was just like, "Fuck it, I'm over it" and I ended up using all of that footage in the first promo instead. Favorite memory from Promo 2 (No Complies & Wallrides)? The whole thing. They're just fun to do. It's so short that you can just really have fun with it. I want to get back to that now. We've been so busy with just two of us really running everything in the company—doing all the work. We're looking for more people now to help out. But now with the full-length video coming I can get back to that in the new year. Last two, all time best no-complies? Of course, I gotta say Ray Barbee. All those lines in the Powell videos, dancing around on the flatground. And then, I also gotta say, Jake (Johnson) probably has the highest one. He can pop some serious height with no-complies on flat. Kevin (Terpening) too. All time best wallrides? Natas has a badass style when he does that whole line in Streets on Fire ('89). When he goes down that alleyway hitting the wall. That one, when you saw it as a kid, it just looked like he was surfing. Gnarliest wallride dude today? You gotta give that one to Jake too. The one he did in Static of course, whether you wanna call it a wallride or a bank ride. If not that one, you can just look at the wallride he did in New York over the doubleset in Mindfield ('08), or even all of the fucked up combos he did too—nollie back wallride, I also saw him almost land fakie ollies to switch wallrides. Jake's on some heavy wallride shit.The man, who works night shifts in Ystad, southern Sweden, told the court he had been drinking heavily on the day he was pulled over by police in November last year, wrote the Skånskan newspaper. He had downed the contents of six small snapps bottles and a full-strength beer during the day leading up to his shift, but this was nothing unusual, he claimed. The 61-year-old explained that he drinks every day, even before work, and that the additional 200 millilitres of mulled wine (glögg in Swedish) made no difference to his mental state. But when he was pulled over, the man had a blood alcohol content of exactly 1.0 promille, five-times over Sweden's legal limit of 0.2 promille and enough to warrant stiffer charges of aggravated drunken driving. He claimed, however, that he didn't feel under the influence at all while driving to work. He also blamed the glögg for putting him so far over the limit, but pleaded with the court that he shouldn't be convicted because he thought the traditional Swedish mulled wine he had been drinking was simply an alcohol-free variety. The court agreed, stating in its ruling that as the man drinks alcohol every day, even before heading to work, he must have a high tolerance for alcohol, Skånskan wrote. The court therefore threw out the charges altogether and the man was set free. The Local/og Follow The Local on TwitterScientists may have taken a giant step towards solving one of the great mysteries of astronomy – what the “dark matter” thought to make up 85 per cent of the Universe actually is. The existence of this vast amount of mysterious unseen material is needed to explain the way galaxies rotate. If they only consisted of the stars we can see, the forces involved would see stars flying off in all directions. The extra mass, and therefore extra gravity, is required to explain why this does not happen. 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. In 1977, researchers came up with a theory that dark matter consisted of hypothetical particles called axions, much like Professor Peter Higgs’s proposal for a hypothetical particle to explain why things have mass in the 1960s. The discovery of the “Higgs boson” at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in 2013 resulted in a Nobel Prize for Professor Higgs, of Edinburgh University, and Belgian physicist Francois Englert. Actual evidence of the axion has remained elusive over the decades. But now researchers have used a supercomputer to calculate what the mass of an axion would be if it does make up most dark matter. They found it would be between 50 and 1,500 micro-electronvolts – or up to 10 billion times lighter than an electron, according to a paper in the journal Nature. This crucial bit of evidence will allow physicists to search for this incredibly tiny particle in the real world. Finding out the nature of dark matter would be on a par with the discovery of the Higgs boson. Researcher Dr Andreas Ringwald, of the DESY research centre in Germany, said: “Dark matter is an invisible form of matter which until now has only revealed itself through its gravitational effects. What it consists of remains a complete mystery. “The adjective ‘dark’ does not simply mean that it does not emit visible light. It does not appear to give off any other wavelengths either – its interaction with photons must be very weak indeed.” Shape Created with Sketch. NASA unveils deep space photos taken by a repaired Hubble Show all 6 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. NASA unveils deep space photos taken by a repaired Hubble 1/6 Getty Images 2/6 Getty Images 3/6 Getty Images 4/6 Getty Images 5/6 Getty Images 6/6 Getty Images 1/6 Getty Images 2/6 Getty Images 3/6 Getty Images 4/6 Getty Images 5/6 Getty Images 6/6 Getty Images He said that knowing what kind of mass an axion might have was “extremely helpful” to those looking for one. “Otherwise the search could take decades, because one would have to scan far too large a range,” Dr Ringwald said. Professor Zoltán Fodor, of Wuppertal University in Germany and Eötvös University in Hungary, who led the research, suggested their findings would significantly shorten that timescale. “The results we are presenting will probably lead to a race to discover these particles,” he said. Shape Created with Sketch. The most incredible space images of Earth Show all 30 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. The most incredible space images of Earth 1/30 Striking Africa Explore ESA astronaut Tim Peake's stunning photos of Earth, taken from the International Space Station during his six month mission (captions by Tom Peake) "The striking colour and texture of Africa Illizi, Algeria" 2/30 Favourite Reef "Every day spent living in space is a great day, but today was particularly special. I got to speak with one of my inspirational heroes Prof Stephen Hawking and his amazing daughter Lucy, who developed the Principia Space Diary to engage children with STEM subjects. As well as talking about dark matter, quantum entanglement, alien life and light beam powered nanocraft we also got to see an amazing pass over the Bahamas and this - my favourite reef smile emoticon" 3/30 Russia's north-east coast "Sunrise approaching Russia's frozen north-east coast" 4/30 Hello London "Hello London! Fancy a run? :) #LondonMarathon" 5/30 Bahamas "50 shades of blue: Bahamas" 6/30 Yinchuan "Snow on the mountains next to Yinchuan in China" 7/30 Rocket flames in Africa "Is it just me or do I see some rocket flames down there? These strange land features are in the Erg Iguidi desert, with its yellow stripes of sand stretching from Algeria to northern Mauritania in the Sahara" 8/30 Stunning colours "Sunlight reflecting the stunning colours of this Himalayan lake" 9/30 The real Everest "The real thing: found Everest! Last picture turned out to be third-tallest mountain Kanchengjunga" 10/30 Go Exomars "Go #Exomars – have a great mission. Earth has more in common with Mars than you might think… #AfricaArt" 11/30 Tenerife "Amazingly clear view of Tenerife" 12/30 Midday winter sun "Some midday winter sun glinting off Greenland’s snow-capped peaks" 13/30 Sand dunes "Great texture in these huge sand dunes, Saudi Arabia" 14/30 Dragon Dam "The dam makes this river look like a dragon’s tail. Oahe Dam north of Pierre, South Dakota in the United States. (North is to the right)" 15/30 Smoking volcano "Spotted volcano smoking away on Russia’s far east coast this morning – heat has melted snow around top" 16/30 New Zealand "New Zealand looking stunning in the sunshine. Mt Cook centre left with the Grand Plateau to the front and Mt Tasman (3,497m) to the right of the Grand Plateau. Fox Glacier in the middle then Franz Josef curving right. Tasman Lake (largest at front) is at the foot of the Tasman glacier which runs along the front of them. The Hooker Glacier flows out behind Mt Cook coming down to meet the Mueller Glacier on the left of the photo. The Murchison Glacier is at the front of the photo running parallel with the Tasman Glacier" 17/30 Plankton bloom "Another great pass over Patagonia and a swirling plankton bloom off the coast" 18/30 Alaska "We don’t often get such clear views of Alaska" 19/30 Lights along the Nile "Lights along the Nile stretching into the distance from Cairo" 20/30 Kamchatka "The Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ clear to see amongst the volcanoes of Kamchatka, Russia" 21/30 Cumulonimbus "I’m guessing there was an impressive storm going on under that cumulonimbus cloud" 22/30 Night Sahara "Night-time Sahara – you can really see how thin the Earth’s atmosphere is in this picture" 23/30 Japan "Tokyo and Japanese coast. This image shows most of Japan with the largest mass of light corresponding to Tokyo. The white lights on the left are fishing boats" 24/30 Morning sun volcanoes "Morning sun striking active volcanoes in Guatemala" 25/30 Tapajos River "The vast waters of the Tapajos river, Amazonia" 26/30 Patagonia "Beautiful glacial river water flowing from this Patagonian ice field Lake Viedma, West is up" 27/30 Dubai Palms "Minus the #Dragon photobomb this time..." 28/30 Sediment in Ethiopia "Sediment spilling into this mountain lake, Ethiopia" 29/30 Italy "We have phases of ‘short nights’ on the International Space Station – sunlight is nearly always visible right now. No prizes for guessing where this is…" 30/30 Panama Canal "From one mighty ocean to another – ships passing through the Panama canal" 1/30 Striking Africa Explore ESA astronaut Tim Peake's stunning photos of Earth, taken from the International Space Station during his six month mission (captions by Tom Peake) "The striking colour and texture of Africa Illizi, Algeria" 2/30 Favourite Reef "Every day spent living in space is a great day, but today was particularly special. I got to speak with one of my inspirational heroes Prof Stephen Hawking and his amazing daughter Lucy, who developed the Principia Space Diary to engage children with STEM subjects. As well as talking about dark matter, quantum entanglement, alien life and light beam powered nanocraft we also got to see an amazing pass over the Bahamas and this - my favourite reef smile emoticon" 3/30 Russia's north-east coast "Sunrise approaching Russia's frozen north-east coast
study did find a decline in population size among Native Americans but inferred the time of the decrease as around 1,000 to 2,000 years ago, [which is] hard to reconcile with what we know about Native American history," he said. Although the new study is based on DNA, the researchers caution that their use of statistical analysis means the findings aren't conclusive and can only suggest that a particular scenario most likely occurred. "Our methods infer thousands of genealogies," O'Fallon said. "By looking at the bulk properties of all these genealogies we can begin to get a clearer picture of what likely happened." In addition, the margin of error for the new study is rather large, O'Fallon said, so it's possible the decline happened more recently than 500 years ago. "I don't think it would rule out European influence at all if the bottleneck happened a bit more recently than 500 years ago," he said. Instead, a slightly more recent time frame might change "our interpretation [of the early cause of the decline] from disease to other causes such as war, societal disruption, loss of homelands, etc." A Short-Lived Population Bottleneck? Despite revealing a dramatic drop, the new study suggests that Native American populations eventually recovered to their predecline levels, likely aided by the development of resistance to European diseases. Furthermore, the genetic health of the group did not appear to suffer long-term damage. "Our study did not find a substantial reduction in genetic diversity," O'Fallon said. "The bottleneck was fairly short-lived and, while significant, didn't appear to eliminate many lineages that were present before Europeans arrived." Overall, the new results "are some of the most detailed information scientists have about Native American ancestral population demography based on genetic data," said Quentin Atkinson, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, who was not involved in the study.Indian nationals who were stranded in Yemen arrive after being evacuated from Djibouti at the Government of Kerala help desk in airport. Photo: PTI. Indian nationals who were stranded in Yemen arrive after being evacuated from Djibouti at the Government of Kerala help desk in airport. Photo: PTI. India has helped 232 nationals from 26 countries including the US, France, Italy, Canada and UK from the strife-torn Yemen and emerged as the hero at the global level. It has also evacuated the nationals of its neighbours Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka. While Pakistan had not sought help for the evacuation of its nationals, India during the operation also rescued Pakistani nationals. A relative receives one of the Indian nationals evacuated from Yemen, upon their arrival at the airport in Mumbai. Photo: PTI. A relative receives one of the Indian nationals evacuated from Yemen, upon their arrival at the airport in Mumbai. Photo: PTI. India's evacuation efforts from Yemen enter final phase - Happy faces all around in the Control Room at Djibouti. pic.twitter.com/6XfBwYuspg &; Syed Akbaruddin (@MEAIndia) April 8, 2015 On Wednesday, India decided to extend air evacuation from Yemen till Thursday following a rescue request by a group of 140 nurses even as it pulled out another 450 people from the war-ravaged country, taking the total number of evacuees to 4,500.India had received requests from 26 countries, including the US, Bangladesh and Iraq, for assistance in evacuating their nationals from the strife-torn country. Indian nationals who were stranded in Yemen alight after being evacuated from Djibouti, upon their arrival at Mumbai airport. Photo: PTI. Indian nationals who were stranded in Yemen alight after being evacuated from Djibouti, upon their arrival at Mumbai airport. Photo: PTI. In a series of tweets, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin announced: "We will end our air evacuation efforts from Sana'a tomorrow, 8th April. All who want to avail should leave tomorrow." In his tweets, he announced: "A thousand coming back tonight to India, if all goes well. 5 flights planned from Djibouti to India carrying those evacuated from Yemen." "232 persons from 26 countries evacuated by India from Yemen. Efforts continuing." Responsivess to international community. List of countries whose nationals have been evacuated by India from Yemen pic.twitter.com/Jj4gpKlO37 &; Syed Akbaruddin (@MEAIndia) April 7, 2015 Indian nationals evacuated from Yemen, upon their arrival at the airport in Chennai. Photo: PTI. Indian nationals evacuated from Yemen, upon their arrival at the airport in Chennai. Photo: PTI. Evacuation efforts in Sana'a were successful with three Air India flights taking off from the Yemeni capital with 600 passengers. The spokesperson also retweeted German envoy Michael Steiner's 'thank you' tweet: "India helped evacuate also Germans out of Yemen. Thank you India!" India helped evacuate also Germans out of Yemen. Thank you India! @narendramodi @MEAIndia @SushmaSwaraj &; Michael Steiner (@Amb_MSteiner) April 7, 2015 People evacuated from Yemen seated in an IAF C-17 Globemaster-III at Djibouti prior to taking off for Mumbai. Photo: PTI. People evacuated from Yemen seated in an IAF C-17 Globemaster-III at Djibouti prior to taking off for Mumbai. Photo: PTI. He also said India has accepted "Pakistan's offer to fly back from Karachi by special plane 11 Indians evacuated by Pakistani naval ship from Yemen". Yemen has been witnessing fierce battle between Saudi-led coalition and Shiite rebels, who have battled their way into various cities Yemen including in the former stronghold of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi who has fled overseas.Border Patrol agents assigned to the Rio Grande Valley Sector kept eight previously deported alien sex offenders and criminals from re-entering the U.S. shortly after they illegally crossed. The arrests came in less than one week and followed the apprehension of three other alien sex offenders the earlier this month. One week ago, agents working near the Rio Grande River picked up two previously deported alien sex offenders. In the first incident, McAllen Station agents discovered a Salvadoran national who crossed the border near Sullivan City. Agents learned the man spent one year in a Utah prison following a conviction for Sexual Battery in the town of Nephi, according to information provided to Breitbart Texas by U.S. Border Patrol officials. Also on Tuesday, Fort Brown Station agents arrested a Mexican national who illegally crossed the border near Brownsville. While processing the alien, the agents learned the man had a criminal history from North Carolina. A court in Mecklenburg County convicted the Mexican national for Involuntary Manslaughter following a crash where he drove while being intoxicated. The court sentenced the man to 13 to 25 months in state prison. McAllen agents arrested another Mexican national near the town of Hidalgo on Thursday. A record check uncovered an active warrant from Hidalgo County for a charge of Indecency with a Child – Child Fondling, officials stated. About 80 miles inland, agents assigned to the Sarita Checkpoint (soon to be renamed the Javier Vega Checkpoint after the slain Border Patrol agent) discovered another Mexican national attempting to sneak around the checkpoint. Agents learned the man has a criminal sexual history from Oklahoma. A court in Oklahoma City convicted the criminal alien on a charge of Sexual Battery. The court sentenced the man to 8 years in a state prison. On Saturday, agents from the Rio Grande City Station arrested a Guatemalan national with a previous conviction near the border town of Roma. An unnamed court convicted the man on a charge of a sexual offense against a child under the age of 16. Further east along the Rio Grande border with Mexico, agents from the McAllen Station arrested another Guatemalan national near the town of Abram. A records check revealed the criminal history of the man that includes a conviction from a court in Adams County (near San Angelo, Texas) for Sexual Assault. The court sentenced the Guatemalan to one year in state prison. The week of arrests rounded out Monday with the arrests of two Salvadoran nationals by McAllen Station agents in two separate incidents. Monday morning agents working near Mission arrested a man previously convicted by a Homestead, Florida, court for Sexual Assault. The court handed down a sentence of only 90 days for the conviction. Later on Monday, agents working near Hidalgo arrested another Salvadoran national. The foreign national “freely admitted” to being a member of the hyper-violent MS-13 criminal gang. In total, Border Patrol agents kept eight criminal aliens, including those with criminal histories including sex crimes and manslaughter, from making their way inland where they would be free to carry out additional crimes against American citizens. Breitbart Texas has reported extensively on the arrests by Border Patrol agents of previously deported sex offenders and other criminal aliens. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.Daniel Crawford is an undergraduate student of geography and environmental science at the University of Minnesota, who also happens to be a talent cellist. In an effort to combine his two interests -- and devise a unique way of translating climate change data into digestible information -- he composed and performed a song based on global NASA temperature statistics. Titled "A Song of Our Warming Planet," the composition maps out statistical data from 1880 to 2012, with each note representing one year and and the pitch of the notes representing the year's surface temperature. For example, the year 1909 -- measuring in at 31 degrees Fahrenheit, the coldest measurement of the data set -- amounts to an open C on the cello, the instrument's lowest note. Crawford used a method called data sonification to create his song, ultimately attributing each ascending halftone to roughly 0.03°C of planetary warming. The result is an sinister melody that climbs in pitch, transforming the already dismal reality of climate change into a sonically intimidating work of art. “Climate scientists have a standard toolbox to communicate their data,” says Crawford in a description for the song's video, posted above. “We’re trying to add another tool to that toolbox, another way to communicate these ideas to people who might get more out of music than maps, graphs and numbers.” The short film ends with an appropriately stirring message: Scientists predict that the planet will warm by another 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the 21st century. You can download sheet music and an audio file of the song, which we first came across on Hyperallergic, here.Virtually kicking off BJP’s campaign for the upcoming Assembly polls in West Bengal, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday attacked the Trinamool Congress government on the issue of law and order, saying that women, people and even policemen are not secure in the state. Advertising Holding that business summits will not be able to bring in investments in the state unless the Trinamool Congress government improves law and order and ensures good governance, he said at a rally at Ashoknagar in North-24 Parganas district. “Mamata had called for a change from the 34 years’ misrule of the Left and people had welcomed it. Now, four-and-a-half years after the change (in government), people have realised that they have been fooled… Despite Trinamool’s slogan for ushering in change — ‘Ma-mati-manush’ — even police are not secure here. The government has not been able to bring in any change in Bengal,” Singh told a rally at Kalyangarh Haripur Sanskriti Sangha Maidan. The second of the party’s four major rallies — the first was addressed on January 18 by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari at Buniyadpur in South Dinajpore — saw a better crowd. Advertising On Thursday, Singh was flanked by state party in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh and co-observer Sidharth Nath Singh among others. Taking a dig at the recent Bengal Global Business Summit, which was aimed at attracting investment in Bengal, Singh said: “Mamata Banerjee had organised a summit to attract investment but I would like to tell her that unless law and order situation improves in the state, no one will be ready to invest in Bengal. Investors should be given a commitment of peace, development and good governance.” Incidentally, the summit held in Kolkata was attended by several Union ministers, including Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari. They had claimed the state is moving towards the right path of development and growth and assured all possible help to the ruling Trinamool Congress on projects. Taking a dig at the Trinamool regime, Singh said: “While politics is far more peaceful in other states, here in Bengal, Opposition parties are treated as enemies. This has been the tradition since the previous CPM regime and continues now as well. Political parties can compete among themselves but they should not be enemies. Political violence should stop.” Seeking people’s support in the Assembly elections, Singh said: “The BJP-led NDA government was elected in the Lok Sabha polls. For the first time in independent India, a non-Congress government secured a clear majority. There will be Assembly elections in West Bengal very soon. There will be change in Bengal too. I appeal to you that give us strength in the state Assembly. We will do everything to change the situation in the state.” “Politics of religion should not be pursued. We will not pursue the politics of religion, but the politics of humanity and justice. But if someone commits a crime, whoever he may be and whichever religion or caste he belongs to, we will not pursue appeasement politics and take strong action against him,” he said. The minister said there are parties, which try to come to power by pursuing politics of hatred between various communities and castes. “They purse the politics of vote bank and such kind of politics should not be pursued,” he added. Advertising “The people from Bengal tell us that they want change but what will they do? Polling booths are looted. As the home minister of the country, I want to assure you that you all will be able to exercise your franchise in a free and fair manner… I will tell the Election Commission, whatever number of central forces are required, the Centre will make the same available,” he added.August has seen holiday dreams turn into nightmares across much of Europe by a combination of a heatwave so bad it has been named after the devil, protests against tourists, and airports transformed into overcrowded traps. High temperatures have claimed lives in Italy and Romania, and across the continent there has been a rise in hospital admissions, concern about wildfires and a threat of water and power shortages. Destination misery: seven ways they turned airports into hell Read more From Kiev to Rome, people were spotted jumping into public fountains to beat the heat, even defying new fines in the Italian capital in a bid to cool off. Across the country hospital admissions have leapt 15% and at least three people have died as a result of extreme weather, leading Italians to brand the hot spell Lucifero. Authorities in several countries have brought in temporary restrictions on working hours and traffic as the mercury climbed above 40C, and people have been urged to stay inside and avoid alcohol. In Belgrade, a public health institute said householders without air conditioning should put wet towels over their windows. The heat is so intense that it buckled train tracks in Serbia, adding to travel chaos, and largely alpine Slovenia reported its first “tropical night”, with temperatures that never dipped below 20C even at 1,500 metres above sea level. The misery was intensified by chaos at several airports, particularly Barcelona’s, where a combination of stronger EU border controls and a strike left both Spaniards and tourists queuing for hours. Some travellers waited so long they missed their flights. And in a further blow to tourism, some disgruntled locals in regions where holidaymakers are an economic mainstay have turned against an industry they say now brings more harm than good to their communities. “Tourism-phobia: the worst message at the worst time,” Spain’s El Mundo said in an editorial. Only weeks after thousands of Venetians took to the streets for a peaceful demonstration against mass tourism, activists in Spain launched a more violent protest. Anti-tourism group Arran vandalised tourist bikes and a bus in Barcelona, slashing tyres and daubing slogans on the bus windows. In Palma de Mallorca, members of the same group burst into restaurants and boarded boats in the harbour with flares, carrying banners saying “tourism is killing Mallorca”. There have also been protests in Valencia, and one has been called in the Basque city of San Sebastián. The Spanish tourism minister, Álvaro Nadal, has warned against “tourism-phobia”, saying that Spain “can’t allow itself to be perceived as a country that is hostile to tourists”. After a decade of misery, the country’s economy has finally returned to pre-crisis size, and an attack on tourism threatens one of the most lucrative strands of its income. Europe had already been hit by drought and an extended July heat wave, contributing to wildfires in Portugal that killed 60. The return of high temperatures has stirred memories of Europe’s disastrous summer of 2003, when intense heat caused 15,000 extra deaths. At least four deaths have been linked to the heat wave so far: two pensioners killed in wildfires in Italy and two Romanians who died from heat-related conditions. And the economic impact will last long after the heat fades, with olive oil production in Italy expected to be down by nearly a third, and vineyards also affected. Researchers warned however that last week’s misery may become routine, with a report in speciality journal the Lancet Planetary Health warning that by the end of the century heat waves in Europe could cause 50 times more deaths than at present. There could be as many as 151,500 “heat-related fatalities” each year, compared with an average of 2,700 annually in the 30 years to 2010. Adding to the misery of sweltering locals and visitors, airports were struggling to cope with high numbers of travellers and new security rules on one of the busiest weekends of the year. Changes made in the wake of the Paris and Brussels terror attacks demand more checks on passengers from countries outside the 26-nation Schengen border-free zone, which includes the UK. Many airports have struggled to cope, and in Barcelona’s main hub a strike has exacerbated travellers’ misery. Despite heeding advice to arrive early, several passengers said they nearly missed their flights. Luke Hansell, flying to Birmingham with his mother, said he arrived four hours early after reading warnings in news reports, then spent 90 minutes in the security queue. After the failure of mediation, more hour-long strikes by the staff who operate scanners, search passengers and control the queues at the airport resume on Sunday. Others are scheduled for Monday, Friday and next Sunday.A masked Palestinian youth kicks a garbage container during clashes with Israeli forces on September 21, 2015 at the main entrance of Bethlehem. (AFP/Musa al-Shaer/File) By: Ramzy Baroud Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story. Saeb Erekat is an enigmatic character. Despite minimal popularity among Palestinians, he is omnipresent, appears regularly on television and speaks with the moral authority of an accomplished leader whose legacy is rife with accolades and an astute, unwavering vision. When Palestinians were polled by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) in August, just prior to the current Intifada, only 3 percent approved of his leadership -- compared with the still meagre approval rating of 16 percent of his boss, Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas. Even those who are often cast as alternative leaders -- Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, and former Gaza-based Hamas Government Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh -- were nowhere near popular, achieving 10.5 and 9.8 percent of the vote respectively. It was as if Palestinians were telling us and their traditional leaderships, in particular, that they are fed up with the old rhetoric, the constant let-downs, the unabashed corruption and the very culture of defeat that has permeated the Palestinian political elite for an entire generation. Abbas has operated his political office on the assumption that, so long as Palestinians received their monthly salaries and are content with his empty promises and occasional threats -- of resigning, resisting against Israel, lobbing bombshell speeches at the UN, etc. -- then no one is likely to challenge his reign in Areas A and B -- tiny cantons within the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Erekat has been the primary enabler of that PA charade, for he is the ‘chief negotiator,’ whose protracted term in that precarious post has negotiated nothing of value for the Palestinians. In 2002, I followed the Israeli invasion of the supposedly self-autonomous PA areas in the West Bank, when Erekat made an appeal on Al-Jazeera Arabic television to the Israeli Government to exercise sanity and common sense. The entire display of the PA leadership was beyond tragic, proof that it had no real authority of its own and no control over the events on the ground as Palestinian fighters battled the re-invading Israeli army. He appealed to Israel as if he felt genuinely betrayed by its military onslaught. When Al-Jazeera released thousands of secret documents in January 2011, revealing discussions behind closed doors between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, Erekat held the lion’s share of blame. With a clear mandate from his superiors, he appeared uninterested in many Palestinian political aspirations, including Palestinian sovereignty in occupied East Jerusalem -- the spark behind the current and previous Intifadas. He offered Israel the “biggest Yerushalaim in Jewish history, symbolic number of refugees return, demilitarized state… what more can I give?” he was quoted in the Palestine Papers What is particularly interesting about Erekat, and equally applicable to most PA leaders and officials, is that, no matter how devastating their roles -- which they continue to play out, whether through political incompetence or outright corruption -- they do not seem to go away. They may change position, hover around the same circle of failed leadership, but they tend to resurface and repeatedly regurgitate the same old language, cliches, empty threats and promises. After retreating for a few weeks as Intifada youth took to the streets to protest the Israeli occupation, PA spokespersons, including Erekat, are now back on the scene, speaking of squandered opportunities for peace, two states and the entire inept discourse, as if peace was ever, indeed, at hand, and if the so-called ‘two state solution’ was ever a solution. In a recent interview with Al-Jazeera’s ‘UpFront’, Erekat warned that the PA was on the verge of shutting down, as if the very existence of the PA was a virtue in itself. Established in 1994 as a transitional political body that would guide the process of Palestinian independence, the PA morphed to become a security arm that served as a first line of defense for the Israeli army, in addition to guarding its own interests. Billions of dollars later, and after intensive military training provided by the US, the UK, Italy, and other western and ‘moderate’ Arab countries, the PA security forces have done a splendid job of cracking down on any dissent among Palestinians. So why is Erekat warning of the PA collapse as if the sorry leadership in Ramallah is the center of everything that Palestinians have ever aspired for? “Soon enough Netanyahu will find himself the only [one] responsible between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean because he is destroying the Palestinian Authority,” Erekat said. So what? According to the Geneva Conventions which designate Israel as the Occupying Power, Netanyahu is, indeed, responsible for the welfare, security and well-being of the occupied Palestinians, until a just political solution is assured and enforced by the international community. Using the same tactic which, along with Abbas and other PA officials, was utilized repeatedly in the past, he vowed that “soon, very soon, you’re going to hear some decisions” about disbanding the PA. It matters little what Erekat and his Ramallah circle determine as the proper course of action. Not only has his language become obsolete and his references irrelevant, but the entire Oslo ‘peace process’ travesty -- which delivered nothing but more illegal settlements and military torment -- was dead a long time ago. In fact, it was the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000 that killed Oslo and the ten years between the end of that uprising and the advent of a new one were filled with mere haggling and desperate attempts at breathing life into a ‘process’ that made some corrupt Palestinians a whole lot richer. The hope is that the current Intifada will cleanse the residue of that dead process, and surpass the PA altogether, not through acts of violence and vengeance, but rather through the establishment of a new leadership manned by good women and men who are born in the heart of Palestinian Resistance, in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. The new leadership cannot be imposed from above, or achieved after deliberation with ‘moderate’ Arabs, but selected through an organic, grassroots process that is blind to factional allegiances, religion, gender and family lineage. Palestinian Intifadas do not liberate land but liberate people who assume their role in the struggle for national liberation. The 1936 Intifada liberated the fellahin peasants from the confines of the dominant clans and their allegiances to Arab regimes so that they could face up to the British and the Zionists; the 1987 Stone Intifada liberated the people from the grip of Tunisia-based factions, thus the establishment of the Unified National Leadership of the Intifada along with Hamas; the 2000 Intifada was a thwarted attempt at escaping the sins of Oslo and its empowered elite. For the current Intifada to achieve a degree of initial success, it must find a way to entirely dismiss those who took it upon themselves to negotiate Palestinian rights and to enrich themselves at the expense of the impoverished and oppressed Palestinian people. If the Intifada is to be true to itself, it must seek to break not just the hegemony over the Palestinian political discourse which is unfairly championed by Erekat and his peers, but to break political boundaries as well, uniting all Palestinians around a whole new political agenda. There are many opportunists who are ready to pounce upon the current mobilization in Palestine, to use the people’s sacrifices as they see fit and, ultimately, return to the status quo as if no blood has been shed and no oppression still in place. After reiterating his support for the two-state solution which is now but a fading mirage, Erekat told Al-Jazeera, “We are fully supporting our people and their cry for freedom.” I think not, Mr. Erekat. Twenty years is long enough to show that those who have taken part in their people’s oppression, cannot possibly be the advocates of their people’s freedom. The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect Ma'an News Agency's editorial policy.posted by Jaywalker ADVERTISING: Link to VOD Tobi [B]mouz vs Virtus.Pro Link to VOD Tobi [B]zNation vs mTw Link to VOD Purge [B]Virtus.Pro vs mTw Link to VOD LD [B]WE vs AEON Link to VOD LD [B]Ice vs Duskbin Link to VOD Luminous [B]Zenith vs Absolute Legends With so many great games going on this week, we decided to cheat a little and included an extra game alongside the normal five. Today will featureTobi '' Dawson,David '' Zhang,Kevin '' Godec, andDavid '' Gorman.If you missed last week's top 5, you can check it out here. And also, you MUST watch this [/B]The Semi Finals always seem to bring us the best in Dota, this game was no exception. It must have been the pressure, the strats, the players, just everything that made this game the most epic of all time. This is my game of the year.[/B]The comeback is one of the classic things to watch happen in this case I didn't expect from zNation to do what they did, just to prove that even if you have a huge advantage, the game of Dota is never over until you kill the fortress.[/B]Virtus.Pro produced many awesome games from the International Qualifier, this time verses mTw in the final and decisive game of the set! Virtus.Pro drafted around a semipush teamfight strat and mTw had push and teamfight elements with some carry potential splashed in. The game also contains the most farmed CM you'll ever see, and a rare Shadow Fiend.[/B]Naked Dagon rush on Nature's Prophet? Tsuwamon Pudge? Looking back on this game, what amazes me most is that, going into this game, AEON had just gotten done playing (and getting dismantled by) TongFu in the Upper Bracket finals. Will AEON's relentless offense overwhelm the opposition, or will their decision to give away Invoker and AM to WE, a Chinese team known for its strong turtling, split pushing, and stamina, ultimately prove their undoing? This is one of those games that has to be seen to be believed. Easily one of the most exciting games of the entire tournament, and truly a treat for fans of aggressive Dota.[/B]Morphling vs Antimage. Speed versus strength. Feed, counter-feed. An epic, back-and-forth game of Dota, one of those rarely seen but often wished for late game matchups which is dead-set even and impossible to call until one of the thrones finally falls. But in the end, perhaps these four words sum this game up the best, "THE BASH! THE BASH!"[/B]One of the most common questions a frequent viewer of pro games may ask is, "Why isn’t this hero picked more often?" One of the most under-picked heroes, Axe, makes a rare appearance soloing the mid lane for Zenith. Prepare to have your mind blown from the sheer power of Axe… I said good day sir!The Daily Beast published a list this week of the “13 Most Useless Majors.” Coming in at #9 was Anthropology and Archaeology. The information they publish alongside their ranking is as follows: Unemployment, recent grad: 10.5 percent Unemployment, experienced grad: 6.2 percent Earnings, recent grad: $28,000 Earnings, experienced grad: $47,000 Projected growth, 2010–2020: +21 percent First, the last I checked, the US U3 unemployment rate was 8.2%, while the broader U6 measure of under/unemployment was at 14.5%. So the cited figures for employment rate for recent and experienced grads are pretty much in line with, if not below, U.S. averages. The earnings are on the low-end of college degree recipients, but one can safely assume that individuals pursuing Anthropology are not doing so for the money. The final stat is what I find remarkable, though…isn’t a 21% projected growth fairly large for a useless major? My bigger issue with the list is simply that any knowledge (or college major if we want to view knowledge as a commodity) is useless unless you put it to use. Anthropology, particularly keeping in mind current trends in society, actually appears to me to be extremely and increasingly useful. The difference being that anthropology does not possess the kind of well-worn academic to career path and infrastructure as, say, an undergraduate business degree and entry-level banking positions or an undergraduate biological sciences major and the slave labor of graduate medical training. There are no business models developed around exploiting the labor of recent Anthropology graduates (unless you count coffee baristas…I kid). I am still relatively new at this, but in my 5+ years of teaching undergraduates my students have gone on to the following pursuits; medical school, nursing school, public health, law school, grad school in anthropology, peace corps, Teach for America, Fulbright awards, international NGO work and countless other jobs that I could not possibly keep track of. The “related occupations” (as described by the Daily Beast list) for Anthropology are much broader than “Anthropology and Archaeologist.” In my courses I teach students on research and theory in the following areas: evolution, population genetics and genomics, the fossil record, human behavior, food and health, ethics, anatomy and osteology, quantitative methods, computer programming and the integration of scientific and humanistic knowledge structures. Additionally, any student pursuing anthropology at the graduate level is very likely going to get trained in at least one non-native language, spend considerable time abroad or in a novel environment, collaborate with peers across an array of international institutions, work between government, public and private institutions and spend copious amounts of time diligently thinking about how it is we come to know what we know about what it means to be human. I, for one, do not find those topics lacking relevance in contemporary society. Rather, I see them as skills likely to become more important as the world becomes more urban, more technological, more populated, more resource constrained and more international. The challenge, as I see it, is not the “uselessness” of Anthropology but the difficulty in equipping students, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, with the tools and perspective necessary to use the knowledge and skills developed in Anthropology effectively. A lot of the changes I have made to my teaching over the past year have been directed towards this issue. One of the goals for my classes these days is not only to convey the theory and knowledge base of Anthropology, but to do so in a way that imparts skills, techniques and models of application of that theory and knowledge. The model of go to college, do well, get a job, if it was ever true, has never been the model for Anthropology because of the diversity of careers and work that anthropologists engage in. Students should, if they are not already, be made aware of this, but this is not a condemnation of the value of the discipline. In a world in which the meaning of the word “career” is undergoing rapid change, the development of individually developed and applied knowledge that goes hand in hand with anthropology is a strength, not a weakness. So perhaps The Daily Beast should look at #8 on their list, journalism, and do a little self-reflection (though I think more than ever we need more and better journalists).It looks like the reality show called “The Curse of Oak Island” will return as soon as the developers decide what to add and how to change the show. The show basics Some people are located on the island in search of treasure would be the shortest description of the show, which started to air at the beginning of 2014. Kevin Burns leads the team of executive producers who came up with the whole concept of American show “The Curse of Oak Island”. The season 3 started to air in the middle of November 2015. Source:.tvovermind.com What is so special about this reality show? The main protagonists are audacious Rick and Marty who try to unveil island secrets. The island itself is located near the cost of a Canadian province and some contorted legends surround it. The secret treasure is hidden somewhere in the ground. According to the legend, this treasure was either in possession of pirates or King Solomon itself. Rick and Marty managed to discover some minor clues, but so far it is not enough to lead them to the main goal. However, they are not the only ones on the island. There are also inhabitants, who believe that the power which guards the treasure is supernatural. Review and Ratings This reality show can boast with nothing but a positive feedback from the critics and from the audience. After three seasons the numbers have been on a constant rise. However, not all the people think positively of this show. Some consider that there is no essence to it and they are not certain that the treasure even exists. Of course that the project makers took this information into consideration, but each episode is viewed by about 1 million people so why not continue to air it? What Season 4 brings to the table? Well, we don’t know. It seems that the producers wait to see how many people watch the show in order to shape the project. The release date is not familiar, but they will certainly give some indications soon about the start of the next season. ( Additionally, the producers inform that the series is slated to be released in late 2016. )“The Curse of Oak Island” Season 3 has kicked off on November 10, 2015. Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/CurseofOakIsland/The Seattle-Bainbridge ferry will have a new addition for waste disposal soon, thanks in part to lobbying from a small coffee shop at the Bainbridge ferry terminal. Commuter Comforts is a popular coffee spot for ferry travel, but once people get on board there's no option for the coffee shop's new compostable cups. "They end up in the trash, which is much worse than regular cups going in there, because as they start to decompose and compost in the trash, it releases all the methane gas, because there's no oxygen getting to it, and it's not being circulated," Leah Kloven said, manager at Commuter Comforts. Commuter Comforts recently switched to compostable cups and installed their own container outside, but most people don't throw their cups away right after buying a drink. They typically walk right on board the ferry, which only has recycling bins. That's when Kloven asked Washington State Ferries for compost bins on board the vessels. "They sort of said, 'We don't have the staff to do it. We can't do it. Maybe sometime in the future,'" she recalled. Sign up for the daily 5 Things to Know Newsletter Thank You Something went wrong. This email will be delivered to your inbox once a day in the morning. Thank you for signing up for the 5 Things to Know newsletter Please try again later. Submit The answer was good enough, so Kloven asked her friend Alexis Hujar for help. "We wanted this to happen, and we weren't going to stop," Hujar said. After a petition and a couple calls to their state senator and Governor Jay Inslee's office, new compost bins have arrived. "Here in Seattle, obviously it's a law you have to compost, so we have bins already here at Coleman dock, but we want to put them on the vessel, because as people have pointed out to us, a lot
inside the wire”. Exactly why Australian trainers are required for this work when nearby Arab nations such as Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have large and professional armies available to do it, is not clear. Australia has become the go-to provider of professional military expertise in a region that is a long way from our shores. Preventing terrorism from striking us at home is one thing but becoming the cheap force of choice for oil rich Arab states is another altogether. Australian National University academic and former army officer John Blaxland believes that the new deployment is a mistake because nothing had changed in Iraq except for the growth of the Daesh. He said the fundamentals were not in place for the mission to succeed and the leadership in Baghdad had changed in name only. “Shiites are still killing Sunnis and Iranians are still killing Sunnis,” Dr Blaxland said. “The Australian military commitment does little to address the fundamental schism in Iraqi society between the Sunni and Shia communities. In fact, this is not something Australian soldiers are equipped to deal with at all. Only the Iraqis can do anything about that and there is little evidence of determination to make up for past mistakes.” The timing of the fresh Australian commitment coincides with a renewed push by Iraqi forces to drive Islamic State fighters out of Tikrit not far north of Taji. Tikrit is also the ancestral home of Saddam Hussein. National security expert and former army officer Clive Williams said it would take considerably more than training to make the Iraqi security forces capable of displacing IS. “Local Sunni populations in Iraq are in the main opposed to reoccupation by the corrupt forces of the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government. In many areas they are not too keen on IS either, but they see IS as the lesser of two evils,” Professor Williams said. “Tens of billions of dollars have already been spent on training and equipping the Iraqi security forces but their main problems are corruption and a lack of motivation to fight outside Shiite controlled areas.” Defence Chief Mark Binskin said the Daesh had not made any significant territorial gains since October thanks largely to thousands of coalition air strikes. “They’ve lost the ability to amass their forces in the open, they don’t fly their flags, their leaders aren’t wearing uniforms,” he said. “Now more than ever it is important for us to focus on the development of the Iraqi security forces to be able to take and hold their own ground, secure their borders and allow the restoration of governance in their own country.” So far the Shiite dominated Iraqi Army has been reluctant to shed blood in defence of the Sunni homelands in the north and here is the rub for the Australian trainers. All the skills in the world count for nought if troops are unwilling to fight. Only time will tell if the newly upskilled Iraqi Army will take the fight up to IS to drive the brutal Islamic fanatics from their borders. Air Chief Marshal Binskin assured Australians that the divide could be overcome and the Iraqi Army trained to a workable level. “If I didn’t think they were trainable I wouldn’t make a recommendation to Government that we could go in and do this, but it’s going to take a concerted effort to do it.”On March 15, as the crisis within the Armenian Church in Turkey seemed to approach the first step of a resolution, a new crisis was born. Since the elected patriarch of the Armenian Church in Turkey, Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan, the head of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, became incapacitated nearly a decade ago, there has not been an election nor a formally elected patriarch. Archbishop Aram Atesyan, the Vicar General, has been the acting Patriarch. Following community pressure on the Patriarchate and on the government of Turkey to allow a full election to choose a new patriarch, Archbishop Atesyan has resisted. The community’s efforts to convince him to allow such elections and to step down depending on the election’s outcome reached a crisis in February. Karekin II, the Catholicos of All Armenians, intervened and secured the archbishop’s agreement to step down once the first election, to elect a Locum Tenens, or alternate, were held. This would be followed, six months later, by an election that would choose the 85th patriarch of the Patriarchate of Constantinople – one of the four hierarchical sees of the Armenian Church, alongside the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Holy See of Cilicia and the Mother See of Etchmiadzin, recognized as the pre-eminent of the four. That first election – for an alternate -- was held March 15, with three candidates in the running. Archbishop Atesyan was one, but he lost to Germany’s Diocesan Prelate Archbishop Krikor Bekçiyan. The third candidate, a member of the patriarchate, Bishop Sahak Mashalian, withdrew in favor of Bekçiyan. No sooner was the election, by the Clerical Assembly, concluded, then Archbishop Atesyan produced a notice from the Istanbul Governor’s office, declaring the election “legally impossible” and citing divisions and disagreements within the Armenian community. Both Archbishop Bekçiyan and attorney Sebu Aslangi called the Istanbul Governor’s notice “completely unlawful,” explaining that the administration didn’t have such authority. They have appealed to the Governor’s office. The response, together with Archbishop Atesyan’s status, post-election, and knowledge of such a notice remain unclear.Modern grain bins, similar to those found during the Iron Age. Image: John Tarduno/University of Rochester A team of American and South African researchers just published a paper in Nature Communications outlining how they've discovered a record of the Earth's magnetic fields literally scorched into the ground. By measuring magnetic samples from ritualistic fires in Iron Age communities, they found evidence of a time of "rapid change" in Earth's magnetic field from the 13th to 16th centuries. Paleomagnetism is a lot like paleontology, except instead of the study of plants and animals, it's the study of the Earth's magnetic fields. Rather than dig for fossils, researchers have to be a bit craftier to find data on Earth magnetism beyond the past 160 years that we've been observing the phenomenon. The Earth's magnetic field has a weak spot, where the Van Allen belt, a collection of charged particles from the Sun are held in place by magnetism, dips close to the Earth's surface. The spot, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, spans from South America to southern Africa, and may be the starting spot for the reversal of Earth's poles, which happens every 800,000 years or so. This phenomenon that takes place over literally thousands of years, but we've been collecting data on the magnetic fields since the 1840s. Extending the record back further took some looking. One record was uncovered thanks to a long-standing ritual practiced the along near the borders of present-day South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, during the region's "Iron Age," from the 11th through 16th centuries. For at least 2,000 years, agricultural populations in southern Africa lived in semi-permanent villages, with buildings made of clay, mud, and grass for holding their livestock and harvests of millet, beans and peas, Rory Cottrell, one of the study's co-authors told me in an email. Magnetic field strength in the South Atlantic Anomaly. Image: Michael Osadciw/University of Rochester "In times of sustained drought, poor growing seasons, and animals dying unexpectedly, the villages were burned as part of a ritualistic cleansing," Cottrell said. As the buildings burned, the firing temperatures reached at least 1,000 degrees Celsius. That amount of heat is above the Curie temperature for magnetic materials like magnetite, where noticeable changes occur to a material's magnetic properties, creating a record of magnetic strength and direction at the time of burning. "This is a temperature where the magnetic characteristics of a particular material change from being unable to retain a permanent magnetic field above this temperature, and recording or 'freezing' the magnetic field as the material cools through and below the Curie temperature," Cottrell said. "We sampled burnt features from localities in southern Africa to look at what magnetic fields were recorded for different time periods throughout the Iron Age of southern Africa." According to the 160 years of records collected by magnetic field observatories, the Earth's magnetic field has been weakening and changing direction, which is normal and could indicate that we're in the early stages of a pole reversal, which could take 15,000 years to complete. Looking back even further, through the burned remains of villages, researchers found that the rate of directional change today is small potatoes compared to what was going on in the South Atlantic Anomaly from the 13th through 16th centuries. According to their observations, from 1225 to 1550, the rate of change was twice what it is today. Weakening magnetic fields can strengthen without a pole reversal, so at this point researchers are only speculating on what the magnetic field will do next. But the more data they have to base those speculations on, the more accurate they will be. For phenomena that take hundreds of thousands of years to complete, every record helps.OTTAWA — The race to win the Conservative leadership is getting increasingly crowded, with two more candidates — one a defeated MP and one a former cabinet minister — set to join the contest. Quebec MP and former public safety minister Steven Blaney, as well as former Vancouver-area Conservative MP Andrew Saxton, will both announce within the next two weeks they are joining the leadership race, the Ottawa Citizen has learned. Their entry into the race means there are now nearly a dozen candidates who have either declared their candidacy or are expected to in the coming days before the first party-sanctioned leadership debate Nov. 9 in Saskatoon. Saxton, 52, is a former two-term Conservative MP who lost his North Vancouver seat in last year’s federal election. He served as a parliamentary secretary to the president of the Treasury Board and later to finance ministers Jim Flaherty and Joe Oliver. He will announce his leadership bid next week, with separate launches in both Ottawa and North Vancouver, according to a source close to him. Saxton’s campaign will focus largely on a few key themes, including: an economic message of encouraging small businesses to be successful; promoting himself as the lone B.C. candidate in the race; and “being the voice in the Conservative party” for urban areas of the country, said a source. Saxton was one of several former Tory MPs who lost their urban ridings in and around Toronto, Vancouver and other major cities in last year’s federal election. However, trying to convince Conservative members he should be leader when he didn’t win his own seat will be one of his challenges. “His focus is making sure that there’s a government in place that encourages opportunity for Canadians and small businesses to grow and be successful and live the Canadian dream,” a source said. “To have no presence in Canada’s three largest cities is disheartening for Conservatives and we need to figure out a way to have our message appeal to the cities … the cities are obviously where the party needs to grow to get from opposition to government.” Saxton comes from a prominent B.C. family and he had a long career in the financial and real estate sectors before being elected to Parliament. His father, Andrew Saxton Sr., is a highly successful businessman in B.C. who also is well known within Conservative party circles. Blaney, meanwhile, will officially announce on Oct. 23 in Lévis, Que. (his home riding) that he is entering the leadership race, according to a senior official on his campaign team. He served as the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness from 2013 to 2015 in the Conservative government, and in the veterans affairs portfolio from 2011 to 2013. Blaney was first elected MP in 2006 and has been re-elected three times. Blaney, 51, was a key player in the Conservatives’ tough-on-crime message in the latter years of Stephen Harper’s government. He will become the second candidate in the race from Quebec, along with fellow MP and former cabinet minister Maxime Bernier. Blaney announced in late September that he was resigning his role as Official Opposition critic for public services and procurement to reflect about “the future of the Conservative Party and the crucial decisions that Canada must make in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century.” With so many candidates now in the race, the question on the minds of many Conservatives is why some leadership hopefuls are even running if their chances of winning seem extremely remote. But Tim Powers, a longtime Conservative strategist and vice-chairman of Summa Strategies in Ottawa, said that, unlike the NDP contest, a plethora of candidates are jumping into the Tory race because they clearly feel the leadership is worth winning. As well, capturing the Conservative crown is suddenly far more plausible for many candidates than just a few months ago because some bigger names have decided not to run. “All of these candidates, at some level, believe that they can win, or they have an issue that they want to push that will position them for some future glory in the party,” Powers said. “With no one, dominant candidate or campaign, while the path to victory may not be clear, it’s a shorter path than climbing Mount Everest, and that’s what many of these (candidates) would be doing if Peter MacKay or Jason Kenney was in.” • Email: jfekete@postmedia.com \| Twitter: jasonfeketeNote: This tutorial is out of date! There are now two updates: A Javascript, HTML, and CSS Version, and a Coffeescript, HAML, and Stylus Version. Introduction I’ve been playing with Backbone.js, a small but nifty Javascript library that provides a small Model-View-Controller framework where Models can generate events that trigger View changes, and vice versa, along with a Collections models so groups of models can cause view-level events, and a Sync library that provides a basic REST architecture for propagating client-made changes back to the server. There are a number of good tutorials for Backbone, such as: Meta Cloud, &Yet’s Tutorial, Backbone Mobile (which is written in Coffee), and Backbone and Django. However, a couple of months ago I was attempting to learn Sammy.js, a library very similar to Backbone, and they had a nifty tutorial called The JsonStore. In the spirit of The JSON Store, I present The Backbone Store. Literate Program A note: this article was written with the Literate Programming toolkit Noweb. Where you see something that looks like <this>, it’s a placeholder for code defined elsewhere in the document. Placeholders with an equal sign at the end of them indicate the place where that code is defined. The link (U->) indicates that the code you’re seeing is defined here but used later in the document, and (<-U) indicates it was used earlier but is being defined here. The Store The store has three features: A list of products, a product detail page, and a “shopping cart” that does nothing but tally up the number of products total that you might wish to order. The main viewport flips between a list of products and a product detail; the shopping cart quantity tally is always visible. Let’s start by showing you the HTML that we’re going to be exploiting. As you can see, the shopping cart’s primary display is already present, with zero items showing. DOM ID “main” is empty. We’ll fill it with templated data later. HTML This is taken, more or less, straight from The JSON Store. I’ve included one extra thing, aside from jQuery and Backbone, and that’s the jQuery Templates kit. There is also a simplified JSON file that comes in the download; it contains six record albums that the store sells. (Unlike the JSON store, these albums don’t exist; the covers were generated during a round of The Album Cover Game.) The Program And here’s the skeleton of the program we’re going to be writing: Products and Product List View To start, I have a list of products. The basic product is just a model, with nothing to show for it; the list of products is a Backbone.Collection, with one feature, the comparator, which sorts the albums in order by album title. The ProductCollection is what we want to show when the user isn’t looking at a specific product. I create a Backbone.View object class ProductListView : Here, we’ve told this view that it’s principle element is the DOM ID “main”, allocated an indexTemplate using the jQuery template complire, and created a render function that fades out “main”, replaces its content with a rendered template, and fades it back in. The template looks like this: There’s some Demeter violations going on here, in that I have to know about the attributes of a Backbone model, something that’s normally hidden within the class. But this is good enough for our purposes. The above is a jQuery template, and the \$\{\} syntax is what’s used to dereference variables within a template. (As an aside, I think that the set and get methods of Backbone.Model are a poor access mechanism. I understand why they’re there, and I can only hope that someday Javascript Getter and Setters become so well-established as to make set and get irrelevant.) The Shopping Cart Before I move on to the product view, I want to go over the shopping cart. A little rocket science here: A Cart contains CartItems. Each “item” represents a quantity of a Product. (I know, that always struck me as odd, but that’s how most online stores do it.) CartItem has an update method that allows you to add more (but not remove any– hey, the Sammy store wasn’t any smarter, and this is For Demonstration Purposes Only), and we use the set method to make sure that a “change” event is triggered. The Cart, in turn, has a method, getByPid (“Product ID”), which is meant to assist other objects in finding the CartItem associated with a specific product. Here, I’m just using the Backbone default client id. Once we’ve found that item, we can just call update() on it. The cart is represented by a little tag in the upper right-hand corner of the view; it never goes away, and its count is always the total number of Products (not CartItem s) ordered. So the CartView needs to update whenever a CartItem is added or updated. And we want a nifty little animation to go with it: A couple of things here: the render is rebound to this to make sure it renders in the context of the view. I found that that was not always happening. Note the use of reduce, a nifty method from underscore.js that allows you to build a result out an array using an anonymous function. This reduce, obviously, sums up the total quantity of items in the cart. Also, jQuery enthusiasts could learn (I certainly did!) from the.find() and.end() methods, which push a child object onto the stack to be modified, and then pop it off after the operation has been applied. One of the big things this illustrates is that a Backbone.View is not a full-page event; it’s a mini-application for drawing its own little universe, that may be part of a larger universe. It’s entirely possible to have lots of Views on a page. Also, this cart does not have a template associated with it: we’re changing a single textual item on the page and animating another one that is always present. The Product Detail View So now we’re down to the ProductView. This is slightly more complicated. First, let me show you a skeleton of the view, similar to the one we saw for the ProductListView : The reason the ProductView is complex is because it’s going to interact with the shopping cart. We need to keep track of the cart. There are two ways of dealing with this: Have the ProductView track down its cart item every time, or keep a reference to an individual track item having found it once. I’m going with the first option. Rendering is exactly the same as that for the ProductListView. In fact, it’s so similar, I’m thinking maybe I should have made this an abstract function and mixed it in afteward: The template for a ProductView, however, has some interesting qualities: Note the octothorpe used as the target link for “Home”. I kept thinking an empty link or just “/” would be appropriate, but no, it’s an octothorpe. Also note that it has a form. (Again, note the Demeter violations.) What we want is to update the shopping cart whenever the user enters a number into the input box and either presses “Add To Cart” or the ENTER button. That gives us our methods: We’re in a view for a specific product; we must see if the customer has a CartItem for that product in the Cart, and add or update it as needed. Like so: But how to do these events get triggered? Go back to the ProductView skeleton above; there’s a placeholder for “product events”, which looks like this: Backbone uses a curious definition of an event with an “event selector”, followed by a target method of the View class. Backbone is also limited about what events can be used here, as the following events cannot be wrapped by jQuery’s delegate method and do not work: “focus”, “blur”, “change”, “submit”, and “reset”. We preventDefault to keep the traditional meaning of the submit button from triggering. When the CartItem is updated, it triggers a “change” event, and the CartView will update itself automatically. I added the “silent” option to keep the “change” event from triggering twice when adding a new CartItem to the Cart. The Router The router is a fairly straightforward component. It’s purpose is to pay attention to the “#hash” portion of your URL and, when it changes, do something. Anything, really. Backbone.History is the event listener for the hash, so it has to be activated after the application. In many ways, a Backbone “Controller” is just a big View with authority over the entire Viewport. Here’s the skeleton of our router, along with its instantiation: There are two routes that we want to present: the index (our list of products) and the item (a product detail). So, using Backbone.Controller, we’re going to route the following: There are a few things I want to track: the index view, the individual product views, and the shopping cart. Now, we can render the index view: There are two things left in our workspace, that we haven’t defined. The intialization, and the product render. Initialization consists of getting our product list, creating a shopping cart to hold “desired” products (and in quantity!), and creating the product list view. <initialization>= (<-U) initialize: function() { var ws = this; if (this._index === null) { $.ajax({ url: 'data/items.json', dataType: 'json', data: {}, success: function(data) { ws._cart = new Cart(); new CartView({model: ws._cart}); ws._products = new ProductCollection(data); ws._index = new ProductListView({model: ws._products}); Backbone.history.loadUrl(); } }); return this; } return this; }, Here, I load the data, and upon success create a new ProductCollection from the data, a new shopping cart, and a new ProductListView for the product collection. I then call Backbone.history.loadUrl(), which then routes us to the correct view. Thanks to this, users can bookmark places in your site other than the home page. Yes, the bookmark will be funny and have at least one octothorpe in it, but it will work. And now I’m down to one last thing. I haven’t defined that product render call in the application controller. The one thing I don’t want to do is have ProductViews for every product, if I don’t need them. So I want to build them as-needed, but keep them, and associate them with the local Product, so they can be recalled whenever we want. The underscore function isUndefined is excellent for this. And that’s it. Put it all together, and you’ve got yourself a working Backbone Store. This code is available at my github at The Backbone Store. Index of code references:Major Allison Digby Tatham-Warter DSO (21 May 1917 – 21 March 1993), also known as Digby Tatham-Warter or just Digby, was a British Army officer who fought in the Second World War. He was most known for carrying an umbrella into battle.[1] Early life [ edit ] Digby was born in Atcham, Shropshire, England. He was the second son of Henry de Grey Tatham-Warter, a landowner with several estates in the south west of England. Digby's father fought in the First World War with the Artists Rifles; he was gassed in the trenches and died when Digby was 11.[2] Digby was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire. In 1935 he was accepted into the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.[3] Early military career [ edit ] Digby graduated from Sandhurst as an officer with the rank of second lieutenant on 21 January 1937 and was commissioned into the Unattached List for the Indian Army with a view to joining the Indian Army due to his family connections. He was attached to the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in India from 13 March 1937, and subsequently transferred to that regiment 27 April 1938 (so never joining the Indian Army) so that he would be able to continue his hobbies of tiger hunting and pig sticking.[2][4][5] Second World War [ edit ] When the Second World War broke out, Digby was not initially sent to fight in Europe. His sister Kit served in the Western Desert Campaign and was awarded the French Croix de guerre while serving with the Hadfield-Spears Unit. Upon hearing of his brother John's death at the Second Battle of El Alamein in late 1942 with the 2nd Dragoon Guards, The Queen's Bays, Digby volunteered for the airborne forces and transferred to the Parachute Regiment. He was appointed as the company commander of A Company of the 2nd Parachute Battalion, part of the 1st Parachute Brigade of the 1st Airborne Division. He was stationed in Grantham, Lincolnshire during training. His tiger hunting exploits were well known, and his reputation was enhanced as he was able to obtain the use of an American Dakota aeroplane in which he flew all the company officers in the camp to London for a party at The Ritz London Hotel.[2] A Company was then chosen by the battalion's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel John Dutton Frost, to lead the 2nd Parachute Battalion in the Battle of Arnhem, part of Operation Market Garden, because of Digby's reputation of being an aggressive commander. In preparation Digby, concerned about the unreliability of radios, educated his men on how to use bugle calls that had been used during the Napoleonic Wars for communication in case the radios failed. He also took an umbrella with his kit as a means of identification because he had trouble remembering passwords and felt that anyone who saw him with it would think that "only a bloody fool of an Englishman" would carry an umbrella into battle.[6] A Company were dropped away from the target of Arnhem Bridge and had to go through Arnhem where the streets were blocked by German forces. Digby led his men through the back gardens of nearby houses instead of attempting to advance through the streets and thus avoided the Germans.[1] Digby and A Company managed to travel 8 miles in 7 hours while also taking prisoner 150 German soldiers including members of the SS. During the battle, Digby wore his red beret instead of a helmet and waved his umbrella while walking about the defences despite heavy mortar fire. When the Germans started using tanks to cross the bridge, Digby led a bayonet charge against them wearing a bowler hat. He later disabled a German armoured car with his umbrella, incapacitating the driver by shoving the umbrella through the car's observational slit and poking the driver in the eye.[1] Digby then noticed the chaplain pinned down by enemy fire while trying to cross the street to get to injured soldiers. Digby got to him and said "Don't worry about the bullets, I've got an umbrella". He then escorted the chaplain across the street under his umbrella. When he returned to the front line, one of his fellow officers said about his umbrella that "that thing won't do you any good", to which Digby replied "Oh my goodness Pat, but what if it rains?"[7] Digby was later injured by shrapnel, which also cut open the rear of his trousers but continued to fight until A Company had run out of ammunition. Despite the radios being unreliable as Digby had predicted and the bugle calls being used most in the battle, the message "out of ammo, God save The King" was radioed out before Digby was captured.[8] Because of his injury, Digby was sent to St Elizabeth's Hospital but escaped out of a window with his second in command Captain Tony Frank, when the German nurses had left them alone. After creating an escape compass from buttons on his uniform, Digby and Frank headed towards Mariendaal. Upon arriving, they were hidden by a Dutch woman who spoke no English before being put in contact with her neighbour. He disguised them as painters and moved them to Derk Wildeboer's house. Wildeboer was a local leader of the Dutch Resistance in Ede. They then met Menno de Nooy of the Dutch Resistance who gave them a bicycle. Wildeboer had a fake Dutch identity card made for Digby to allow him to pose as Peter Jensen, a deaf-mute son of a lawyer.[1] Digby used the bicycle to visit fellow soldiers in hiding and the Germans did not recognise him despite him helping to push a Nazi staff car out of a ditch and German soldiers being billeted in the same house that he was staying in.[1] Digby then gathered 150 escaped soldiers to head towards the front line. This was known as Operation Pegasus. Digby and the soldiers cycled to the Rhine and Digby flashed a V for Victory sign using Morse Code with his torch. Members of XXX Corps then ferried them across the river. Upon return to the United Kingdom, Digby was awarded the Distinguished Service Order.[7] Post-Second World War [ edit ] After the war ended, Digby later served in British-controlled Mandatory Palestine before being appointed to the 5th King's African Rifles in British Kenya in 1946, where he also bought two estates in Eburru and Nanyuki.[1] During the Mau Mau Uprising, Digby raised a volunteer mounted police force at his own expense and led them into battle against the Mau Mau.[2] After that, he retired to run his estates. He also created the concept of the modern safari where animals would be photographed rather than hunted.[2] During Kenyan independence, it is reported that the British Defence staff told the British High Commissioner to "look after Tatham-Warter".[2] Death [ edit ] Digby died in Nanyuki on 21 March 1993.[7] In popular culture [ edit ] Tatham-Warter served as the inspiration for the character of Major Harry Carlyle, who likewise carried an umbrella into battle, in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far. The role was played by Christopher Good. Although Tatham-Warter survived the Second World War, Carlyle is depicted as being a casualty of the Battle of Arnhem. See also [ edit ]DATA AS OF OCTOBER 2016 Legally possible Legal with no restrictions (5 countries) In these countries, making a change is simply based on the request of the individual. Legal but with social or medical requirements (41 countries) Almost all countries that allow a legal change require a diagnosis of mental disorder. Many require a person to be childless or unmarried; some require hormone therapy, surgery, and/or sterilization. Advocates denounce such rules as violations of human rights. Legal regionally or with difficulty Legality and requirements vary regionally (4 countries) In some countries, including the United States, local practices may take precedence, making legality and the requirements for changing a matter of geography. Legal but inconsistently allowed (27 countries) Even if a country’s rules allow a change to be made, unclear regulations, court decisions, and bureaucratic barriers can block changes in status.As your architecture becomes more complex, you often need to perform time-consuming tasks when certain business events occur. Examples include sending emails, processing images, and interacting with external APIs. If these events may be triggered by actions that occur within your web application, you don’t want to perform these tasks synchronously within the HTTP request/response cycle: your end-users would hate you and your throughput would suffer. Instead, you want to perform these tasks asynchronously outside of the HTTP request/response cycle. Event-driven architectures help to solve these (and other) types of problems by allowing an arbitrary number of tasks to be performed as a side effect of an event being published. They can be built on top of message-oriented middleware, which allows the publishing and consumption of events to be truly distributed, and each component to be scaled independently. After evaluating many message brokers upon which to build our event-driven architecture, we ultimately chose RabbitMQ, as it offered the best blend of features, performance, and ease of use. In addition, RabbitMQ implements the AMQP protocol, which is emerging as the defacto standard protocol for message-oriented middleware, and allows us to (in theory) move to a different broker in the future. Our Ruby On Rails applications needed to publish messages to the broker, and there’s two main ways you can do that in Ruby: synchronously via the Bunny gem, or asynchronously via the AMQP gem. While Bunny has an easy interface to use, its interaction with the broker is synchronous. In addition, its currently in flux and pending an overhaul, which makes depending on it somewhat risky at the moment. The AMQP gem on the other hand interacts with the broker asynchronously, and is actively maintained. However, it is built on top of EventMachine to achieve its asynchronous functionality, so using it, and more importantly testing with it, is inherently more difficult. We ultimately decided to publish messages asynchronously using the AMQP gem. While there’s a lot of documentation out there about the AMQP gem, I couldn’t find a simple “how to publish messages with the AMQP gem within your Rails model classes” type of tutorial anywhere, so here’s how we ended up doing it. Messages With a polyglot architecture, we needed a message format that was easily produced/consumed by various programming languages, so JSON was the obvious choice. All messages have a metadata property which includes basic information such as the application that produced the event, the host the application was running on, the time the event was produced, and the routing key. {"metadata": {"host":"web3.mycompany.com", "app":"web", "key":"some.event", "created":"2012-11-28T37:11:56Z" }...message specific properties... } A base Message::Base class take care of serializing this information via ActiveModel::Serializers::JSON. module Message class Base include ActiveModel::Serializers::JSON attr_reader :metadata def initialize(routing_key=nil) raise StandardError, "routing_key cannot be nil" if routing_key.nil? @metadata = {:host => Socket.gethostbyname(Socket.gethostname).first, :app => "web", # configure this... :key => routing_key, :created => DateTime.now.new_offset(0).to_time.utc.iso8601} end def routing_key @metadata[:key] end def as_json(options={}) hash = {:metadata => {:host => @metadata[:host], :app => @metadata[:app], :key => @metadata[:key], :created => @metadata[:created]}} hash end end end Message::Base subclasses are created for each message type, with properties specific to that message type. An example for a hypothetical new user account created message: module Message module User # Message indicating that a new user account has been created class AccountCreated < Base attr_reader :account_id attr_reader :email_address ROUTING_KEY = "user.account.created" def initialize(account_id, email_address) raise ArgumentError, "account_id cannot be nil" if account_id.nil? raise ArgumentError, "email_address cannot be nil" if email_address.nil? super ROUTING_KEY self.account_id = account_id self.email_address = email_address end def as_json(options={}) hash = super hash[:account_id] = account_id hash[:email_address] = email_address hash end end end end Connecting To The Broker Broker configuration details for each Rails environment are stored in a config/amqp.yml file in the Rails app. defaults: &defaults logging: false connection_timeout: 3 host: localhost port: 5672 vhost: "/mycompany" exchange: "mycompany.topic" user: username pass: password test: <<: defaults development: <<: defaults production: <<: *defaults host: queue.mycompany.com The Configurable module can be mixed in to read in the configuration from config/amqp.yml for a given Rails environment. module Amqp module Configurable private def load_config if defined?(::Rails) config_file = ::Rails.root.join('config/amqp.yml') if config_file.file? YAML.load(ERB.new(config_file.read).result) else nil end end end end end Connection classes wrap an AMQP::Channel object to communicate with the broker and utilize the Configurable module above to determine the name of the exchange to produce messages to (via an AMQP::Exchange object). Our use is hard coded to rely on a Topic Exchange, but you could easily make this configurable/dynamic as well. The Amqp::AsynchronousConnection class uses the AMQP gem under the hood to communicate with the broker asynchronously. It is passed an active AMQP::Session object, which is established externally upon server startup (more on this below). require 'amqp' module Amqp class AsynchronousConnection extend Configurable @@setup = false def self.setup(amqp_session, config = nil, env = ::Rails.env) if!self.setup? raise StandardError, "Must pass an AMQP::Session to setup" if!amqp_session.is_a?(AMQP::Session) @@amqp_session = amqp_session @@config = load_config(config) @@env_config = @@config[env] raise StandardError, "Env #{env} not found in config" if @@env_config.nil? raise StandardError, "'exchange' key not found in config" if!@@env_config.has_key?("exchange") @@channel = AMQP::Channel.new(@@amqp_session) @@exchange = @@channel.topic(@@env_config["exchange"], :durable => true) @@setup = true end end # Whether the underlying connection has been set
Services. Subject: Good Day Good Day My Partner, I am contacting you to see if we can make a deal, My name is Mr. Charles Maxwell, Director in Charge of Audigint and Accounting, I discovered an unclaimed inheritance fund (USD 28.6 Million) in our bank. Actually I don't have to involve myself officially because of my job, but I know what will be required to release the fund to you and we shall share in ratio of 40% for you and 60% for me. Please note that this must be concluded within two weeks. Reply back if you are willing to work with me and send me your Full Name and Private Telephone. Look forward to discussing this opportunity further with you in more detail shortly. Sincerely, Mr. Charles Maxwell Subject: Dear name removed Dear name removed I am Barrister Lyte Ugo Esq, a Benin lawyer. A deceased client of mine, that shares the same last name with you, died as a result of a heart-related condition on October 12th 2011. His heart condition leading to his death was due to death of all members of his family in Tripoli disaster Libya. I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over somedays now. You can reach me for more information as my late client left behind a deposit of $19,500,000.00 Million Dollars. You can reach me on my private email address (barr.lyteugo04 gmail.com) Best Regards, Barr.Lyte Ugo Esq, TEL: +229 97449889 Subject: Car Accident!! Name Removed Hello, I had to send this message to you, due to an unforeseen circumstance that I encountered. I traveled with my family for a Vacation to Manila, Philippine and unfortunately for us, we had an accident of which I dislocated my right arm and my head got bruised. The driver of the cab passed on due to internal bleeding and the injuries he sustained on his head. I have not been able to reach any one due to the fact that I misplaced my mobile phone during the accident. Thank goodness, my family are safe. presently I am in a hospital, due to the injuries I sustained and I need your urgent assistance to enable me pay up the hospital bills so that I will be discharged immediately. Please I need your assistance financially to enable us get back home. Do you think there is anyway you can lend me $1,650? I promise to refund your money as soon as i get back hopefully on Wednesday. I will be very grateful if you will be able to assist us financially. Regards, I await your response. Subject: New Security Feature Update From ASB Online Dear Customer Due to our present service interruption we have requested all our customers to immediately update there online service for our New Security Feature Update. Log On To Confirm Your Security Thank you for helping us to protect you. Security Advisor ASB Online Subject: SOMEONE YOU KNOW WANTS YOU DEAD You have been betrayed!!! It’s a pity that this how your life is going to come to an end as your death had already been paid for by someone who is very close to you from all investigations. I have ordered 3 (three) of my men to monitor every move of you and make sure you are not out of sight till the date of your assassination. According to the report I gets, you seem to be innocent about what you have been accuse but I have no business with that, so that’s why am contacting you to know if truly you are innocent and how much you value your life. Get back to me if you sure want to live on, ignore this mail only if you feel it’s a joke or just a threat. Don’t forget your days on earth are numbered, so you have the chance to live if only you will comply with me. WARNING: Tell no one about this mail to you because he or she might just be the person who wants you dead, and if that happens, I will be aware and am going to make sure you DIE instantly. I will give you every detail of where to be and how to take any actions be it legal or illegal, that’s only when I read from you. You need to stay calm and act unaware of this situation and follow instructions because any move you make that is suspicious; you will DIE as your days are numbered. Lucky You Toodle Pip! Spike Dwaggin International Assassin / Slayer Subject: I'm pleased to share my good experience with you...:) Hey, mate! I'm pleased to share my good experience with you...:) I have a Japanese friend told me that he worked in a Japanese company. I visited the company he worked for and found their products are very favorable. And there are many product versions, such as European version, American version, and Asian version and so on. All company's products taken photos for the true products. I suggest you should have a look at this website. Here is the company website: www oemdea1 info I am sure you will enjoy a lot of benefits shopping there. Never forget to share good things with us... =) Thank you Subject: RE I need your help for a business. Subject: KINDLY ACCEPT THIS! Dear Beloved, I am sending you this email in good faith I am Tricia Milton now undergoing medical treatment for cancer. I was married to Mr. Peter Milton who worked with British embassy in Malaysia for many years before his death in 2009, we both made a deposit of some amount of money worth $9.5M in a safe deposit box with a finance institution. Recently, my Doctor told me that I have few months to live due to my illness. Having known my condition I have decided to donate this fund to you so that you can use the money for humanitarian in your Country to help the less privilege while the rest goes to you and your family. With the help of my lawyer my doctoRejoice, Banksy fans! The street artist recently had a permanent exhibition space open in Stoke Newington – and now he's getting another. The Banksy Prints Gallery will be opening in ultra-swanky South Bank hotel The Mondrian London on December 1. As you may well have cunningly deduced by the name, it will be dedicated to Banksy's prints, as well as photographs by Steve Lazarides, who has known the spray-paint supremo since the early 1990s and has been a long-time champion of graffiti art. So we're guessing that the vibe in this new space is going to be a bit nostalgic for them good ol' days. Either way: get down there, and find yourself a print. Something that your nan will like for Christmas. The Banksy Prints Gallery will be open at 22 Upper Ground, SE1 9PD from December 1. In other art news, David Hockney is designing a new stained glass window for the Queen And you can find more cool art in London hereThe family of Kiwi motorsport legend Chris Amon has confirmed that the 73 year-old died this morning in Rotorua hospital. Amon won Le Mans in 1966 and also secured three Formula One pole positions. Having established himself as one of the very best drivers in the world, he went on to drive for March and Matra in Formula 1, and for BMW in the European Touring Car Championship. He retired from Formula 1 in 1976, and from all motor racing in 1977 when he returned to New Zealand. For many years Amon has been a consultant to Toyota and the winner of the Toyota Racing Series receives the Chris Amon Trophy. Chris Amon was widely regarded internationally as not only the best driver never to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix, but one of the best drivers never to be crowned world champion. Amon was awarded an MBE for his services to motorsport in 1993, and was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1995. A family spokesperson said that despite Amon battling cancer in recent years he retained not only a close interest in Formula 1 – and his very wide range of favourite topics - but also his wonderful sense of humour complete with infectious chuckle. NewshubThe rumor that the former Holiday Inn at 618 Delaware Avenue was going residential was incorrect. Benderson Development has taken over the property and is planning a top-to-bottom transformation to convert the hotel into a Residence Inn by Marriott. The eight-story Holiday Inn was built in 1966 and currently has 167 rooms. Hart Hotels had been operating the hotel though the property is owned by Benderson. Details from The Buffalo News: The $8.15 million project calls for demolishing the interior of the hotel, except for the stairways and elevator core, and rebuilding it with 105 extended-stay rooms, a hotel lobby, commercial space, and a Starbucks or other coffee shop on the ground floor. Outside, Benderson wants to update the facade, which currently features an exposed concrete frame that shows the cantilevered floor slabs and cement columns, with a dark-metal frame and insulated glass. The new look will be a “thin-set” natural brown brick veneer, with fiberglass-reinforced concrete, a gray pre-cast base, gray window frames and glass, and a decorative off-white metal panel system to “cap” the building with cornice and trim details. There will also be a porte cochere, with a new roof cornice, and the outdoor pool will be enclosed for year-round use. This will be the third Marriott flag in the city and the second operated by Benderson. Its Courtyard by Marriott at One Canalside opened in 2004. The Marriott HARBORCENTER opened its doors in August 2015.John A. Farrell is the author of Richard Nixon: The Life, which will be published by Doubleday in March. In the spring of 1973, as the Watergate scandals shattered the Nixon presidency, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a long, brooding letter to a former colleague on the Harvard faculty. Moynihan, a Democrat, had joined the Nixon administration as a domestic policy adviser, hoping to nudge the Republican president toward a more liberal agenda. “Have I been a fool, a whore, or both?” he now asked his friend, Nathan Glazer. There was another possibility. “Something, perhaps, to be forgiven,” as Moynihan put it. Story Continued Below For it takes two sides to rumble. And if Nixon gave no quarter, neither did his liberal foes. Even as Moynihan helped the 37th president launch an array of progressive initiatives to protect the environment, battle disease, expand health care coverage and integrate Southern schools, the left remained bitterly opposed to Nixon, denigrating him at every turn. Moynihan begged his old allies to give the president some credit. Nixon craved intellectual respectability, Moynihan told historian Arthur Schlesinger in 1971 but “has come to feel that nothing he will ever do can win intellectual support and therefore hates intellectuals more than ever.” Without some kind of affirming feedback to reward the ever-insecure president, Moynihan warned, Nixon’s dark side would prevail. Nixon and his staff certainly “betrayed us,” Moynihan wrote Glazer, absolving the disgraced president for little that happened in Watergate. “But there is a sense in which they were also betrayed. Nothing they did could win … approval.” There was “no give either way.” It’s a lesson to remember, perhaps, as Donald Trump, another truculent, applause-craving president, meets unrelenting political opposition. One week into his administration, and social media is chock with furious, left-leaning partisans: denying Trump legitimacy, and demanding that congressional Democrats resist! and throw sand in every gear. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York is said to be stealing a march on rivals for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination by casting more votes than others against Trump’s Cabinet appointees. Neither Moynihan nor I would suggest that today’s Democrats, independents or moderate Republicans forfeit their core principles. If Trump endeavors to round up the parents of American-born children, and send them to detention camps for deportation, Americans must march in protest. If he seeks to deprive American citizens of the right to vote, under the guise of “election reform,” then men and women of principle must respond, in the courts and at the polls. Senate Democrats and Democratic governors must serve, as the Founders intended, as checks on the potential abuse of power posed by one-party rule in Washington. And if Trump lies and dissembles to justify his actions on voting fraud, immigration, torture, relations with Russia and China or climate policy, the press and the public must insist on truth. Yet Moynihan might counsel Democrats to search, as well, for ways to exploit the opportunity. In Trump’s insecurity and narcissistic tendencies the resistance may find openings. All politicians crave applause, and this new president, maybe, more than others. He has shown no rigid ideological principles. With the proper reinforcement, he may be weaned from his darker impulses, as Nixon was early in his presidency. And, perhaps, another paralyzing, cataclysmic Ragnarok, like Watergate, might be avoided. * Nixon entered office in 1969 with the same sort of reputation that saddles Trump—of a bruising gut fighter, adept at dabbling in the politics of grievance, and willing to exploit racial fears and division to get his way. For every “new Nixon” in his career, there had been a reemergence of the Tricky Dick of old. The gulf between Nixon and the liberal establishment was vast and deep, and grew deeper as he continued to wage war in Southeast Asia. But shrewd politicians sense the currents of public opinion, and recognize opportunity. Just eight days after Nixon was inaugurated, a blowout at an offshore drilling rig dumped 100,000 barrels of crude oil into the waters off Santa Barbara, California. It was the largest such spill, to that time, in the United States, and helped to ignite a national movement to preserve and protect the environment. Nixon was quickly on the scene, assuring Americans that he shared their concerns. He then set out to prove it. President Richard Nixon was guided on a tour of some of the proposed projects in the so-called Pennsylvania Avenue Project by Daniel P. Moynihan, the presidential counsellor. Nixon was viewing construction of a reflecting pool in the area of the Capitol. \| Getty Nixon, a pragmatist, was not averse to a Teddy Roosevelt sort of conservation, preserving natural resources for future generations. Russell Train, a well-known conservationist, had chaired the Nixon transition task force on the issue and had been appointed undersecretary of interior. White House counselor John Ehrlichman, a land use lawyer from Seattle, was also supportive of the cause, as was Moynihan—who (in 1969!) alerted his colleagues to the “apocalyptic” dangers of global warming. By May, there was a new White House environmental council. In July, Nixon gave a ringing endorsement, and a pledge of federal support, for population control. In September, the administration announced its opposition to construction of a new South Florida airport close by the Everglades. The Democrats on Capitol Hill cooperated, and on New Year’s Day, 1970, Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act—the far-reaching law requiring environmental impact statements for large scale federal actions. Nixon was only getting started. He appointed Train chairman of the newly established Council on Environmental Quality. And, as the nation prepared to mark the first Earth Day in the spring of 1970, the Nixon administration sent a wide-ranging environmental message to Congress, with 37 proposals to heal the earth and preserve its gifts. “No president before—or since—has offered such an extensive, coordinated legislative agenda” to protect the environment, scholar J. Brooks Flippen wrote in 2000. The Environmental Protection Agency was established by executive fiat, and placed in the capable hands of William Ruckelshaus. When Ruckelshaus moved on, Train succeeded him. With a stroke of Nixon’s pen, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was born. The smog-killing capstone of the environmental movement emerged from Congress as the Clean Air Act of 1970, and Nixon’s EPA followed it up with tough automobile emission and air pollution standards. He signed legislation to regulate pesticides, to police ocean-dumping, to protect marine mammals and to safeguard coastal zones and shorelines. As a motivating issue for American voters, the fate of the environment flashed from spark to conflagration in a matter of months, then settled into a steady flame. Nixon’s interest in the issue followed the course of the public’s passion. In 2012, the leaders of major environmental organizations—the Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, Friends of the Earth and others—were asked in a poll to name the U.S. president who did most for the environment. Nixon trailed only Teddy Roosevelt in the results. The Nixon administration’s progressivism ranged far beyond the environment. Tax reform for low- and middle-income individuals; increased aid for education; a bigger food stamp budget; a 20 percent hike in Social Security payments and the new, annual Cost of Living Allowances passed the Democratic Congress and became law with his approval during his first term. Nixon also signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, creating a federal agency to police unsafe workplaces. He declared a war on cancer, with a massive infusion of medical research money. He asked Congress to double federal funding for the arts. He presided over the glorious final stages of Project Apollo, with the moon landing on July 20, 1969, and the birth of the Space Shuttle program. Nixon gagged at the potential effect on collegiate football and other big time men’s athletics, but he OK'd the requirement that women athletes have access to equal funding when he signed a higher education act with a far-reaching Title IX, banning gender discrimination in education and giving millions of young women the opportunity to demonstrate dash and skill on the playing field. The Nixon administration ended the draft, created a volunteer military and approved a drop in the voting age from 21 to 18. Nixon’s “self-determination” policy—reversing decades of government coercion on Native Americans to assimilate—made him an honored figure on many Indian reservations. These were banner years, with worthy progressive achievements. But nothing Nixon did seemed good enough. It wasn’t enough to pass the Clean Air Act and create the EPA; he soon came under fire for supporting federal funding of the SST—a supersonic transport which could damage the ozone layer of the earth’s atmosphere—and the building of the Alaska pipeline. It wasn’t enough that his administration launched federal affirmative action programs and oversaw the desegregation of Southern schools; he was slammed for opposing busing. View of President Richard M. Nixon standing at a podium addressing questions from reporters during his first press conference in the East Room of the White House on January 1969. \| Getty Nixon got the pervasive feeling that his record was not yielding commensurate rewards. Senate Democrats blocked two of his Supreme Court appointments, and moved to cut off funding for the Vietnam War. His age-old foes in the press viewed his actions with skepticism and suspicion. He found it most irritating when rancorous liberals and unappeasable commentators would carp about his performance. “We can have peace. We can have prosperity. We can have all the blacks screwing the whites” and still not get his proper due from the Democrats and their allies in the press, Nixon griped to his aides, in one rant captured on the White House tapes. Character is destiny. Nixon was far too thin-skinned, vindictive and insecure to keep with a policy of cooperation without some kind of political and emotional payoff. By the summer of 1971, he was renouncing his own achievements. “We don’t do a goddamn thing right around this place in terms of accomplishing anything,” he said, in remarks recorded on another White House tape. “On the domestic scene, we haven’t fired the right people, we’re still screwing around on permissiveness on the welfare thing, we’re just giving more food stamps to loafers—all the things that are wrong—and we’re just running the chaos a little better,” he complained. “I am opposed to these goddamn liberal plans,” Nixon said. “I’m simply against them and all I get in front of me is some other liberal initiative. The environment and all that bullshit. … We’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the food stamp program. It’s wrong, it’s wrong. We’re playing a game in which we don’t gain a goddamn thing.” Nixon’s change of heart had consequences. Moynihan departed, progressive initiatives were left to founder, and the mood in the Oval Office turned to us vs. them. The belligerent president unleashed the polarizing Vice President Spiro Agnew and, in a historic clash with the press in the summer of 1971, went to court to stop publication of the Pentagon Papers, a secret study on the Vietnam War that had been leaked to the New York Times and other newspapers. The freebooters hired by Nixon’s aides to stop the leaking—the Plumbers, they were called—would be caught installing bugs in the Democratic Party headquarters in the spring of 1972. Nixon won reelection in a history-making landslide that fall, but the seeds of Watergate, and his ultimate destruction, were sown. And so, when it was over, when Nixon had departed the White House on Army One, after telling a room of weeping aides and a national television audience how hate destroys the hater, Moynihan rued the lost opportunity. “During those first few years of Nixon, there was some damn good government,” he told an interviewer. “But Nixon couldn’t get any credit for it. The press and others just kept denying it, denying it, and he gave up. He gave up trying.” * Given how Republican scorched-earth tactics undermined the administration of Barack Obama, it is, perhaps, difficult to offer an argument to Democrats that Trump should be treated with any more deference than he and the Tea Party gave his predecessor. Perhaps our politics is consigned, for a time, to mere vying for the angry and aggrieved. Nor, as noted above, should we Americans concede core principles. But in dealing with an egotist, a narcissist, a status-seeking showman who craves the balm of public acclaim, it may be instructive to study the Nixon years. Begin with the assumption that Trump is a rational man, and that his foot-stomping and tweeting and intemperate outbursts are contrived—a part of the art of the deal. If so, progressives might find that their best hope of advancing measures they have pushed unsuccessfully in the recent past—like, say, a massive public works program to repair the nation’s infrastructure, or the elimination of such rich man’s welfare as the carried interest tax break—lies in artful alliance. Trump is a latecomer to populism, after all; the Democrats embraced it in 1896. For organized labor and left-leaning Democrats, Trump’s espousal of their “fair trade” position is a welcome change. American factory workers have long viewed free trade dogma as the legacy of an unholy alliance between the Democratic Party’s neoliberal and the Republican Party’s Big Business wings. Democrats from the heartland, and socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders, have been calling for a little protectionism—and getting roasted for it by the elite editorial writers and fat-cat donors—since the 1980s. Just ask Siri about Dick Gephardt’s 1988 presidential campaign, the Iowa caucuses and the K-car ad. There’s room, without sacrificing their principles, for progressives to spread some balm on Trump’s so-easily bruised ego—and to drive a wedge into Republican ranks in the process. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen have a lot of seats to defend in red and purple states in 2018. Firing up the base is part of the solution. But for Democratic incumbents in states like North Dakota, Indiana or Wisconsin, a few signing ceremonies at the White House might allow them to demonstrate, at the Rotary Club luncheons back home, how they have tempered Trump’s worst instincts and done some good for their country and constituents. When squaring off against Ronald Reagan, in 1981, Speaker Tip O’Neill never asked for ideological purity from the red state Democrats—the boll weevils, they were called—in his caucus. He needed them to hold the House in 1982. That was the meaning of “all politics is local.” Edwin Newman, moderator of NBC program "Meet the Press," with Richard Nixon. \| Getty What’s in it for Trump? Accomplishments that generate broader support. Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and presumably the chief executive’s political advisers know that a president whose approval rating lingers in the political basement represents a crushing liability for the members of Congress from his party in midterm elections, and a vulnerable target thereafter, apt to be driven into early retirement or challenged in the presidential primaries. There are Republican officeholders, in purple states and districts, who watched the Women’s March last weekend, the president’s first volley of executive actions, and the way Trump’s campaign of falsehoods have roused the media, and are doubtless wondering what the White House strategy is—and how their careers fit into the picture. No matter how Trump, and his allies in the conservative media, try to spin it, Republican strategists recognize that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 election by almost 3 million votes. The Democrats aren’t going anywhere. Finally, there is another alternative that, harrowing though it is, must be considered. Perhaps Trump is not a rational actor. Maybe this is not the art of the deal. It could be that what we see is what we’ve got—mendacity and braggadocio, aggression and raw, ungoverned ego. He may not care whether he leads the Republican Party, and the United States, into crises. Like the song says, he’ll do it his way. If so, who’s to say that the Tea Party model, the scorched-earth approach, is the best route for “the resistance” to take in the next two, or four years? Behaviorism may prove a better model. If it turns out that the “handling” of a president’s truculent senescence emerges as the great task of Trump’s tenure—the one for which both Democrats and Republicans will be judged by history—then samplings of positive reinforcement, to moderate his behavior, and keep him away from dark places, may be called for. So, at least, Moynihan would tell us.Javed Akhtar recently called out on the silence of all Pakistani artistes working in India in regard to the Uri attacks and said that their silence is a "form of confession that Pakistan is responsible for it (the attack)." Indeed, the silence of Pak artistes working in India has not been taken lightly by a huge section of Indians, including those from and outside the Bollywood film industry. Recently, Pak-born singer, Adnan Sami, who is now an Indian citizen, also questioned the silence of Pak artistes on the Uri attacks at the 2016 Safaigiri Awards. ALSO READ: Javed Akhtar condemns Pak artistes for being silent on Uri attacks ALSO READ: Om Puri insults Uri martyrs. But why do we need to take him seriously? ALSO READ: The exoticness of Fawad Khan So, even in the face of such criticism and maligning, why are Pak artistes indeed silent? Now, this question would not have sprung up if Pak artistes were characteristically silent during all terror attacks at any place. Fawad Khan expressed his condolences on Twitter during the November 2015 Paris attacks. Pakistani singer-actor Ali Zafar and VJ-turned-actor Mahira condemned the Paris attacks as well. Mahira, criticised the Orlando club shooting too. As such, what does their silence mean? Are they afraid of something? If so, what is that? What do they stand to lose if they condemn a terror attack on Indian soil, allegedly orchestrated by Pakistan-backed terrorists? Now, it is not possible to write that Pakistan officially conducted a terror attack on September 18 at Uri, Jammu and Kashmir because the tenets of journalism does not allow one to jump the gun and make such a statement without conclusive proof. Having said that, a terror attack is a terror attack and the death of 19 Indian jawans is also the death of 19 young men who had families with people who depended on them...people who loved them. To stay stubbornly silent about such a tragedy indicates a number of things including spinelessness, fear, or a much more sinister suggestion - that they support a terror attack on Indian soil. But, consider that these people are good, sane people for a minute. Ali Zafar, Atif Aslam, Fawad Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Mahira Khan and so on, were already stars in Pakistan before they came to India. India has a larger film industry than Pakistan's and it offers more career opportunities than Pakistan can and there's no need for any Pakistani to get touchy about it. Their Coke Studio is better, no one is arguing, but Bollywood is Bollywood. So, if these people are coming to Bollywood to seek a better life, to share their talent with Indians, what is wrong with it? Pak artistes over the years have collectively offered so much to Indian cinema and Indians have straightaway loved them back, regardless of what a has-been '90s playback singer-turned-sanghi troll would like to think. However, when one sees how Adnan Sami got attacked by his Pak fans for supporting the Indian Army's surgical strikes on 'terror camps' across the LoC (Line of Control), any Pak actor or singer would definitely not go ahead and speak in favour of the Indian Army or condemn the terror attack. But by staying silent, Pak artistes are ostensibly connecting a terror attack to a Pakistani attack...a Pakistani attack against Pakistan's enemy India. This is definitely not helping their image in any way. This is such a cowardly silence that even the most hard-nosed liberal, regardless of his/her opposition to the IMPPA's (Indian Motion Pictures Producers' Association) ban on Pak artistes, cannot have and will never have anything to defend a Pak artiste with. A terror attack, at the end of the day, results in lives lost. If you are trying to look past the human tragedy and instead, checking the colour of the flag to decide whether or not you should feel sorry or say sorry, something is wrong with you and it is absolutely right on Javed Akhtar's part to criticise the silence of Pak artistes.Unidentified flue outbreak in Western Ukraine. Photo Western Ukraine was hit by a severe epidemic of unidentified influenza, tentatively diagnosed by doctors as viral pneumonia. The number of dead has climbed dramatically. Doctors advise Western Ukrainians to stay at home and use preventive medication. The first pedestrians wearing face masks have been seen on Lviv streets Lviv kindergartens and schools have been closed, and the city council is to have its emergency session soon to address the flue outbreak. So far, the information released by the authorities on the epidemic dimensions spread and preventive measures is scarce, causing panic to spread in the city. Here are the latest reports on the situation in other W.Ukraine oblasts: As the number of sick persons increases, the authorities describe the situation as rather serious, says Ternopil oblast chief medical officer Bohdan Onyskiv. “In all, 262 patients are treated in hospitals, of these 16 in serious condition.!* children have died in rural areas and 70 in Ternopil,” he says. Onyskiv confirmed that they died from viral pneumonia. The main cause of their death is that sick Ukrainians were too late requesting medical help, most of them on the 5th or 6th day of the disease. They stayed at home, trying to treat themselves, visiting hospitals when it was too late. The disease has a distinct viral nature, complicating treatment, he added. Lviv Oblast Five persons have died from the flue in Lviv, four men and one woman, says emergency hospital chief doctor Myron Borysevych. Two of the dead patients were in the 22-35 age group, with 2 others over 60. He diagnosed the disease as viral pneumonia. “We have sent the analyses to Kyiv. We don’t believe it’s the swine flue. Neither do we know what kind of pneumonia it is, Borysevych stressed. Viral tests can last from one to two weeks. They are complicated and not done in Lviv. The course of the disease was very quick. The symptoms included very high temperature and short-wind cough. The disease started as an ordinary chill with headache and temperature. The symptoms lasted for a week before patient condition began to aggravate. Zakarpattya Oblast A man has died from the swine flue in Volovets. He has recently returned from Saint Petersburg, Russia, suffering from a cold. He was rushed to the hospital when pneumonia symptoms were found by doctors. Another local who came from Moscow became sick and went to see his doctor in time. Now he is recovering safely. Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast All the six dead young people had symptoms of severe hemmorhagic pneumonia. The disease starts slowly, with temperature rising to 37.2 – 37.3 degrees, slight cough and pain in joints. Nasal catarrh developed at the end of the second or third day. Autopsy revealed that the lungs were soaked with blood, the oblast chief specialist said. Chernivtsi Oblast The number of persons with common flue in Chernivtsi has grown from 2,623 to 4,053. According to the local medical authorities, the city has been hit by an unknown type of the flue. The tests to identify the virus will be ready only in 2 weeks, doctors say. * If you find a typo in the news, select it and press Ctrl + Enter.Saturday Night Live star Michael Che agrees with Donald Trump’s criticism that the show is “one-sided.” In an interview with Esquire, the Weekend Update co-anchor said the show tends to skew to the left, often prompted by Trump’s behavior. “Oddly, I agree with him. We try to write that way,” he said. “But the thing that Donald Trump doesn’t understand is that when you’re that ridiculous, it’s kind of hard to talk about anything else. You have this ridiculous orange billionaire doing stranger and stranger things, what else is there?” Trump took issue with SNL last week, after a sketch portrayed him as confused and inept at handling the challenges of the presidency. He called it a “totally one-sided, biased show” and asked for “equal time.” The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now On this point, Che agreed. “I think the show should show all views and we make a conscious effort to do so,” he said, pointing to a sketch called “The Bubble,” which made fun of liberals trying to protect their ideals. Trump will remain fair game for SNL, Che said, noting that the show has been “the most friendly” to him. “But comedy should take both sides,” he said. “No matter who is in power, we should be making fun of them.” Write to Mahita Gajanan at mahita.gajanan@time.com.The arrest of a black suspect in the burning of a black Mississippi church has left egg on the faces of The Young Turks, which last month ridiculed the possibility the attack wasn’t a hate crime. Andrew McClinton of Greenville was arrested by police Wednesday and charged with first degree arson of a place of worship for allegedly torching Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church. McClinton, who is a parishioner at Hopewell, is accused of setting the church on fire Nov. 1 and defacing its outer wall with the message “Vote Trump.” Based on his Facebook page, McClinton appears to be a fan of Donald Trump’s Facebook page, but even if the man does support Trump politically, police say they do not believe the attack was politically motivated. Instead, they suggested the man simply wanted it to appear that way. And that’s unfortunate for online news broadcast The Young Turks, whose hosts ridiculed the possibility the attack was not a hate crime. “Well, it could be a Democrat! It could be a liberal! You don’t know!” host Cenk Uygur jeered with dripping sarcasm. “It could be Black Lives Matter, though perhaps not,” added host John Iadarola. “Vote Trump, very clear political message there.” Iadarola later described the fire as a “terrorist attack,” while Uygur described the attack as the latest example of white terrorism against blacks in the American South. Ironically, Uygur also complained that their broadcast would be the last thing anybody heard about the church fire, saying the attack would entirely fade away without any further media attention. Send tips to blake@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.Apple’s found a fair bit of success with Swift Playgrounds since launching it last year at WWDC. According to the company, the educational program has enlisted some one million users into its ranks. And while the dead simple offering is primarily aimed at youngsters, there’s apparently been a fair bit of interest across demographics. Today’s announcement extends Apple’s Swift-based educational offerings to an older age set, namely high schoolers and college-age students. The company has teamed with a half-dozen community colleges across the country to bring its App Development with Swift program to life, in order to help students enter the work world with app development knowledge. The very real “app economy” employs around 1.53 in the U.S., according to numbers offered up the company, making up a majority of the two million jobs its says it’s created in the U.S. Certainly it’s important for graduates to possess coding skills. And while Swift isn’t exactly an all-purpose language — designated solely for Apple products –there’s plenty of opportunity in those offerings and something to be said for learning the fundamentals of code, whatever language. Swift is also designed to be simple, in keeping with the whole Apple ethos. When the company says the programming language was built with education in mind, that’s mostly what it means. “The first thing Apple wanted Swift to be was approachable, “ Apple VP Lisa Jackson tells TechCrunch. “You don’t have to be a computer science type to interact and learn this language, so it can be a first programming language. But it needs to be powerful enough to write complex apps.” The program, which is an outgrowth of Apple’s Everyone Can Code curriculum for K
Gutman said, “We should have some feelings of sorrow and regret for him and his family. He’s obviously in some inner turmoil.” * The partnership between Belichick and Parcells had held together well during their sole season under Kraft, with the Patriots in 1996, but the relationship had regressed during three seasons with the Jets. Despite Belichick’s substantial growth in the NFL under Parcells and a guaranteed position as head coach, he ached to prove himself without his primary mentor and occasional tormentor. As Gang Green overcame a disastrous start in ’99 -- they lost six of their first seven games and finished 21st in yards allowed -- Parcells’ words had been as harsh as ever. Further complicating their partnership, the Jets’ organization contained a so-called Cleveland mafia: employees who had worked under Belichick when he coached the Browns from 1991 through ’95. The group, which included Parcells’ son-in-law, Scott Pioli, seemed more loyal to the heir apparent than to the incumbent chief. After Hess’ death, members of the coterie quietly realigned themselves with Belichick. Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, who was not part of the Cleveland crowd, also started getting closer to his future boss. The dynamic created tension between the ex-Browns contingent and coaches who had deep ties to Parcells, like quarterbacks coach Dan Henning. So Belichick’s resignation upended the organization well beyond the head coaching position. A few hours after his announcement, Belichick filed a grievance with the league office seeking freedom to interview with other teams. The Jets countered by sending the NFL copies of his contract. The next day commissioner Paul Tagliabue faxed every club that until a final ruling was made, Belichick remained unavailable for employment consideration without the Jets’ consent. The back-page headline of the New York Post mocked, Belichicken: Jets Better off without Quitter. Another headline punned, Belichick Arnold. Belichick recalls, “I knew I did the right thing, and I didn’t know where my career was going.” The Jets couldn’t postpone the Senior Bowl or NFL free agency because of their internal dysfunction, so on Tuesday, Parcells conducted an emergency staff meeting, outlining steps the organization would be taking in the coming weeks. While showing zero desire to reclaim head coaching duties, Parcells withheld his thoughts about a replacement. When the meeting ended, Weis lingered to seize a private moment. Making sure no colleagues lurked within earshot, Weis implored Parcells to pick him as the new head coach. “I can do this job. I’m your guy.” Parcells, though, was already targeting a colleague he had valued since the late 1960s and with whom he had worked for at two colleges and three NFL teams. By lobbying zealously, Weis was jeopardizing his spot on any new coach’s future staff, so Parcells firmly rebuffed the offensive coordinator he had elevated from wideouts coach in ’97, cutting the conversation short. * On Jan. 11, Robert Wood Johnson IV won the right to purchase the Jets for $635 million, the third-highest price ever paid for a professional sports team. The new owner’s football jones stretched back several decades. While attending the University of Arizona, Johnson copublished Touchdown, a guide for Monday Night Football, which dissolved after three issues. During his late 20s, he had coveted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an expansion team. Hours after winning the Jets’ bidding war, Johnson telephoned Parcells to introduce himself. Taking the call with Tannenbaum in the room, Parcells remarked, “Congratulations. Being in pro football is not for the well-adjusted.” Johnson replied, “That’s good, because I’m not well-adjusted.” Parcells shared Johnson’s riposte with Tannenbaum. At least their new owner had a good sense of humor. Or was he being serious? Johnson and his football chief soon met for a brief discussion about Belichick. The owner agreed with Parcells that the Jets shouldn’t free Belichick without obtaining at least a first-round pick in return. Their follow-up meeting was wide-ranging, with Johnson sharing his vision for the franchise. He implored Parcells to return to the sideline, but the director of football operations declined. Johnson expressed an inclination to conduct a leaguewide search for a top candidate, but Parcells insisted on continuity for a team only one season removed from an AFC Championship Game appearance. Parcells suggested promoting linebackers coach Al Groh, a talented disciplinarian with strong ties to Parcells. The hard-nosed assistant’s only experience as a head coach had come at Wake Forest from 1981 to ’86, and based on his 26–40 record at the ACC school, Groh seemed like an improbable choice for an NFL job. Nonetheless, Johnson deferred to the franchise’s mastermind. [pagebreak] * Belichick’s grievance hearing came on Thursday, Jan. 13, at the Times Square headquarters of Skadden, Arps, the NFL’s counsel. Weis and Parcells were required to appear in the 38th-floor office after Kessler, Belichick’s attorney, named them as witnesses along with his client. With Tagliabue present for the 9:45 a.m. start, the opposing groups sat across from each other at a conference table. Each side made 15-minute opening statements. Then Kessler called Parcells as the first witness for a Q and A that lasted 45 minutes. Weis was next, and his testimony jolted Parcells even more than Belichick’s resignation. During four minutes of questioning, Weis supported Kessler’s main argument that Parcells had no intention of ceding true authority to Belichick. The offensive coordinator claimed he had overheard Parcells telling Gutman that Belichick wouldn’t quite gain the power he was contractually due. Parcells had known that Weis would testify but never imagined him speaking so forcefully on Belichick’s behalf. Henning recalls the situation: “Bill [Parcells] decides to go with Al; Belichick can’t coach for a year. Charlie [Weis] realizes that he has nothing. So that’s when he goes and thinks that he can get Belichick out of trouble by putting Bill [Parcells] in trouble.” • Challenge friends and win big in our weekly fantasy football game Weis’ NFL coaching career began in 1990, when Parcells hired the New Jersey high school coach to an entry-level position with the Giants. Impressed by Weis’ offensive acuity over the years, Parcells had promoted him multiple times with the Patriots and the Jets. Parcells could only conclude that now Weis was ingratiating himself with Belichick, hoping for a position in New England. The grievance hearing ended after seven hours, and a ruling was expected within a week. Weis returned to his office the next day; incensed, Parcells immediately banned his offensive coordinator from the premises: “Charlie, you need to get your s--- and leave the building.” Watched closely by Jets employees, Weis took a few minutes to gather some items before scuttling out of the building. Moments after he exited, the team packed up the rest of his belongings and shipped them to his home. Parcells says, “I’ve told many coaches that friendship and loyalty is going to be more important than ambition. Some guys don’t realize that until after they’re done. I don’t bear any animosity toward Charlie. I can say that with a straight face because I know what he is. When somebody shows me what he is, I usually believe it. His actions back then don’t bother me anymore.” On Jan. 21, Tagliabue ruled for the Jets: Belichick had breached his contract by quitting. The league prohibited him from coaching in 2000 without the Jets’ consent or compensation. Tagliabue’s explanation echoed a ruling he issued in 1997 when Parcells wanted to bolt New England while still under contract. Three days later the Jets named Groh their new head coach, with a four-year contract averaging $800,000. The 55-year-old promoted Henning to offensive coordinator and hired Mike Nolan (who would become the 49ers’ head coach in 2005) as defensive coordinator. Other notable additions included tight ends coach Ken Whisenhunt (now the Titans’ top man) and secondary coach Todd Bowles (coordinator of the Cardinals’ defense, No. 3 against the rush in 2014). On the day of Groh’s official elevation, Belichick made a last-gasp attempt to overcome Tagliabue’s ruling by filing an antitrust lawsuit in federal court against the Jets and the NFL. * On Tuesday, Jan. 25, a federal judge denied Belichick’s request for a temporary restraining order, ruling that his Jets contract was valid. Accepting the futility of his situation, Belichick withdrew his antitrust lawsuit. The development gave the Jets the clear upper hand in any potential negotiations with teams interested in Belichick and prompted Parcells to consult Woody Johnson about brokering a deal with Kraft and the Patriots for Belichick’s services. Parcells found the notion distasteful given his acrimonious divorce from Kraft; the two hadn’t spoken since the week following the 1997 Super Bowl. Nonetheless, Parcells knew a deal would benefit both sides. Furthermore, talks would signal a truce in what Parcells termed the “border war” between New England and New York. So that day Parcells telephoned Kraft’s office. When the owner picked up, Parcells said, “Hello, Bob -- this is Darth Vader.” Kraft laughed, easing some of the tension. After initially hesitating, Robert Kraft (left) agreed to send the Jets a first-round pick for Bill Belichick. Steven Senne/AP When his nemesis broached the possibility of a resolution involving Belichick, the Patriots’ owner was immediately receptive. Before going further, however, Parcells expressed regret for some of his actions in New England. Kraft responded by conceding that his inexperience as an NFL owner had exacerbated the situation. Getting down to business, Parcells informed Kraft that the Jets would allow Belichick to coach New England in exchange for draft-pick compensation. Kraft offered a third-round pick in 2000 and a fourth-rounder in ’01. Parcells quickly countered that a deal required at least a first-round selection in 2000. The conversation ended after 40 minutes, with plans for further talks in the morning. In their next session Kraft increased his offer to a second-round pick in 2000 and a third-rounder in ’01, but Parcells insisted on a first-round selection. The two men hung up politely without a deal. Later that afternoon Kraft interviewed Jaguars defensive coordinator Dom Capers for more than four hours; Parcells expected New England to hire him as their new head coach, leaving Belichick in limbo and the Jets without compensation for his departure. But as Parcells headed to bed around 11 p.m., Kraft surprised him with a phone call. “I’m going to make a decision here that I don’t want to make,” Kraft said, “because I want this guy as my head coach.” Parcells replied, “We can work this out. Let’s do it.” Kraft agreed to relinquish New England’s upcoming first-round pick if the teams exchanged lower-round selections in future years. Sealing the deal, the Jets’ chief made an unusual suggestion: that a two-day window be placed on Belichick’s Patriots contract negotiations to prevent him from holding either organization hostage. Kraft loved the idea. Belichick was flabbergasted when Parcells called him at 7 a.m. to reveal the agreement he’d reached with Kraft, contingent on Belichick’s signing a contract with the Patriots in less than 48 hours. Parcells also granted Belichick permission to hire two key Jets staffers with whom he shared links to the Browns: Pioli and defensive assistant Eric Mangini. After all but firing Weis, Parcells gladly allowed the banished coach to join Belichick, too. Around 10 a.m., Kraft called Belichick to confirm the arrangement and start work on a contract. After hanging up, Belichick telephoned Mangini and Pioli about heading to New England. Within a few hours Belichick drove the two men to Foxboro Stadium, where he reached a handshake agreement with Kraft. At 6 p.m. that day, the Patriots introduced Bill Belichick as their head coach, with more power over personnel decisions than Kraft, as a neophyte owner, had permitted Parcells. Belichick took the opportunity to reiterate that he had quit the Jets mainly because of the franchise’s unsettled ownership situation at the time and Parcells’ unclear role. Addressing the issue of escaping his mentor’s shadow, Belichick noted that Parcells had also left a vast one in New England. Parcells says of Belichick (with whom he later rekindled his relationship, after six years of silence), “At the end of the day, he didn’t want to be the Jets’ head coach. Then he expected me as the general manager to just say, ‘OK, I’ll get somebody else.’ Well, eventually I did that. But I got compensation. I didn’t begrudge Bill getting another job somewhere else. In fact, I’m probably the one that got it for him.” Reprinted from PARCELLS: A FOOTBALL LIFE Copyright © 2014 by Bill Parcells and Nunyo Demasio. To be published by Crown Archetype, an imprint of Random House LLC, on October 28.Footage has surfaced of a police officer in St. Louis telling fellow officers to turn off a dashboard camera during an arrest. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 18-year-old Cortez Bufford was arrested by the St. Louis Police Department in April 2014. Officers responding to a call about shots fired pulled him over for making an illegal U-turn. During the stop, officers claimed they smelled marijuana on both Bufford and his passenger. From there, the situation got messy: [Officer] Burkemper is heard saying, I’m telling you right now and Let’s go to Bufford. The passenger repeatedly urges Bufford to get out. Bufford became agitated, Burkemper wrote, refusing to give his name and reaching for a pants pocket before the officer warned him to keep his hands in view. Bufford refused orders to get out. Burkemper called for backup when Bufford became increasingly hostile. The report says Binz told Burkemper he had found two bullets in the passenger’s pocket. Burkemper then ordered Bufford out again, saying he was under arrest. Bufford unlocked his door, but refused to exit. The video shows Burkemper reaching in and opening the door as backup arrives, at 10:14.11 p.m. The report says that after Burkemper maneuvered Bufford to the ground, the suspect struggled repeatedly and reached for his pocket. One of the officers spotted a gun, and Bufford was reportedly kicked and Tasered as officers attempted to subdue him. A Kel-Tec 9mm semi-automatic pistol was recovered, and Bufford was ultimately handcuffed. But another officer arriving at the scene, can be heard advising the officers already present about the active dashboard camera: At 10:16.06 p.m., Officer Kelli Swinton approaches Burkemper's patrol car. There is the sound of an opening car door, and she loudly declares: Hold up. Hold up, y'all. Hold up. Hold up, everybody, hold up. We're red right now, so if you guys are worried about cameras, just wait. The audio cuts out, and the video ends eight seconds later. The video, as well as others showing different views from other cameras, was released on Friday following an open records request: One shows that after Burkemper's camera stopped, officers continued to huddle around Bufford. That camera shuts off, too, leaving a gap of more than two minutes before Bufford is seen on it again, stumbling and falling once as he's taken to a police vehicle. Other videos show unrelated scenes and both Bufford and his passenger sitting inside vehicles. Although Bufford was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and resisting arrest, the charges were dropped last August. As St. Louis city attorney spokeswoman Susan Ryan explained to the Post-Dispatch, that fatal move "diminished the evidentiary merits of the case." Bufford's lawyers are now using the footage in an excessive force case filed last month against the police department. POST CONTINUES BELOW [via St. Louis Post-Dispatch]There’s a famous image of Jesus on the crucifix called the “San Damiano Cross” that was painted in the 12th century. In 2001, the Shrine of St. Bernadette church in Albuquerque, New Mexico commissioned a version of the painting and the artist’s rendition was pretty true to the original. Turns out the parishioners weren’t pleased about that. See if you can guess why: For years, parishioners at St. Bernadette’s in the Heights have looked up from the pews and wondered about the same thing. “I looked up at Jesus because it’s up by the ceiling on the altar,” said Geri DeBoo. “I immediately saw genitals of a man.” Actually, they’re just his abs… but we can’t have a (perceived) cock-n-balls hanging (Ha!) in a Catholic Church, can we? That’d be nuts. So the Church is finally taking action: On Thursday, the Archdiocese announced the painting will be removed. It didn’t say it suddenly found the painting offensive — just that it wanted to respect the concerns of parishoners. They haven’t said when it will be removed or what they’ll do with it. The church estimates a similar work of art will cost around $40,000. (The church later said it would just repaint its midsection.) One news station even went so far as to pixellate Jesus’ abs: You have to ask what they’re so worried about. Even if it really was a naked Jesus, so what? It’s not a sexual image. It’s a depiction of the crucifixion. It’s art. It’s anatomy. How repressed do you have to be to freak out over (possibly) seeing a penis even when the focus of the painting is Christ on the cross? (What do these people do in an art museum?) Either way, I’m going to snicker next time I hear the phrase “Jesus is risen.” (Thanks to Mike for the link)Image copyright PA/Graham Budd Image caption David Fairclough was nicknamed supersub A shirt worn by a footballer who scored the winning goal in one of Liverpool FC's most epic European Cup ties has sold for £10,000 at auction. The number 12 shirt was worn by David Fairclough in his team's victory over French side St Etienne 40 years ago, on their way to a European Cup triumph. Fairclough earned the nickname supersub for his knack of scoring when he came off the bench. The shirt, which was kept in a bread box, was listed to reach up to £6,000. Fairclough, 60, said he would give the money raised from the sale at London-based Graham Budd Auctions to his children. In March 1977, Liverpool were six minutes away from an exit in the second leg of the quarter-final tie at a packed Anfield when the Liverpool-born striker changed the match. Fairclough controlled a long pass from Ray Kennedy on his chest, shrugged off a heavy challenge and with two touches slotted the ball home from just inside the penalty area to give his side the 3-1 win they needed for an aggregate victory. It sent fans wild and prompted a TV commentator to scream: "Supersub strikes again!" Factfile: David Fairclough Image copyright Getty Images Image caption David Fairclough made 154 appearances for the Reds between 1975 and 1983 David Fairclough was born in Liverpool in 1957 He made 154 appearances for the Reds between 1975 and 1983 He scored on his debut for Liverpool in a UEFA Cup tie against Dresden in 1975 He scored 55 goals during his Anfield career, including 37 from 92 starts and 18 in 62 substitute appearancesAnother local, the work or Bimer can be seen throughout Berlin, from well protected pieces in hidden alley ways to illegal sketches at the entrances to apartment blocks and a few murals too. Bimer has been active in Berlin for a long time now and creates familiar characters for all to see. His character is a bear is also the symbol of Berlin and takes many different forms. Bimers bears are regularly angry and expressing disgust at the changing atmosphere in the city. Many street artists use their art to convey their ideas and thoughts and it seems that Bimer has a lot to say. When given the time to create his bears are colourful and creative. When Bimer hits the streets illegally his work is much more simple but just as recognisable.USA Today is reporting that Amazon is planning to launch a wholesale store in 2014, which will take on warehouse store businesses like Costco and Wal-Mart's Sam's Club. The rumor suggests that Amazon will launch a new online service, referred to as Pantry, which will initially carry "2,000 products typically found in the center of grocery stores, such as cleaning supplies, kitchen paper rolls, canned goods like pet food, dry grocery items like cereal and some beverages". Advertisement According to the report, Amazon Prime members would be able to fill up a specifically sized box up with Pantry goods to have delivered. "If the products fit and they don't exceed the maximum weight, Amazon will ship the box for a small fee," explains USA Today. Unsurprisingly, Amazon hasn't commented on the report, and it remains to be seen just how accurate the rumor is. Certainly Amazon is already experimenting with new ideas, and it's likely that this one has at least been discussed—but whether it ever sees the light of day, only time will tell. [USA Today] Image by Mike Seyfang under Creative Commons licenseYvette Cooper and Dennis Skinner slammed the UK government's complicity Boris Johnson struggled to respond in the Commons yesterday, as strings of MPs from both sides of the house slammed the government’s lack of the House of Commons. Yvette Cooper demanded that the foreign secretary, for the sake of history, ‘have the guts to speak out’. My Q to Foreign Sec: Have you urged US to lift this order signed on HMD. For the sake of history, have the guts to speak out pic.twitter.com/EG2Ey1Tpc4 — Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) January 30, 2017 She said: “This is not just about the impact on British citizens. One of our closest allies has chosen to ban refugees and target Muslims, and all he can say is ‘well it wouldn’t be our policy’, that is not good enough. Has he urged the US administration to lift this order, to help refugees and to stop targeting Muslims? This order was signed on Holocaust Memorial Day. For the sake of history, for heaven’s sake have the guts to speak out.” In the same session, Dennis Skinner asked Johnson to ‘try to recall, along with me, as I hid underneath the stairs when two fascist dictators, Mussolini and Hitler, were raining bombs on towns and cities in Britain. Now this government are hand in hand with another fascist — Trump.’ Labour MP Dennis Skinner condemns President Trump as a “fascist” and calls for the state visit to the UK to be cancelled. pic.twitter.com/uFnpnxNvEH — Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) January 30, 2017 (Johnson, with his pedant’s eye for what really matters, responded by quibbling on the 84-year-old’s understanding of history.) Last night, thousands of people converged on Downing Street and gathered in other cities around the country calling on Theresa May to cancel the president’s planned state visit. The parliamentary petition on the issue is now approaching two million signatures. See: Trump bans Muslims – and the press hails Boris for saving Mo Farah URGENT APPEAL: We need to raise £10,000 in the next few weeks to keep holding the right to account. Help us build a better media and back the crowdfunder to keep Left Foot Forward's progressive journalism alive.Economists and politicians have scolded Canadians for the past few years about their personal debt levels, but the fact that they continue to rise suggests many lack the will to change spending habits. Montreal resident Jenni Glad-Timmons, however, decided to do something to end her family's vicious spending cycle. Tired of being on the "status-quo, middle-class treadmill" of mindless consumption and mounting debt, the Glad-Timmonses undertook a project that most people would consider drastic: paring their worldly possessions down to 100 items. "We just decided that life’s too short to just be doing this," says Glad-Timmons, a 36-year-old public health nurse, referring to the North American consumer lifestyle. "We weren’t really being good role models for the kids, either." Figures released by Statistics Canada last week suggest the average ratio of debt to disposable income for Canadian families has hit a record 163 per cent. A recent RBC poll said Canadians carry an average personal debt of $13,141. Paring down In April, Glad-Timmons, her husband, Gary, and their two children, Cristian, 9, and Emmi, 5, each began a process of reducing their individual belongings to 100 things. The family started by holding a series of garage sales, and then hunkered down for a deeper purge. Glad-Timmons says her son had the easiest time paring down. Cristian’s entire inventory of toys now consists of his collection of Tintin books and a box of Lego bricks he shares with his sister. Included in the items Glad-Timmons and her husband either sold or gave away were cross-country skis, a handmade wooden chest that once belonged to her paternal grandfather and their bed frame. She and her husband now sleep on a mattress on the floor. Montreal resident Jenni Glad-Timmons, third from left, and her family have spent much of the last year trying to reduce their worldly possessions to 100 things each. (Courtesy of Jenni Glad-Timmons) The initiative "was an interesting process — and it still is, because we’re not there yet," says Glad-Timmons. "The kids are there. They’re both under a hundred things each." The family took inspiration from a New York Times article about a Seattle couple who completed the 100 Thing Challenge, an initiative started in 2009 by American blogger Dave Bruno. The ‘100 Thing Challenge’ Bruno came up with the idea while struggling with his own consumption habits. "A few summers ago, we purged the house, put stuff out for charity, cleaned," says Bruno, an online marketing manager and adjunct history professor at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. "When we were done, I walked around and thought, 'We haven’t even put a dent in this place.' Something snapped at that moment." That night, Bruno created the 100 Thing Challenge, which he conceived as a way of fighting his consumer impulses and striving for a life of, as he calls it, "simplicity." He believes that divesting ourselves of unnecessary items not only frees up physical space, but leads to a spiritual transformation. "Financially, that goes along with, say, breathing room in our heart and souls. We don’t have to go out and buy one more thing to feel good," says Bruno, who is married and has three daughters. The 100 Thing Challenge — which has adopted the motto "Simplicity is action" — has been profiled in Time magazine, the New York Times and Business Insider. It also has a Facebook page with close to 10,000 followers. Bruno does regular speaking engagements espousing his anti-consumer philosophy, and says he is currently looking for investment to help him produce "simplicity action kits," which would be physical instruction booklets on how to lead a clutter-free life. The emotional aspect of shopping In Bruno's own process of culling, he did away with once-cherished items such as his guitar, camera and model trains. But one of the most difficult choices was getting rid of his woodworking tools, which were sitting idle. In doing a self-assessment, he realized that he was buying more tools as "emotional compensation for not actually woodworking." "That’s a common experience for folks," Bruno says. "It’s like, ‘Well, I’m not a camper, so I’ll go out and buy one more piece of camping gear to reconcile in my mind that I don’t get out enough.’" San Diego blogger Dave Bruno started the 100 Thing Challenge in 2009 as part of a personal quest for simplicity and fewer personal belongings. (Courtesy of Dave Bruno) Mike Mulvey, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management, says our consumption habits are largely driven by emotion. "Why do people buy? Well, the reasons are as diverse as the stuff that they own," says Mulvey. "The simplest way to look at it is [people] want to achieve their goals. Usually, the goals have to do with actualizing some vision of who one wants to become." Pastimes such as reading, cooking and fashion are all modes of self-expression, says Mulvey, and "those things all require stuff to make the experience happen." The burden of home ownership One of the reasons Glad-Timmons decided to take the 100 Thing Challenge was that despite the fact that she and her husband were both working full time at well-paying jobs, they still had substantial debts. Another consideration was their daughter, Emmi, who has a genetic disorder called Cornelia de Lange Syndrome. It affects her physical and mental development and requires costly speech-language therapy. Part of the strategy for simplifying their life was abandoning the problems that come with home ownership. And so earlier this year, they sold their century home in Thunder Bay, Ont., and became renters in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood. Despite the fact that that she is working less than 10 hours a week right now, Glad-Timmons says the family has gone from being $30,000 in debt to being $30,000 in the black. Not a mainstream idea Pat White, executive director of Credit Counselling Canada, commends the family's efforts, but thinks most people are unprepared to abandon consumerism to the same degree. "I don’t think people will change that much," White says. "I think it will probably be the minority who say this is a really good idea, but realistically, I don’t think it’s going to be a mainstream type of thing." "It’s staking out an extreme position, which is fine in terms of their agenda and having clarity of vision, but in terms of getting the masses to come along, I think you need to take some baby steps to get there," says Mulvey. Glad-Timmons says she’s aware of how people might view her family’s extreme de-cluttering program. "Some people think about it as [though] we’re trying to prove something, but we’re not. We’re no better than anybody else. Everybody makes a difference in the world in their own way," says Glad-Timmons. "This is just something we needed to do."For Allah, China and Marx: theological mix for young imams Every morning on his way to class at one of China's largest Islamic institutes, Wang Yue is reminded that the state comes before Allah. Emblazoned in gold etching on a white marble slab at the main entrance -- and repeated all over campus -- is the slogan: "Love the nation, love religion". The contrast is even more striking than the hierarchy: in China patriotism is synonymous with supporting the ruling Communist Party, which is officially atheist. Chinese Hui Muslim students during an exercise session on the campus of the Ningxia Islamic Institute in Yinchuan, China's Ningxia province ©Goh Chai Hin (AFP) But the students see little contradiction between the teachings of Marx and those of Mohammed. "Part of being a good person, and a good Muslim, is loving your own country," said Wang, who is in the last of his four years of studies at the institute in the northern region of Ningxia. "Marxism and religion don't contradict each other, and understanding other religions or theories can help us better understand our own faith," he insisted. While China's constitution enshrines freedom of religion, authorities keep strict limits on it, recognising only five belief systems, approving houses of worship, and seeking to control their messages. The country has two main Muslim groups, the Hui, who are concentrated in Ningxia and aside from their religion share many similarities with the Han majority, and the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who have more in common with Central Asia. Both are Sunni, but while the Hui are largely integrated into mainstream society, officials frequently blame religious extremism -- along with terrorism and separatism -- for violence in the Uighur homeland of Xinjiang. China, which shares borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, has strict national security laws, regularly detaining people for watching jihadist videos, although little evidence of any links to groups such as Islamic State has been made public. - Hammer and sickle - Religious groups must follow the leadership of the Communist Party, President Xi Jinping told a government conference in April. "We should guide and educate the religious circle and their followers with the socialist core values," he said, according to official news agency Xinhua. "We must resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means and prevent ideological infringement by extremists," he added. China's leaders are keenly aware of the role the Catholic Church had in the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, and have sought to curtail outside influence in everything from the Internet to universities. Islam has existed in China for over a millennium, entering with Arab traders on the Silk Road, some of whom settled permanently. Now there are eight state-run Islamic institutes around the country, teaching young Muslims a version of Islam seen through a prism of Communist rhetoric and the Party-State system. Wang, who is Hui, espoused his patriotism under a blackboard with an elaborate hammer and sickle drawn in the corner. In Arabic class, students recited in unison the words for "socialist core values" and "patriotism". "They recognise the conflict, but the Hui have been exposed to political propaganda for so long, especially the older generation in the 60s and 70s, they rarely talk about it," said Timothy Grose, a professor of China Studies at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana. "Hui Muslims have traditionally held a wide array of government and military positions throughout history," he added. "Hui have been able to enjoy the benefits of state development. It's easier to like a government that helped you become rich." - Mosque and state - Ningxia's capital, Yinchuan, is a gleaming example, with newly built albeit mostly empty boulevards, street signs in Chinese, Arabic and English, and an annual China-Middle East trade fair. But not all imams are happy with the education provided at the state-run Islamic institutions. "The teaching isn't Islam, it isn't religion, it's official propaganda," said one cleric at a mosque near the institute, who would only give his surname, Ma, due to the sensitivity of the topic. "The students get better job opportunities because they are more trusted," he added. "The officials know they will be an imam that teaches what they are told." Religious schools attached to mosques run alternative classes devoid of patriotic education and Marxism, but any of their graduates must pass a government test before being allowed to preach to the faithful. "We don't need the government to tell us about religion," said Ma. Many Hui Muslims go through the motions of promoting patriotism simply as a formality, Grose said, and then temper government propaganda in their sermons. But students at the Islamic institute -- whose construction in the 1980s was largely financed by the Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Development Bank -- preach the official line. China has periodically persecuted religious believers, Muslims in particular, and third-year student Hai Jun cited his grandfather as saying the situation used to be "very difficult". "His generation couldn't make the hajj, but we can,"he went on, referring to the pilgrimage to Mecca all Muslims must make at least once in their lifetime. "Now we have so many more opportunities," he said. “In terms of religious freedom, we don't have much to complain about." China has two main Muslim groups, the Hui, who are concentrated in Ningxia and and the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who have more in common with Central Asia ©Goh Chai Hin (AFP) While China's constitution enshrines freedom of religion, authorities keep strict limits on it ©Goh Chai Hin (AFP)A reducing atmosphere is an atmospheric condition in which oxidation is prevented by removal of oxygen and other oxidizing gases or vapours, and which may contain actively reducing gases such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and gases such as hydrogen sulphide that would be oxidized by any present oxygen. Materials processing [ edit ] In metal processing, a reducing atmosphere is used in annealing ovens for relaxation of metal stresses without corroding the metal. A non oxidizing gas, usually nitrogen or argon, is typically used as a carrier gas so that diluted amounts of reducing gases may be used. Typically, this is achieved through using the combustion products of fuels and tailoring the ratio of CO:CO 2. However, other common reducing atmospheres in the metal processing industries consist of dissociated ammonia, vacuum, and/or direct mixing of appropriately pure gases of N 2, Ar, and H 2.[1] A reducing atmosphere is also used to produce specific effects on ceramic wares being fired. A reduction atmosphere is produced in a fuel fired kiln by reducing the draft and depriving the kiln of oxygen. This diminished level of oxygen causes incomplete combustion of the fuel and raises the level of carbon inside the kiln. At high temperatures the carbon will bond with and remove the oxygen in the metal oxides used as colorants in the glazes. This loss of oxygen results in a change in the color of the glazes because it allows the metals in the glaze to be seen in an unoxidized form. A reduction atmosphere can also affect the color of the clay body. If iron is present in the clay body, as it is in most stoneware, then it will be affected by the reduction atmosphere as well. In most commercial incinerators, exactly the same conditions are created to encourage the release of carbon bearing fumes. These fumes are then oxidized in reburn tunnels where oxygen is injected progressively. The exothermic oxidation reaction maintains the temperature of the reburn tunnels. This system allows lower temperatures to be employed in the incinerator section, where the solids are volumetric
, commissioner of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, called the plan "a step in the right direction." He applauded the fertilizer and soil compaction bills but said he'd hoped the plant would be required to build cooling towers. Sierra Club chapter director Jeff Tittel scoffed at the Oyster Creek deal, saying Exelon "gets to operate the plant for 10 years, then walk away with a pile of cash at the expense of the bay."8 of 10 Shaq always brought on the ugly when talking about ex-teammate Kobe Bryant: O'Neal (big dog) was always complaining that Bryant (little) was a ball hog. “Why did it happen? The big dog got fed. And when the big dog was fed, the little dog even got some meat in there, too. Big dog owns the domain, but the little dog can go wherever he wants.” They had completely different personalities: “My personal opinion is, how, if you never hung out with somebody, do you know them so well? I never hung out with that dude because the dude is a weirdo.” “He’s just intelligent—sort of a nerd, actually. He’s the only brother I know who made a 1420 on the SAT. I don’t think Chris Dudley did that, and Mr. Smarty Pants went to Yale. Kobe doesn’t hang out. He doesn’t go to the clubs. He doesn’t ride around. He doesn’t put rims on his car. He’s just him. He’s a sophisticated kid. Damn mature for his age.” Often, Shaquille would not acknowledge Kobe's existence: ESPN: Do you ever see the day where it would be possible for you to sit down, have a talk with Kobe Bryant? SHAQ: Who? ESPN: Kobe Bryant. SHAQ: You know what, I am not familiar with that name, I know a lot of names and I have a lot of names in my head, but I am not familiar with that name. Especially if there is nothing to talk about, I’m sorry I can’t recall that name. And finally, “Kobe always tried to be a hero. But you know, as the saying goes, a hero ain’t nothing but a sandwich.” Actually, one more... Photo: senyawa-kimia.blogspot.comThis month's announcement of a back-room deal between ISPs (internet service providers) and the big record companies to spy on suspected copyright infringers and reduce the quality of their internet connections is just the latest paragraph in the record industry's long, self-pitying suicide note, and it's left me wishing they'd just pull the trigger already and stop beating their chests and telling us all how unfair it all is. Under the new scheme, the rule of law is replaced by a cosy inter-industry deal. Whereas before, anyone who wanted your ISP to spy on your internet connection would have had to show evidence to a judge and get a court order, now any joker who claims to be an aggrieved copyright holder can do so. And whereas actual criminals are punished by judges who make rulings that are proportional to the offence, and which are calculated to minimise external harm, the new scheme allows ISPs and their pals in the record industry to randomly shake up your connection like a snow-globe, dropping some or all of your services – whether you're using your VoIP phone to speak to your dying granny in Australia or downloading the latest hit single from the guy who did the "Crazy Frog Song". They claim that the surveillance data will only be used to police copyright and not to spy on every communication you make. But Transport for London claimed that Oyster cards would only be used to simplify paying for travel, and not to bulk-surveil Londoners, and yet here we are. As novelists say, "A gun on the mantle in act one is bound to go off by act three." I'm a science fiction writer by trade, but even I am impressed by the incredible inventiveness on display in the figures used by the record industry to justify this measure: they add up all the kids who've downloaded a song this week, multiply by the highest retail price, add 30% to account for the wear and tear on their faces from tugging at their beards in dismay, and announce a billion quid "piracy loss" that government and ISPs have to step up and do something about right now, please and thanks, and forget about all that tedious law business. The law is for "minor crimes" like rape and murder – when it comes to serious crimes like downloading songs, we need a "streamlined process" that makes the War on Terror look like a slow-moving, cautious thing. Will this stop kids from trading infringing files? Kids are time-rich and cash-poor and have an infinite supply of ingenuity and impecuniousness to apply to the job of getting music for free. Last year, my freshman university students in Los Angeles regaled me with stories of "hard-drive parties" where everyone would gather with guitars, beers and whopping great hard drives that cost less than either the guitars or the beers. While the students jammed, sang and danced, they simply synchronised their drives using whatever laptops were lying around, transferring hundreds of gigabytes' worth of music while composing and recording songs of their own. It made me wish I was a teenager again: that sounded a lot more fun than painstakingly recording my vinyl to 90-minute cassettes and shyly giving them to girls in the hope of impressing them. So no, I don't think this is going to have any appreciable effect on filesharing. However, it will succeed in driving music-swapping even further underground, to encrypted protocols and offline hard-drive parties and private swapping networks. These are every bit as efficient at getting music into the hands of kids, but they're a lot harder to monitor and charge money for. The original Napster had a fine proposition: they would charge their users for signing onto their network and write a cheque for as-many-billions-as-you-like to the record industry every quarter. After all, they had the fastest-growing technology in the history of the world at their disposal, 70 million internet users in 18 months, and they'd found that the average American user was willing to spend $15 a month for the service. The record industry sued them into a smoking hole instead, and out of the ashes of Napster arose dozens of new networking technologies. Each one was more hardened against monitoring and disconnection than the last. These days, if you wanted to charge a flat fee for access to all music (something that consumers all over the world would be eager to accept), you'd have to do stuff that's a lot more complicated and funky to get anything like the clean reports we'd have gotten off of Napster 1.0. And yet that's just what we're going to end up doing. It's historically inevitable: whenever technology makes it impossible to police a class of copyright use, we've solved the problem by creating blanket licences. The record industry itself was the first beneficiary of this system: when the US sheet-music publishers sued the record-makers for selling recordings of their compositions, they were given a simple solution: anyone is allowed to record your music, provided they pay you a set fee for it. No one has to pay a lawyer $500/hour to negotiate whether this track on this album will cost $0.10 per disc or $0.05. And when the record companies objected to the radio stations playing their discs without compensation or permission, the answer was a blanket licence for records played on air. It's the tried-and-true answer to the problem of copyright-disrupting technology: * acknowledge that it's going to happen; * find a place to collect a toll; * charge a fee that's low enough to get buy-in from the majority; * ignore the penny-ante fee evaders; * sue the blistering crap out of the big-time fee-evaders. This is the shareholder-value-maximising answer that actually brings revenue into the pockets of artists and record companies. It co-opts the majority of filesharers into being active participants in a legitimate transaction instead of everyone starting off as outlaws who have nothing to lose and no reason to come to the bargaining table except for fear of legal reprisals (this fear is notoriously ineffective at moderating the behavior of children). Ten years ago, the record industry had a simple little problem they could have solved by showing a tiny amount of future-looking flexibility. A decade of intransigence and stubborness has bred a killer strain of antibiotic-resistant filesharing technology that grows more and more difficult to police by the year. The sheet music publishers didn't get to control the destiny of the record companies, who couldn't control the broadcasters, who couldn't control the cable operators, who couldn't control the VCR makers. The record industry will not be in charge of the characteristics of filesharing systems. They may get remunerated for their use, but they won't be able to dictate their functionality, no matter how many children they criminalise. If they want to cash in on filesharing, they'd better do it soon, before every potential licence fee payer decides to opt out of the system forever.Call for Entry: Canada’s first women-only homebrewing contest Toronto – Registration is now open for Canada’s First Women’s Homebrew Competition, launched by The Bush League. Entries for this BJCP/AHA sanctioned event will be accepted for all BJCP 2015 style beers that have been homebrewed entirely by women. Judging will take place at Rainhard Brewing in Toronto on August 14, 2016. All entrants will receive detailed feedback on their beer from expert BJCP beer judges, and the title “Canada’s top female home brewer” will be awarded to the woman who brews the beer selected by the judges as the “Best Of Show” for the contest. “Women brewed submissions to Canadian homebrew competitions currently make up a scant 1-2% of entries, The Bush League hopes this competition will give women a fun reason to try out homebrewing and be encouraged by feedback and advice on their results,” the organizers say. For more information visit The Bush League.momentcaptured1 / Flickr So why don't cities and transit agencies take more advantage of it? In the most recent New York City mayoral election, supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis bragged that he was the only candidate with a vision of the future worthy of the city. While Catsimatidis's grand scheme of outmoded monorails and anachronistic world fairs failed to resonate with voters, he was right about New York's lack of imagination when it comes to transportation. For the most part, the people who run the city's myriad transportation organizations still haven't figured out how to deal with the most important, most obvious innovation in transportation: the smartphone. Almost all movement in a major city now begins with a phone. Mobile apps and interfaces help people do everything from sort through route options to locate an approaching bus or hail a taxi or for-hire vehicle. While cities and transportation regulators have released data and encouraged innovation through contests and hackathons, no U.S. city has aggressively pursued development of an integrated app that enables users to plan, book, and pay for trips across multiple travel modes. Instead, it's the likes of Uber and Google Maps and CityMapper and RideScout that have demonstrated what is possible, and controlled the movement market to date. Series The Future of Transportation Go Even in New York, the city with the largest transit ridership and taxi fleet in the country, local officials have allowed the private sector to lead the mobility app charge. The Taxi & Limousine Commission considered app development, says spokesman Allan Fromberg, but ultimately decided to let the market "step-up and determine which services people want to see and use." The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has postponed plans for an integrated app for similar reasons (despite a recent series of meetings about the authority's future). App development "isn't our focus," says spokesman Adam Lisberg. "We do encourage the use of our data, and from there, let a thousand flowers bloom, so to speak." But public agencies are inextricably involved in urban transportation and should take a leadership role in the development of technologies that affect how we move through our cities. Cities and states build, repair, and maintain roads, provide bus and rail service, and regulate taxis. Transportation services—unlike streaming music or combining tiles until they reach 2048—are critical to cities because they provide valuable access to jobs and schools and take place on crowded city streets. They need careful monitoring, lest that jockeying for scarce road space lead to bitter confrontations, as it has historically. "We regulate because we don't want to see taxi wars, gangland regulations, and the overproduction of transport services," says urban planning professor Elliott Sclar of Columbia University, who sees transportation as a public service or collective consumption, rather than a good that should be produced and controlled by the private sector. By Sclar's logic, cities should be lining up to develop apps and usher in a new regulatory regime that reflects the smartphone's primacy in urban mobility. But logic and reality are often at odds, and with each successive week it appears less and less likely that any American city will mount a credible challenge to the taxi apps. (Uber's decision to hire David Plouffe, a high-powered political strategist and an architect of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, sends a strong message that it isn't resting on its laurels.) By failing to take a leadership position on mobility apps, cities are ceding valuable ground and data to private companies who are most interested in their bottom line. The result is a huge missed opportunity to upgrade urban transportation networks by making them more unified. As more and more of the transport system falls into private hands and becomes fragmented, multi-modalism risks declining and cities will lose out on valuable data on where people want to go, how they travel, what's slowing them down, and how the network is operating. A publicly-operated unified mobility app has enormous potential to eliminate barriers between modes, use existing infrastructure more efficiently, and bring the entire transport network to the smartphone. This isn't a trivial improvement—it's a dramatic reimagining of how transportation systems operate. The most obvious advantage to simplifying the network is attracting more riders by making travel without a car easier. This isn't speculative; 20 years ago, the introduction of the MetroCard eliminated the additional cost of transferring between buses and subways and truly unified New York's transit system. Riders faced fewer barriers, be it an additional fare or cumbersome paper transfers, and ridership surged. (An expanding economy and unlimited passes also helped.) With an integrated app, access to taxis and commuter rail schedules and walking directions becomes equally effortless, and will help stitch together a much vaster transit network that few realized existed. In a time of constrained budgets and ballooning expenses, extracting more rides from the existing network is a virtue. But not all of the benefits of a single app accrue to the individual rider. Better data about movement makes it easier for officials to site bike-share docks, or re-route buses to fit travel patterns, or add an extra train during rush-hour to meet demand. Instead of operating on a static schedule that forces users to adapt to it, a transportation network that's monitored and adjusted in real-time can adapt to users. Just as the paved road launched a transportation revolution by enabling point-to-point travel via the car last century, networked technology can shift the paradigm again by making the user and infrastructure dynamic actors who respond to one another. This isn't a trivial improvement—it's a dramatic reimagining of how transportation systems operate. Adam Greenfield of the London School of Economics, author of Against the Smart City, agrees that mobility apps have the power to transform the relationship between transportation networks and travelers. "We're about to undergo a wholesale redefinition of what urban mobility is, and how it is provided," he says. Greenfield recently approached Transport for London—the organization that oversees London's tube, commuter rail, buses, taxis, bikeshare, sidewalks, and roads—about developing its own integrated app. The idea is that users could plan and pay for a trip through the city, even if that trip involved several different forms of transportation. Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter. The best way to follow issues you care about. Subscribe Loading... While these talks are in their infancy, Greenfield is undaunted by the head start that apps like Uber and Lyft have enjoyed. "The taxi apps are just sorting algorithms," he says. "A design team of two or three could replicate these services in a month." Greenfield isn't being blithe; his point is that the barriers to entry are minimal—there's no secret sauce or meaningful proprietary advantage. Building a fully integrated app that allows users to choose among or combine multiple options requires more planning and problem-solving than, say a taxi app, but Greenfield targeted the TfL because they've proven their ability to embrace technology and adapt to a shifting transportation climate for more than a century. "The TfL has everything they need to do this, and even supplant some very good apps," he says. The breadth of the TfL's portfolio gives it a distinct advantage over its American counterparts, which often share regulatory and operational oversight with other agencies. But if U.S. cities can move past the fractured transportation landscape and embrace the challenge, their slow start isn't necessarily a bad thing; it might even help officials avoid the mistakes of bad apps and refine the successes of good ones. "The taxi apps illustrated a possibility, and that's great, but now we need public entrepreneurship to integrate these new technologies with our older technologies to improve public transport," says Sclar. The key, he says, is for cities to coordinate the resources and talent to put this technology in place—to truly discuss the future of transportation in a proactive way. "Cities will only see real gains when they build an integrated system that makes travel as accessible and inexpensive to as many people as possible," he says. "That takes public leadership and vision, and hopefully someone is up to the task." This article is part of 'The Future of Transportation,' a CityLab series made possible with support from The Rockefeller Foundation.Using patterns of how animal species spread, the world's most wanted terrorist can be tracked down to a town in the tribal region of North West Pakistan it is claimed. By factoring in his need for security, electricity, high ceilings to accommodate his 6ft 4in frame and spare rooms for his bodyguards, the search can be further narrowed to three walled compounds. According to a team led by Thomas Gillespie, at the University of California in Los Angeles, bin Laden's location is "one of the most important political questions of our time". Mathematical models used to explain how animal species spread out say he should be close to where he was last spotted. Their research published in MIT International Review also concluded he should also be in a large town with a similar culture to Afghanistan where he can remain largely anonymous. The most likely candidate is in Parachinar, 12 miles inside Pakistan, which housed many mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Finally after looking at his need for electricity for dialysis, high walls, spare rooms for his entourage, and trees to hide from prying eyes, satellite pictures show just three suitable houses. "We believe that our work involves the first scientific approach to establishing his current location" the research concludes. "The methods are repeatable and can be updated with new information obtained from the US intelligence community." Kim Rossmo of Texas State University, who has worked with the military to find terrorists told USA Today: "The idea of identifying three buildings in a city of half a million especially one in a country the authors have likely never visited is somewhat overconfident."BILOXI, Mississippi (CNN) -- Prisons in Mississippi got coffee makers, pillowcases and dinnerware -- all intended for victims of Hurricane Katrina. People check out the second story of a home sitting on the ground in Biloxi, Mississippi, after Katrina in 2005. The state's Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks took more coffee makers, cleaning supplies and other items. Plastic containers ended up with the Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration. Colleges, volunteer fire departments and other agencies received even more. But the Mississippi hurricane victims who originally were intended to receive the supplies got nothing, a CNN investigation has found. Watch victims tell why they need the items » "It's scary to know that there are supplies that they are harboring and people [are] in need right now as we speak today," said Sharon Hanshaw, director of Coastal Women for Change, a nonprofit group helping storm victims. Last month, CNN revealed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had stored $85 million worth of household items in warehouses for two years. Instead of giving the supplies to victims of the 2005 hurricane, FEMA declared them surplus and gave them all away to federal agencies and 16 states in February. The state of Louisiana -- the most hard-hit by the storm -- had not asked for any of the supplies, prompting outrage in the community after the original CNN report. CNN's investigation showed that Mississippi was one of the 16 states that took the FEMA supplies, but it did not distribute them to Katrina victims. Jim Marler, director of Mississippi's surplus agency, failed to return repeated phone calls over several months to explain what happened. Agency spokeswoman Kym Wiggins said, "There may be a need, but we were not notified that there was a great need for this particular property." That doesn't sit well with most aid groups in Mississippi. "You would have to be living under a rock not to know there is still a need," said Cass Woods, the project coordinator of Coastal Women for Change. Wiggins said that nonprofit organizations must meet federal guidelines and register with the state and that no such groups helping the needy or homeless were registered with Mississippi's surplus agency. "There is no specific designation outside of a disaster period that says we have to have sustained properties going to the disaster area," Wiggins said. CNN interviewed the leaders of eight nonprofits helping Katrina victims at a Biloxi, Mississippi, church used as a staging area for community groups. All said they had no idea these items were available, and most had no idea the surplus agency existed. "We work so hard to help people in our community when the government is holding back stuff that we can use to give people," said Glenda Perryman, director of United Hearts Community Action Agency. Roberta Avila, director of the Mississippi Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force, said, "It's needed even more now than right after the storm." Records show Mississippi's surplus agency received household supplies, including dinnerware sets, towels, shirts, pants, shoes and cleaning items. Those are the kind of household items that Howard and Gloria Griffith said they could have used since the storm and still need. The Griffiths said they spent every penny to rebuild their home. But they can't afford to finish it, so they're still living in a FEMA trailer on their property in Biloxi with their teenage son. "I've never seen none of it," said Gloria Griffith after CNN showed her photos of some of the supplies that FEMA had kept in storage. FEMA said it was costing more than $1 million a year to store the supplies, but officials have not been able to answer why the agency didn't get the supplies to Katrina victims. Both FEMA and the General Services Administration said the items originally were purchased or donated for victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In the wake of the CNN investigation, a FEMA official said the agency was launching an internal probe into the storage of the household supplies. Bill Stallworth, executive director of the Hope Coordination Center in Biloxi that helps rehouse Katrina victims, said he's astounded that the supplies were given away. Stallworth and other community leaders said if they had known the FEMA items were available, they would have begged for them. "And when I hear people stand up and just beat their chest and say we've got everything under control, that's when I just want to slap them upside the head and say, 'Get a grip, get a life,' " said Stallworth, who is also a Biloxi city councilman. If you have a story tip, e-mail SIU.TIPS@CNN.com All About Hurricane Katrina • Mississippi • FEMAAnyone expecting the revolution will surely have walked into Liverpool’s gleaming Convention Centre and wondered where it was. The Labour party conference might now be Jeremy Corbyn’s domain, but it was all surprisingly familiar: a great wall of men in dark suits, fringe meetings with titles like “What’s ahead for consumers in a digital future?” – and, by way of a cruel pantomime, the disoriented sons and daughters of the Blair-Brown years, still wondering how to respond to what has happened – and, on the evidence I glimpsed, not getting much further than mouthing such tired tropes as the need for “an over-arching narrative”. In glaring contrast, the most fulfilling and enjoyable event in Liverpool was The World Transformed, the five-day “festival of politics, art and culture” put on across town by Momentum. Here, most of the sessions – spread around a church-turned-arts centre, which felt as homemade and human as the official conference was cold and alienating – were designed to allow as much participation as possible, and thereby spark the maximal level of debate. You could tell something exciting was afoot by the hubbub that extended from the tiny reception area out into the street, and beyond. I spent a day there, contributing to an invigoratingly non-doctrinaire conversation about the politics of Englishness – and then watching a two-hour session that spoke volumes about one of left politics’ emerging fault lines. This debate was titled “Building a progressive majority”. On one side sat two people close to the Corbyn project: the veteran Labour leftie and Momentum founder Jon Lansman, and Rhea Wolfson, a Scottish Momentum activist recently elected to Labour’s national executive. On the other were the chair of the left pressure group Compass, Neal Lawson, and the Green party’s co-leader, Caroline Lucas. Around 200 people participated: as the conversation went on, it became both more impassioned, and increasingly fascinating. Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘If you want a sense of a remodelled Labour party, think of Jonathan Reynolds happily in alliance with Clive Lewis [pictured].’ Photograph: Jon Super/EPA Lansman is a fantastically capable organiser, with an instinctive understanding of many of the tensions and complications of Corbyn and his allies’ position, and an honest sense of Momentum as “a work in progress”. But he is also someone apparently too reluctant to move away from the verities of the last century. The Green party, he suggested, might be a laudably progressive setup, but it might be best off simply merging into Labour, like the Co-operative party did back in 1927. Proportional representation, he reckoned, was much less of an issue now the Labour party was on the road to internal democracy – and, in any case, remained a dangerous idea, which supposedly gifted small parties with too much influence and would adversely affect the left’s chances of acquiring power. Wolfson parried points about Scotland with formulaic jibes against the SNP (“Nationalists!” shout far too many Labour people, as if that will settle the matter), full of the idea that sooner or later the straying Scottish millions would come back to their natural political home. It made for an odd spectacle: people from the supposed radical left, with instincts that were often disappointingly conservative. A lot of the audience had a rather different take. Some said their affinity with Labour was complemented by occasions when they had voted for other parties. They liked Caroline Lucas, a lot. They also liked the idea of, as one speaker put it, “negotiating the future” via a revolutionised voting system, rather than imposing it with the support of a small minority of the electorate. These were not the hardliners and ideological desperadoes that some people might imagine: their politics felt open, self-critical and realistic about the huge tasks it faces. They may not yet have a clear idea of how a new left politics might decisively cohere – but no one (not even gobby newspaper columnists) does, as yet. The point is to at least begin with a sense of how it might start to mesh, and the breadth of people who will have to be involved. Corbyn urges Labour MPs to end 'trench warfare' and back socialist vision for UK Read more There are deep and overlooked differences between these people and some of the Labour voices currently shouting the loudest. And, as events in Liverpool ground on, an obvious truth began to rise to the surface. On both the left and right of the party, the two strands most embroiled in the party’s current faction-fighting (and, to be blunt, enjoying every minute) will have the least to do with what eventually emerges from the mess. What we might think of as the hard right and hard left might think of themselves as being light years apart, and locked into an epochal battle for control. But they are both creatures of the 20th century, equally convinced that Labour alone has the answers, that arcane debates about party committees and conference resolutions represent a worthwhile use of human effort, and that absolutely everything always centres on the question of whether Corbyn and his allies should stay, or go. One side wants expulsions; the other deselections. On the left, some people seem nostalgic for the 1970s; on the right, eyes mist over at the mention of the 1990s. Neither tendency, it seems to me, will have much to do with the English left’s long-term future. The two strands embroiled in the fighting will have the least to do with what emerges from the mess Meanwhile, a tantalising sense of something different is starting to emerge, not just among what one Momentum activist tentatively described as “a new, modernised left”, but also in some more surprising places. Over the next few months, pay attention to Jonathan Reynolds, the Greater Manchester MP – tipped for a return to Corbyn’s shadow cabinet – and representative of Labour’s supposed “centre”, who enthusiastically makes the case not just for changing the voting system and calling time on Labour’s monopolisation of left politics, but a universal basic income (interests he shares, incidentally, with the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell). To get a sense of a remodelled Labour party that might eventually emerge from all this turbulence, think of Reynolds happily in alliance with, say, Clive Lewis, the Corbyn loyalist whose travails on Trident pointed to a politics grounded not just in a quest for a radically different Labour politics, but also a smart sense of priorities. But picture also an open, porous, thriving movement, substantially rooted in a new Labour party, but also present far beyond it. This is not about 2020, or an election that Corbyn says – for internal tactical reasons, presumably – might happen earlier than that. Politicians have to talk about single electoral cycles; journalists and commentators too often seem unable to conceive of things in any other terms. But anyone with any grasp of Labour’s predicament well knows that reinventing its politics will be a much more onerous business, spread over a longer time frame. The hoary old Gramsci quote about pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will just about fits the essential story. This remains a deep crisis, too often worsened by the politics of the past, on both left and right. But there are also tantalising glimpses of the future, and plenty of reasons to keep faith.Industrial action would be first day-long strike in 30 years if it goes ahead, following breakdown in talks with management Financial Times journalists have voted in favour of a 24-hour strike over proposed changes to the newspaper’s pension policy, which would be the first strike in 30 years if it goes ahead. FT members of the National Union of Journalists have already voted overwhelmingly in favour of taking some form of industrial action over plans to scrap the final salary pension scheme. They have now voted to call for a 24-hour strike following a breakdown in talks with the newspaper’s management. The acrimonious battle, which the NUJ has branded a £4m “pension robbery”, follows Japanese group Nikkei’s £844m takeover of FT Group last year. Financial Times editor seeks to reassure over Nikkei sale Read more “In light of the deadlock in the negotiations, we support the NUJ stance of taking strike action in defence of our common aim that the FT must honour its commitment to fair and equivalent terms and conditions for all after the Nikkei takeover,” the FT’s NUJ members said in a motion passed following a meeting on Monday. “We understand that does not rule out further talks or Acas involvement on the basis that there is room for an improved deal.” The FT’s NUJ members voted “overwhelmingly” in support of a proposal to call a 24-hour strike with specifics, including the date, to be set later this week. “Chapel and pensions reps will continue to be open to meaningful talks aimed at resolving the outstanding issues for pension scheme members,” the FT’s NUJ chapel said. A spokeswoman for the FT said that the proposal on the table “reaches the right and fair balance for the FT and all of our employees”. She said: “The new FT defined contribution pension plan is among the best offered anywhere. It is as good and in some cases better than the previous plan, used by the vast majority of employees.” She added: “For the approximately 180 FT Group employees impacted by the change, in addition to maintaining all of the pension benefits they accrued in the previous plan, we are offering £13m in dedicated funding to help manage and reduce the impact on future benefits.” The FT NUJ chapel said that the company deal is not fair and is “grossly misleading”. It said: “FT claims that they have offered £13m in concessions to final pay [defined benefit] members is grossly misleading,. Only £4m of this is an addition to the original low offer and aimed at pension accruals; much of the money on offer – including funds won to pay for financial advice for all staff – may not be taken up.” Earlier this month a delegation from the FT NUJ chapel travelled to Tokyo to meet Nikkei management over the pensions issue.“Veronica, Heather Chandler is looking for you.” We’re getting the first look at Paramount Network’s Heathers series, based on the 1988 cult classic film. The new iteration of Heathers is a pitch-black comedy anthology set in the present day, as our heroine Veronica Sawyer (Grace Victoria Cox) deals with a very different but equally vicious group of Heathers. Also starring are James Scully as JD, Melanie Field as Heather Chandler, Brendan Scannell as Heather Duke, and Jasmine Mathews as Heather McNamara. Original Heathers cast member Shannen Doherty will guest star as a pivotal, unnamed character in the series. The teaser also reveals a callback to one of the film’s classic lines — “F–k me gently with a chainsaw”. But this is a very different trio taking over Westerburg High. Heathers premieres on Paramount Network in 2018. Have a look below.White Sox Ready to Welcome Back Garcia and Lindstrom by Joshua McKenzie After Friday night’s 3-for-3 game against the Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu has moved his stats up to where he is in rare triple crown territory. By the way, this is his first season at the MLB level. Abreu’s numbers are:.310 batting average, 31 home runs and 84 RBIs in 95 games played this season. Also Abreu is currently on a 21-game hitting streak. Right now, Abreu leads the AL in home runs and RBIs, holding a two-home run lead over Nelson Cruz (29) and three RBI lead over Miguel Cabrera in RBIs who has 81 and is the last player to achieve the triple crown. What is going to be the toughest part is the batting average lead, with Abreu’s BA ranking ninth in the AL, 29 points behind Jose Altuve who is batting.339 on the season for the Houston Astros. So it will be tough for Abreu to pass eight other players, but it will be fun to watch just how close the White Sox rookie can reach that milestone of a triple crown in his very first season in MLB. Thoughts? How close can Abreu reach that achievement? In other White Sox news: • GM Rick Hahn wanted to make a deal at the non-waiver trade deadline writes the official White Sox site. • Here is what the Chicago Sun-Times wrote about the 10-8 win Friday night. • Pitching coach Don Cooper was back in the dugout after missing 11 games with vertigo writes the Chicago Tribune. • Jose Abreu moved his hitting streak to 21 games and ESPN Chicago wrote about it. • The CSN Chicago site also wrote an article on how Hahn was disappointed at the trade deadline.SALT LAKE CITY — Trevor Chapman estimates he was 45 minutes from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro when he nearly passed out. ‪The Draper father of five was suffering from apparent pulmonary and cerebral edema, which is excess fluid in the brain and lungs, and can be fatal. Weak and barely able to move, Chapman knew he was close to the top and didn't want to fall short, especially if he had to leave his 10-year-old son, Jace, behind. “My thought was I’m going to keep it in. Whatever I’m feeling is a temporary illness,” Chapman said, surrounded by his wife and children at Salt Lake International Airport, who greeted him and Jace there with a warm embrace Wednesday afternoon. The two, despite the adversity, championed the famous mountain. Their faces were chapped and sunburned from the fierce conditions, but they grinned as they recalled the trip, including the tense moment on the day they planned to reach the summit. The trip itself is a yearly father and son venture to celebrate Jace’s birthday. When Jace turned 6, they traveled to the Andes. When he turned 9 last year, they went to Mont Blanc in the Alps. This time, they planned to climb one of the seven summits, a nickname for the tallest mountains on each continent. When they reached Tanzania, the locals affectionately dubbed Jace “Simba,” which is Swahili for lion. At 10, he’s one of the youngest to climb the mountain. The youngest was 7 years old. Climbing around 10 to 15 miles per day, they slowly made their way to the top faster than most groups. However, four days into the trek, Chapman began to feel odd. The group went to bed earlier than usual that night because they planned to wake up at midnight and continue toward the summit in the morning. When Chapman opened his eyes on the fifth day, he knew something was seriously wrong. As the other group members geared up for the day, he felt powerless. “Something just kept — I just couldn’t keep up,” he said. He had come so far and knew he was close to the top, and in that moment his biggest concern wasn’t reaching the summit. The
report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE to stop him from attacking Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE during a speech in Flint, Mich., on Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT “Hillary failed on the economy, just like she’s failed on foreign policy. Everything she touched didn’t work out — nothing. Now Hillary Clinton—” Trump said in a church, before he was interrupted. “Mr. Trump, I invited you here to thank us … not to give a political speech,” the pastor said as she walked up to Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. “Oh, oh, oh, OK,” Trump said. Trump was in Flint to tour the city, which has been plagued by lead-contaminated drinking water since Gov. Rick Snyder switched the city's water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River in 2014 as a cost-cutting measure. Watch the exchange in the video above.SAN MATEO, CA, May 26, 2016 – Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) today announced that PlayStation®4 (PS4™) has cumulatively sold through more than 40 million units1 to consumers worldwide as of May 22, 2016, continuing to demonstrate the fastest-selling console in PlayStation® history. By offering users a vast array of exciting software titles from 3rd party developers and publishers as well as from SIE Worldwide Studios (SIE WWS), PS4 software sales also remain strong, with more than 270.9 million copies2 sold in retail stores globally and through digital downloads on PlayStation®Store as of May 22, 2016. “We are truly grateful for the enormous support from our fans and partners across the globe, which helped us achieve this significant milestone in such a short span of time,” said Andrew House, President and Global CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. “We will strive to deliver even more exciting gaming experiences to our users, further driving the momentum and accelerating the expansion of the PS4 platform and its business this fiscal year by offering an unparalleled line-up of games, bringing our virtual reality system, PlayStation VR, to market and providing ground-breaking features and network services.” On the software front, much anticipated title, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (SIE WWS), was released on May 10, recording remarkable global sales of over 2.7 million units in just one week. PS4 software portfolio will continue to expand with highly anticipated games including FINAL FANTASY XV (SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD), Nioh (KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD.), Ryu ga Gotoku 6 (SEGA Games Co., Ltd.), Gran Turismo SPORT, Gravity Rush 2, and The Last Guardian (SIE WWS). The independent development community will also continue to deliver a variety of innovative new titles for PS4 including DOWNWELL (Devolver Digital), Jotun (Thunder Lotus Games) and Push Me Pull You (House House Games). 3 SIE will continue to expand the world of PS4 to deliver entertainment experiences that are only possible on PlayStation. The PS4 system is currently available in 124 countries and regions4 worldwide. ###Please enable Javascript to watch this video CARMEL, Ind. – Hundreds of thousands of students and employees learned this morning that ITT Technical Institutes has canceled all classes and is closing permanently. FOX59 first reported last week that the college chain was stopping new student enrollment after the federal government banned the school from accepting any more students with federal aid. The serious federal action was a huge blow for the school since ITT Tech makes most of its money from that aid. Some say the school may not survive the ban. ITT Educational Services, Inc. issued the following news release this morning announcing the permanent closure. "It is with profound regret that we must report that ITT Educational Services, Inc. will discontinue academic operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes permanently after approximately 50 years of continuous service. With what we believe is a complete disregard by the U.S. Department of Education for due process to the company, hundreds of thousands of current students and alumni and more than 8,000 employees will be negatively affected. The actions of and sanctions from the U.S. Department of Education have forced us to cease operations of the ITT Technical Institutes, and we will not be offering our September quarter. We reached this decision only after having exhausted the exploration of alternatives, including transfer of the schools to a non-profit or public institution. Effective today, the company has eliminated the positions of the overwhelming majority of our more than 8,000 employees. Our focus and priority with our remaining staff is on helping the tens of thousands of unexpectedly displaced students with their records and future educational options. This action of our federal regulator to increase our surety requirement to 40 percent of our Title IV federal funding and place our schools under "Heightened Cash Monitoring Level 2," forced us to conclude that we can no longer continue to operate our ITT Tech campuses and provide our students with the quality education they expect and deserve. For more than half a century, ITT Tech has helped hundreds of thousands of non-traditional and underserved students improve their lives through career-focused technical education. Thousands of employers have relied on our institutions for skilled workers in high-demand fields. We have been a mainstay in more than 130 communities that we served nationwide, as well as an engine of economic activity and a positive innovator in the higher-education sector. This federal action will also disrupt the lives of thousands of hardworking ITT Tech employees and their families. More than 8,000 ITT Tech employees are now without a job – employees who exhibited the utmost dedication in serving our students. We have always carefully managed expenses to align with our enrollments. We had no intention prior to the receipt of the most recent sanctions of closing down despite the challenging regulatory environment that now threatens all proprietary higher education. We have also always worked tirelessly to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, and to uphold our ethic of continuous improvement. When we have received inquiries from regulators, we have always been responsive and cooperative. Despite our ongoing service to this nation's employers, local communities and underserved students, these federal actions will result in the closure of the ITT Technical Institutes without any opportunity to pursue our right to due process. These unwarranted actions, taken without proving a single allegation, are a "lawless execution," as noted by a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal. We were not provided with a hearing or an appeal. Alternatives that we strongly believe would have better served students, employees, and taxpayers were rejected. The damage done to our students and employees, as well as to our shareholders and the American taxpayers, is irrevocable. We believe the government's action was inappropriate and unconstitutional, however, with the ITT Technical Institutes ceasing operations, it will now likely rest on other parties to understand these reprehensible actions and to take action to attempt to prevent this from happening again." Additionally, a FOX59 viewer sent us the letter she received from ITT Tech regarding information about the future. Important Information for You Going Forward Please be assured that we are committed to keeping you informed about the impact on you of the closure of your school. To that end, below is some key information to answer, what we imagine are, some of your immediate questions: How do I see my grades? You may access your academic record via the Student Portal by clicking this link. Please use your student email and network password to login. We expect to have all grades for the June 2016 quarter updated by Friday, September 9th. How do I obtain a copy of my official transcript? You may request a copy of your official transcript via the Student Portal by clicking this link. Please use your student email and network password to login. Graduates may also request an official transcript via the Alumni website by clicking this link. Will my credits transfer to another institution? As always, the decision to accept transfer credits is up to the receiving institution. You may view a list of other schools that have entered into articulation agreements with the ITT Technical Institutes at www.itt-tech.edu/articulation. Additionally, we have compiled a list of schools in your area that offer similar programs of study, as well as some institutions offering similar programs online, which you may want to contact. See the following question for a list of schools. Are there any schools in my area with similar programs of study? Click here to download a list of schools in your area with programs of study similar to those offered by your school, as well as some institutions offering similar programs online. When is the last day my campus will be open? While your campus will be closing immediately at the end of the June quarter, we will continue to provide resources to assist you in obtaining your transcript and other records. Please check the Student Portal by clicking this link for updated information from us about the issues covered in this notice and other important matters. In the near term, you may also email StudentQuestions@itt-tech.edu with questions. In the future, after the Student Portal is no longer accessible, how do I obtain a copy of my records? After your campus has closed and the Student Portal is no longer accessible, you will be able to obtain your records and other key contact information at www.itt-tech.edu. This site will house links to request your transcript, education verification, and other information. Will I have to repay my student loans? It may be possible for you to discharge your federal student loans and not have to repay them under certain circumstances. For more information about this, please click here. For additional information on student financial aid and other options available, please also see information provided by the U.S. Department of Education available by clicking here and here. For additional information on GI Bill benefits, please contact the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Education Call Center at 1-888-442-4551 or visit the GI Bill website by clicking here. Please know we are extremely disappointed to have to discontinue our operations after more than 50 years of serving students. We want to thank all of the men and women who have diligently served you throughout your studies at ITT Technical Institute. We, and they, apologize for this unexpected disruption to your education and we sincerely wish you the best as you move forward.DC Brau co-founder Brandon Skall, seated, with brewer Christopher Graham on March 14 during a tour of DC Brau Brewing Co. and a sneak peek of its new protest beer "Smells Like Freedom." (Aaron C. Davis/The Washington Post) First, a disclaimer: There is no marijuana in the beer. That’s what they said. Cannabis and hops are just a lot alike. It only smells like pot. And it might taste a little like it, too. So if that’s what you like — a dank, resinous pint — or if you’re willing at least to try it, this could be your season at the District’s DC Brau Brewing Co. Starting Tuesday — St. Patrick’s Day — the brewery began tapping green-decorated kegs of its new seasonal India pale ale. The beer is dubbed “Smells Like Freedom,” in what must be one of the most unusual protests in the history of the District’s protracted fight for full voting rights. The aromatic brew is the latest in a series of imaginative objections since House Republicans attempted to block a voter-approved ballot measure, Initiative 71, to legalize marijuana for recreational use in the capital. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) pressed forward with implementing the ballot measure last month over threats of jail time by congressional Republicans. Possession, sharing and home cultivation of marijuana is now legal in the District. But Congress has blocked legal sales or purchases of pot. The conflict has spurred sit-ins, marches and, as late as Tuesday, a band of pro-marijuana advocates dressed up in Colonial garb who barged into the Capitol Hill office of House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), a leading opponent of legalization in the District. The protesters offered a glass peace pipe of sorts. Chaffetz’s staffers declined. Brewing a marijuana protest beer, however, was far less spontaneous. It’s been fermenting since last fall, said Brandon Skall, chief executive and co-founder of DC Brau. The company and Longmont, Colo.-based Oskar Blues Brewery, both of which can their beer rather than bottling it, had for more than a year been looking for a reason to team up on a brewing project. In e-mails last fall, Skall laid out the case for doing a beer together around D.C.’s legalization effort and the continued plight of the nearly 660,000 D.C. residents who have almost no voting rights in Congress. Oskar executives were sold, and brewers there took to their lab, Skall said. They found three experimental hops that, when combined, produced a distinctly marijuana-like aroma. “The experimental hops were definitely unique,” said DC Brau brewer Christopher Graham. “Some were over the top with melon. Some had a lot of berry notes. But all had that undertone of piney, resinous, dank quality that someone would expect from a nugget” of marijuana, he said. For Skall, the issue is more about the tax bill he said he pays every year to the District while feeling like a second-class citizen. “I’ll tell you straight up, I don’t smoke pot,” Skall said, “but I believe 100 percent in people’s freedom to do so. I think that if we didn’t have people standing for the end of prohibition... this business would not be here today.” But at its root, he said, the problem is that the District could only partially legalize marijuana, instead of fully like Colorado, which designated much of the revenue from taxes on pot to go to schools. “Something needs to change with D.C. — it’s ridiculous,” Skall said. “I live here. I’m about to have a second child here. We’re sending our children to school in Washington, D.C. — there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to benefit the same way they do in Colorado. “You walk into a D.C. public school, you see empty bookshelves, you seen underfunding, you see teachers going out and spending their [own] money to buy kids supplies. We should be able to benefit the same way that other states do.” The unveiling of the beer was scheduled for Tuesday night at Meridian Pint in the District’s Columbia Heights neighborhood, where Initiative 71 supporters gathered on election night last year to celebrate the legalization vote.New Delhi: India has not made a proposal for introduction of Hindi as an official language of the United Nations as it would cost the government over Rs 82 crore annually even by a conservative estimate. The information was given by the External Affairs Ministry in reply to a Right to Information plea filed by a 12-year old girl, Aishwarya Parashar, of Lucknow who sought to know that why a formal proposal to make Hindi as an official language of the UN has not been given. "The introduction of Hindi as one of the official languages of the UN has several financial and procedural implications, which require to be met before a formal proposal can be tabled in the UN," Central Public Information Officer of MEA, S Gopalakrishnan said in his reply. He said India, a proposing country, would need to provide sufficient financial resources to the UN to cover the additional expenditure on interpretation, translation, printing and duplication of documents and related infrastructural costs. "This according to conservative estimates, could cost in excess of USD 14 million (app Rs 82.6 crore) per year. This is based on the decision of the UN General Assembly in 1973 to include Arabic as a working and official language of General Assembly and adding an inflation component of 2-3 per cent per annum on a compounded basis. "The actual cost is likely to be considerably higher since infrastructual changes would also need to be made in all conference halls to provide for an additional interpreter`s booth," he said. The MEA said it is not simply a question of expenditure as UN General Assembly would need to adopt a resolution supported by a majority of the 192 UN member States. "As adding another official language entails a significant increase in the budget of the UN (personnel, equipment, and other recurring costs), Member States have been generally reluctant to support proposals entailing additional financial burden," he said. He said in 1973, when General Assembly approved the inclusion of Arabic among the official and working languages of the General Assembly, it did so recognising that Arabic was the language of 19 members of the United Nations. "It was also the working language of specialised agencies such as UNESCO, FAO, WHO and the IOL. It was the official and working language of the OAU," he said. The MEA official said notwithstanding the fact that Hindi is spoken in many countries of the world, its recognition as an official language of other countries as well as official language in some of the specialised agencies and regional/sub-regional groupings is a factor which is to be considered for recognition in the UN. "No special weightage is given by the UN for population, size of the country of its Gross Domestic Product. The basic principle of the UN is the sovereign equality of all nations, whether big or small," he said. The official said because of these reasons, Japan and Germany, who are the second and third largest contributors of the regular budget of the UN and who also have a strong policy and preference for using their own language, have not pressed for inclusion of their respective languages in the list of official languages of the UN. The world body has six official languages--English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic--which are also the working languages in the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.While it was a record year for global warming, 2014 was also a banner year for the technologies that could help mitigate climate change. "Spectacular" growth in the global renewable energy sector helped stave off increased greenhouse gas emissions in 2014, according to the 10th annual Renewables 2015 Global Status Report, released Thursday by the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21). In fact, the report states, the rise of solar, wind, and other renewable technologies has helped effect a "landmark decoupling" of economic growth and carbon emissions—as the International Energy Agency indicated earlier this year. For the first time in four decades, REN21 explains, the world economy grew in 2014 without a parallel rise in CO2 emissions. We Interrupt This Article with an Urgent Message! Common Dreams is a not-for-profit news service. All of our content is free to you - no subscriptions; no ads. We are funded by donations from our readers. Our critical Mid-Year fundraiser is going very slowly - only 779 readers have contributed so far. We must meet our goal before we can end this fundraising campaign and get back to focusing on what we do best. If you support Common Dreams and you want us to survive, we need you now. Please make a tax-deductible gift to our Mid-Year Fundraiser now! Still, the planet keeps getting hotter and scientists warn that if global emissions continue at their current levels, the world will miss its target of keeping warming below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced just this week that last month was the hottest May in modern history. "Renewable energy and improved energy efficiency are key to limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius and avoiding dangerous climate change," said REN21 chair Arthouros Zervos, who released the new report at the Vienna Energy Forum. SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Help Keep Common Dreams Alive Our progressive news model only survives if those informed and inspired by this work support our efforts Providing further evidence that the renewables revolution is well underway, the status report from REN21 shows leaps in renewable energy capacity and investment—renewables now account for close to 60 percent of net additions to the world's power capacity, while global new investment in such technologies jumped 17 percent from 2013 to 2014. What's more, as Peter Bosshard of International Rivers noted in an op-ed published Friday at Common Dreams, wind and solar power capacity is growing at a much faster pace than that of large hydropower projects (whose environmental footprint is larger). In early 2015, 164 countries had renewable energy targets and 145 had policies to support the sector. These include many in the developing world that had no such targets a decade ago. However, the renewable sector's growth "could be even greater if the more than $550 billion in annual subsidies for fossil fuel and nuclear energy were removed," REN21 said in a statement, noting that such subsidies "perpetuate artificially low energy prices for those sources, encouraging waste and impeding competition from renewables." Elimination of fossil fuel subsidies would "create a level playing field," said REN21 executive secretary Christine Lins, which in turn would "strengthen the development and use of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies." This week's REN21 report comes on the heels of a study from Stanford University researchers, released earlier this month, which provided a road map for all 50 United States to transition to clean, renewable energy sources. According to Phys.org, "The 50 individual state plans call for aggressive changes to both infrastructure and the ways we currently consume energy, but indicate that the conversion is technically and economically possible through the wide-scale implementation of existing technologies." "Our plans are to change the energy infrastructure of each and every state in the United States, and, in fact, ultimately, every country of the world, to infrastructures run entirely on wind, water and solar power for all purpose," Stanford's Mark Jacobson said on Democracy Now! in early June. Watch the full interview with Jacobson below:Today, the Russian Ministry of Defense's official Twitter account posted an image it claimed showed "irrefutable" evidence of US collusion with the Islamic State. The only problem? The image is actually a screenshot from a mobile game. That's right: it seems Russia's MoD tried to pass off an iPhone game image as proof of cooperation between the United States and an insurgent organization it is currently fighting against. The ruse was first pointed out by researcher and academic Eliot Higgins, who wrote up his findings on the online mythbusting website Bellingcat. So here's the English version of the caption @mod_russia put on a video game screenshot "ISIS automobile convoy leaves Abu Kamal for Syrian-Iraqi border (November 9th, 2017)" https://t.co/8uv2vbEHeQ pic.twitter.com/Ye7hX5HplH — Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) November 14, 2017 "It's worth noting the Russians have literally and falsely accused the US of using fakes from video games, and now they've actually gone and done it themselves," he said. The photograph in question was later deleted, although not before it was shared widely and initially reported on as fact by other Russian news sites, such as Sputnik. Amazingly, this isn't the first time that Russian sources have used video games in an apparent attempt at spreading misinformation. Last month, it was reported that Russian-linked actors had utilized Pokemon Go to spread disinformation in the run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election.Boom-or-bust works in dusty oil towns. Not so much in the defensive backfield. So that’s why Will Davis, the Dolphins’ second-year cornerback, is sensitive to the label — even if he concedes that there is a kernel of truth to it. “When you look at [the criticism] and [if] it’s right, it is right,” Davis said recently. “I know one thing: Coaches want me to be more consistent. And that was one thing coming into camp, I can’t give up anything deep in the games. Definitely, it was one thing that I knew I had to work on, being consistent. Can’t just make a great play, then give up a bomb.” So far, so good for Davis. He has been steadier in practice this year and has done enough in the minds of coaches to move past Jamar Taylor for the nickel corner job — at least for the time being. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald The competition remains open, a source said, but Davis is projected to again be the first Miami corner off the bench when the Dolphins host the Cowboys on Saturday night in preseason game No. 3. “That’s one of the most athletic people I’ve ever been around,” safety Louis Delmas said. “He goes up for the ball. He’s very fast, and he’s somewhat physical. He’s doing a tremendous job at working on his craft and trying to get better each and every day. That’s all we can ask for from him.” Davis, a third-round pick in the 2013 draft, will face his tallest task of the preseason Saturday. Three-time Pro Bowler Tony Romo is expected to start at quarterback for the Cowboys. And he’ll be looking for his dynamic receiver, Dez Bryant — Davis’ potential assignment. While Cortland Finnegan will start alongside Brent Grimes at cornerback, Finnegan will likely cover the slot when the Dolphins go to their sub package. That means Davis will be responsible for the boundary, where the big, fast and physical Bryant makes his living. “When I come in, I know it’s another opportunity to make another play,” Davis said. “I get excited, especially knowing, [being] young last year, didn’t have no play. I know I’m going to have a lot of opportunities right now and just make the most of them.” Last season was a lost rookie year for Davis, who injured his toe in the preseason and never really caught up. Davis appeared in five games and saw just a few-dozen snaps on defense. When he was in the game, Davis struggled. Quarterbacks completed 80 percent of their passes thrown in Davis’ coverage area last year, good for a passer rating of 111.7. Davis, on his rookie season: “It was hard. I’m not going to lie. It was super tough.” Year 2 has been markedly better. Davis is healthy, and he has benefited from a full offseason in the system. While Davis still occasionally gets beat -- the Dolphins pulled him from the first team Tuesday after he stumbled on a deep route and allowed a long completion -- the breakdowns are less frequent. This preseason, Davis has allowed just three of the 10 passes thrown his way to be completed. Seven of those incompletions were caused by Davis pass-breakups. Because of when they were drafted, Davis and Taylor will always be linked -- and compared -- to one another. The Dolphins took Taylor 39 spots ahead of Davis on the second day of the 2013 draft, and they've been competing for playing time ever since. Observers see Taylor as the more consistent of the two. He's allowed just one completion this preseason. But Davis' risks, for the most part, have resulted in greater rewards. He's essentially had one negative play in the preseason -- a pass interference call in the Buccaneers game that negated a Jason Trusnik interception. And Davis isn't even conceding that mistake. "Bogus PI call," Davis said. "Terrible PI call.... That one I felt like was terrible. I had a chance to guard a double-move and played it solid." He continued: "This year, I've been taking advantage of my opportunities. I don't want nothing caught on me, slants, nothing. I'm trying to get everything down. This year, I'm definitely more disciplined, definitely more confident. It's fun. Definitely being out there with the ones, it's exciting." • Running back Daniel Thomas (hamstring) worked with trainers during part of Thursday's walk-through practice, and did not at all sound confident that he would play Saturday. Thomas, who is fighting to make the roster, has yet to appear in a preseason game. "I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary to have four [running backs on the active roster]," Philbin said. "I don’t want to get pigeonholed to say we’re going to keep four, we’re only going to keep three, or five. I mean, it could be five. It’s just, every year, it’s kind of different." • While Shelley Smith has moved past Dallas Thomas on the depth chart at right guard, both got work with the starters during practice Thursday. • Charles Clay (knee) is expected to play Saturday. Kick returner Marcus Thigpen and kicker Caleb Sturgis both remain limited by injury. Sturgis' replacement, John Potter, hit both of his field goal attempts Thursday.In Ukraine, the US is cutting off its nose to spite its face, as it transforms a regional struggle over “spheres of influence” into a global one. Unless the runaway train is swiftly derailed, the world faces a 21st century standoff between east and west. In 867AD, Æbbe the Younger, Mother Superior of the convent at Coldingham in Scotland cut off her nose and upper lip and urged her fellow nuns to also disfigure themselves. It wasn’t for sacrificial reasons; it was because Viking raiders had landed nearby and the Abbess feared they would rape the community and deprive them of their chastity. By destroying their appearance, Mother Æbbe, correctly, guessed the Nordic marauders would show no interest. She was right - the Vikings were so disgusted that they burned the entire convent to the ground. From this event was born the phrase “cutting off the nose to spite the face.” Although the original circumstances were slightly different, the term is a warning against pursuing revenge in a way that would damage the instigator more than the object of the anger. The USA is doing precisely this in its current attitude to Russia. By “punishing” Russia for resisting Western attempts to “grab” Ukraine, it is laying the foundations for a far more serious estrangement. A feud that began when President Putin stymied the hopes of elements in Washington to wage war with Syria now has the potential to reshape the entire world. You all know the story by now, neocon factions in the State Department took revenge against Putin's perceived stubbornness by ratcheting up tensions in Ukraine, leading to a violent revolution and civil war. The Crimean people voted to rejoin Russia and Washington, in tandem with the EU, imposed sanctions on Moscow. Except they weren’t the kind of sanctions designed to damage Russia’s ability to defend itself. Instead, they were clearly aimed at regime change by targeting close supporters of the Russian President. Subsequently, the short-sighted sanctions led to unprecedented approval ratings for Putin as the Russian people rallied around their leader. In their eyes, an attack on their President was an attack on the nation. What the State Department meddlers didn't countenance is that Russians, with high levels of education, are too savvy to be hoodwinked by playground tactics. Since then, bilateral relations between the White House and the Kremlin have reached their lowest point since the Russian Federation was founded in 1991. This has happened only 4 years after Putin advocated a free trade agreement between the EU and Russia. “A harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok,” as he wrote in Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung at the time. In 48 months we have gone from a prospective giant Western alliance, with Russia at its centre, to a situation where Russia is now ready to possibly join an Eastern alliance led, to all intents and purposes, by China. We know neocons aren’t the brightest lights in the firmament but are they really this stupid? If you didn’t know the personalities involved and were asked to suggest the obvious alignment of the world, you’d probably say that Russia’s place was in the European camp. It shares a Christian faith with the rest of the continent and has always been at least a “slightly” European power - much like the United Kingdom. In truth, Russia has little in common with Asian cultures, aside from geography. Even in the far eastern outpost of Vladivostok (which is on the far side of China), an Italian is far more likely to blend in than a Malaysian. This is not related to appearance - there are many ethnic east-Asians in the region, who regard themselves as thoroughly Russian and, by virtue, European. Indeed there are millions of people east of the Urals who have actually never set foot in what is generally considered to be Europe, but describe themselves as being Europeans. It’s a state of mind but, then again, Europe has always been as much an idea as a place. For years commentators have speculated: “imagine Russia’s resources and military power with Western Europe’s technology and fiscal heft?” It would, of course, be the single most powerful economic and martial bloc in the world. Not only that, but such a rapprochement makes complete sense and has done since 1991. However, it is Washington’s worst nightmare. An EU-Russia alliance and partial union would erode America’s influence in Europe. Hence, to knock it on head, just as it seemed Germany was warming to the notion, the US has managed to drive a massive wedge between Moscow and its natural allies in Europe. Before they clap themselves on the back too loudly, the Americans might want to pause for a second. In pursuing this haphazard course, they’ve managed to send Russia hurtling into China’s warm embrace. Thus, cutting off their nose to spite their face. Instead of allowing a tri-polar world, the US in control of the Americas, China in Asia, and a giant Eurasian alliance as a buffer - Washington has managed to create a much more confrontational bi-polar world. In the blue corner, the USA and a castrated, divided Europe which is being pulled in all kinds of directions and in the red corner, a resurgent China and a Russia that, most likely, would prefer to be in a different corner altogether, or none, This is the way the US State Department wishes the world to be - in a constant state of chaos. Now, instead of a US-EU-Russia detente, they have managed to manufacture a new Cold War for the 21st century with Ukraine as the new Berlin. With Russia alienated by the West and China eager to buy high-end weaponry, a joint military pact seems the likely outcome. Concurrently, the previously zombie-like NATO has awoken like a pensioner who was discovered house music and fancies a last youthful dance. If a Moscow-Beijing military alliance does take shape, such a bloc would dominate the Eurasian landmass, with naval bases all the way from the Baltic, via the Arctic and Pacific, to the South China Sea. A union between Russia's advanced weaponry and China's huge population and industrial muscle would eventually prove a match for NATO, thereby giving the US an excuse to ratchet up military spending. If Europe attempted to follow suit, it would likely deepen its economic malaise. The main point is that the whole notion is such an incredibly wasteful use of finite global resources. The confrontation between Russia and the West is a gift that keeps on giving for China. Just as the self-destruction of the Euro-centric world a century ago allowed the building a new US-centric system, the weakening of the US will probably result in China becoming the world’s leading power. Europe’s last chance to stake its own claim, has evaporated into thin air thanks to a bone-headed, subservient (to Washington) strategy in eastern part of the continent. Europe’s inability to separate the European Union from the archaic NATO has been its undoing. Four years after Putin proposed a Russian-EU alliance from “Lisbon to Vladivostok,” we instead have an embryonic new Cold War. It’s not too late to halt the wagons but time is limited. The next US administration, if it’s sufficiently blessed to be shorn of neocons, must decide which is more important to it: to antagonize Russia in the eastern borderlands, losing its world hegemony in the process, or to find a way of resolving friction with Moscow, thus halting the process of China’s accession to the role of global superpower. The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.Today's video talks about using emacs Tramp mode. Tramp mode allows you to edit remote files using your local emacs. I usually do this over ssh. To edit a file on a machine www.cstuy.org I would first find-file using C-c C-f and then for the file name to open: /ssh:www.cstuy.org:/home/zamansky/sc/testfile this would open the file testfile in the absolute directory /home/zamansky/sc. If my username on the remote machine is different: /ssh:username@www.cstuy.org:/home/zamansky/sc/testfile And I can also work relative to my home directory: /ssh:username@www.cstuy.org:sc/testfile If I just hit enter after the machine name and : - /ssh:username@www.cstuy.org: I end up in a dired buffer on the remote machine. Likewise if I run a shell or eshell in the tramp buffer, it will run the shell on the remote machine. In the video I showed how shell didn't work because locally, I'm configured to use zsh and I don't have zsh installed remotely. Eshell, however, worked fine. Using tramp in this way gives us all of the power of our local emacs configuration to edit a file on a remote machine. You can also use tramp to edit local files as root using sudo: sudo::/tmp/sc/rootfile Note the double colon. Finally, you can do the double-whammy - remote root editing: ssh::www.cstu.org\|sudo:www.cstuy.org:/home/zamansky/sc/rootfile If you use zsh and any of this freezes, just do a search on "zsh tramp" and the top couple of hits will tell you what to add to your configuration files to fix things. Finally, I mentioned in the video that I don't use tramp all that much anymore. That's mostly because I don't do much remote editing anymore. I used it more when I was administering a number of machines at Stuyvesant. I still use it periodically, but I also use sshfs, a Linux tool (which may be available for other operating systems) that allows me to mount a directory tree from a remote machine and use it on my local machine.A jury in the district court in the central district of California ruled unanimously in favor of Tsuburaya Productions on November 20 in the company's legal battle against UM Corporation
by being much more assertive and much more successful in restoring security in places like Basra and Amara in the Shiite south, than many expected. But unless he finds a way to reconcile with the Sunni Arabs, his political future is cloudy. If, in turn, the main problem is that al-Maliki is pursuing a vendetta with elements of the Sunni Arab nationalist leadership, and they are lashing back out at him, then a return to having US troops patrol Baghdad would not in fact resolve the problem. They might be able to make big bombings harder. But these bombings have been going on since 2003, and many big sanguinary explosions were set off under the nose of US troops all through those 6 years. Especially if this is a political struggle, a short-term US military would not be the right solution. The solution is for the Obama administration to play hard ball with al-Maliki in getting him to pursue national reconciliation. End/ (Not Continued)Lately, I tried to understand why modern cloud computing brought us to the idea (and growing adoption) of “Serverless”. In this article, I will illustrate the result of a small research I did about the history of Cloud computing from the age of bare metal to serverless. “You have to know the past to understand the present.” ― Carl Sagan At the end of this article, I will also illustrate a definition of Serverless and what are its main characteristics. The invention of the web This story starts with Sir Tim Berners Lee, the guy who officially invented the World Wide Web in 1989. At the beginning, the web was just a simple publishing platform for researchers to share information and publish papers. The first website was actually the CERN website, published in 1991. The web quickly evolved and grew up out of the research space, to become one of the most mainstream and ubiquitous products of the last decades. The bare metal age During the first years of the web, publishing a website wasn’t very easy. We are talking about a period that goes roughly from 1991 to 1995. At that time you literally had to buy your server machine, configure it, connect it to a stable electricity line and to an internet connection and then run a web server on it. You had to take care of every single aspect of making that server always available. Can you imagine the effort required when you needed to scale your service and adopt many servers? The invention of web hosting During 1995, the idea of the web hosting was popularised by platforms like GeoCities. Web hosting allowed everybody to publish web pages directly on shared servers at a very low cost (sometimes even for free), removing from the publisher all the struggle and the costs needed with the bare metal approach. Although web hosting was cheap and easy, most of the time it was very limited and it was possible to publish only static files (HTML, images, etc.) through FTP. Later on, web hosting improved supporting dynamic languages like Perl and PHP and databases like MySQL. Grid computing Around 1997, thanks to the astonishing work of the University of Chicago and the Argonne National Laboratory, that together founded the Globus Alliance, the idea of Grid computing was formalized. In a paper titled “Globus: A Metacomputing Infrastructure Toolkit” by Ian Foster (in the picture) and Carl Kesselman, a new idea of computing, defined metacomputing, was formalized and finally made famous: Metacomputing: a networked virtual supercomputer, constructed dynamically from geographically distributed resources linked by high-speed networks. Metacomputing is the foundation for Grid Computing which is generally recognized as the collection of computer resources from multiple locations to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files and tasks. Grid computing was important for the history of the cloud because it shifted the perception on the power of distributed computing. It was the demonstration that the world didn’t need a single supercomputer in order to solve complex problems, because a well-knitted network of ordinary computers can be orchestrated to achieve complex goals or to sustain sophisticated services. Software as a Service (SaaS) In 1999 the web was starting to evolve into something more complex, Amazon.com was already a thing and it was already possible to build complex interactions with the users through the browser. Marc Benioff of Salesforce was one of the first public figures to strongly state the desktop software wasn’t needed anymore and it could have been replaced by software written to work directly on the web through a web browser. This principle, lead in the following years to the definition of Software as a Service (SaaS) and it was probably the reason why the web started to play a bigger role, not only as a publishing platform but as a complete runtime to execute all sorts of applications and games. Server virtualization In 2001, VMWare releases ESXi and server virtualization becomes a thing. With server virtualization, it’s possible to divide one physical server into multiple isolated virtual environments. This way the provider can allocate a number of physical machines in advance in their server farms to create a virtual infrastructure in which a new virtual machine (with variable characteristics) can be initialized and provided as a service in a matter of minutes. This approach is way more convenient and flexible than the bare metal one. Interesting thing is that virtualization was a thing way back in the history of computing. For example, CP-40 was a research project back in 1964 that ran on the 360. IBM released a product from that called VM in 1972. This eventually turned into z/VM, which has a long line of products before it. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) From 2002 and 2006 Amazon Web Services, a company spawn up by the opportunity that Amazon saw with renting part of their massive compute power, undergo 3 different “official launch” events. Only after the 3rd launch, AWS found the right proposition to developers and started to build up significant traction. This successful launch defined the term Infrastructure as a Service. At the time AWS offer constituted by EC2 (Virtual Machine service), S3 (Scalable storage service) and SQS (message queuing system). In the years to come, AWS and the competing IaaS platforms would have been associated with the idea of “Cloud Computing”. Platform as a Service (PaaS) Heroku was developed by James Lindenbaum, Adam Wiggins (in the picture) and Orion Henry in 2009. Heroku was originally born as an attempt to create an online editor for Ruby on Rails, but it quickly found it’s product-market fit as a complete platform to deploy and scale Ruby web applications. Support later increasingly extended to all the main languages and frameworks in the market. Heroku defined the idea of Platform as a Service (PaaS) and it was so successful that Salesforce acquired the company and hired Yukihiro Matsumoto, the inventor of Ruby, as Chief Architect a few years later. Database as a service Firebase evolved from Envolve, a prior startup founded by James Tamplin (in the picture) and Andrew Lee in 2011. The main idea of Firebase was to provide a real-time database as a service through a dedicated SDK that could be easily integrated with websites and mobile applications. This was one of the first successful instances where a database could have been used with a pay-per-use model. Firebase was so successful that a few years later it was acquired by Google and evolved again into a complete platform for supporting the development of mobile apps. Little curiosity: for some reason nobody (as far as I am aware) tried to come up with a short name such as DBaaS or RTDBaaS! Backend as a service (BaaS) Parse was founded in 2011 by Tikhon Bernstam, Ilya Sukhar (in the picture), James Yu, and Kevin Lacker. The firm produced a series of back-end tools for mobile developers to store data in the cloud, manage identity log-ins, handle push notifications and run custom code in the cloud. This kind of product was known at the time as Backend as a Service (Baas). The company was later on acquired by Facebook that kept it running for a while and then it shut it down. The product was consequently released with an open source license and can be installed on-premise. Containerization Docker, launched in 2013 at pyCon by Solomon Hykes, provides an additional layer of abstraction and automation of operating-system-level virtualization on Windows and Linux. Docker can be used as a way to package applications so that they can be easily executed on various servers without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. The funny story is that docker was originally created as a way to abstract the underlying infrastructure at dotCloud, a competitor of Heroku that a few years later bankrupted, while docker became a huge success and it is today adopted or supported by almost every cloud provider. Containers at scale The launch of Docker was a blast and its potential was immense. During the following years, a lot of companies (including Google and Hashicorp) started to invest a significant amount of money and energy to create solutions that leveraged docker to run containers on a large scale, like Kubernetes, Swarm, Nomad and CoreOs. The idea was to use containers as an abstraction to run processes and applications over a cluster of virtual machines. Function as a Service (FaaS) In 2014 AWS launched Lambda, a service that allowed to run “code”, in the form of a function, directly in the cloud. In Lambda the computation model is event based, which means that a function is executed only if a predefined event occurred. This product popularised a new class of services called Function as a Service (FaaS). With the advent of FaaS we started to hear the word “Serverless” for the first time. What is Serverless Trying to define what Serverless actually means is always a bit tricky, so I prefer to give you two definitions by two acclaimed industry leaders in this field. The first lengthy definition comes straight from Amazon Web Services: “Serverless most often refers to serverless applications. Serverless applications are ones that don’t require you to provision or manage any servers. You can focus on your core product and business logic instead of responsibilities like operating system (OS) access control, OS patching, provisioning, right-sizing, scaling, and availability. By building your application on a serverless platform, the platform manages these responsibilities for you.” — Amazon Web Services A much more concise one (that I prefer) comes from Auth0: The essence of the serverless trend is the absence of the server concept during software development. — Auth0 I hope you got the point. Serverless doesn’t mean that there are no servers, of course, there’s a server somewhere, but as a developer, you don’t get to worry about it and you can focus as much as possible on the business logic of the application you are working on. Picture from commitstrip.com Why Serverless? The history we explored so far is telling that our industry has always been looking for next higher level of abstraction. Developers need as fewer concerns as possible to be able to quickly release features and deliver value to the customers. Picture from fullstackpython.com In this picture, Matt Makai from fullstackpython, illustrates exactly how levels of abstraction and platforms were created to keep removing complexity and leave more time for the actual business value that the app has to provide. Serverless today is the highest level of abstraction we have. It is not perfect and there are strong trade-offs that a developer has to embrace in order to adopt it, but it definitely removes tons of concerns on the infrastructure layer. The 4 pillars of Serverless There are other characteristics that come with Serverless and that make it a valuable option. It’s definitely not only about abstraction and the absence of servers… No server management : You don’t know how many and how they are configured : You don’t know how many and how they are configured Flexible scaling : If you need more resources, they will be allocated for you : If you need more resources, they will be allocated for you High availability : Redundancy and fault tolerance are built in : Redundancy and fault tolerance are built in Never pay for idle: Unused resources cost $0 Is it the right approach for the future? My personal view, probably yes! Like any other abstraction, Serverless comes with some strong trade-offs (vendor lock-in, steep learning curve, cold start problem, soft/hard limits, etc.), but it allows us, as developers, to focus more and more on building and releasing value as fast as possible. We live in a time where the competition on the web is at its highest, there is practically no decent idea that somebody else is not already attempting to implement (or that have already successfully implemented!) and it is critical to be able to be on the market quickly and be able to iterate and improve a product efficiently. Serverless can give you the needed agility to compete in this market for most of the cases, but you have to be willing to learn it and embrace its trade-offs. It’s probably not the ultimate solution and I believe there will be other abstraction layers and new platforms in the future, but agility and focus on business logic are definitely some things that we will always want in our future as developers. References This article was possible only thanks to these amazing resources: Also, I had the pleasure to discuss this topic in the recent FrontConf 2017 in Munich in a presentation titled “The future will be SERVERLESS”. Feel free to check out the slides deck and give me your precious feedback.Russia’s unyielding support for Damascus throughout the 16 months of Syria’s escalating crisis has earned Moscow strong condemnation from Washington and other Western governments, but the reasons for Russia’s implacable position have never been fully explained by Moscow or its critics. Washington’s latest tension with Russia over Syria came last week in a face-to-face meeting between President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin. The week before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Russia’s assertion that it sold only defensive weapons to Damascus “patently untrue.” That was after Clinton had accused Russia of shipping attack helicopters to Syria to crush the rebellion, a charge denied by Moscow. The New York Times then reported that Russia was only returning repaired helicopters sold to Syria decades ago. In February, Susan Rice, the top U.S. diplomat at the U.N., used undiplomatically strong language to say the U.S. was “disgusted” by Russia’s veto of a Security Council resolution that would have condemned the Syrian crackdown. The tough talk appears designed to embarrass Russia, especially after the recent upsurge in fighting and a string of grisly massacres blamed on Moscow’s client. But until now Russia’s motives for defending Damascus have remained largely a subject of speculation, with the U.S. media seemingly disinterested in exploring it. Russian officials say their position is based on an adamant opposition to regime change, particularly if it is led by Western military intervention, as in Libya. Moscow’s support for the Syrian regime has not changed though it has recently inched away from President Bashar al-Assad leading it. Analysts routinely cite three additional reasons for Moscow’s Syria policy: Russia’s millions of dollars a year in legal arms sales to Syria, Russian naval access to a port at Tartus on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, and a desire to maintain its last ally in the Middle East. But a clearer image of Russia’s stance comes into focus when put in the context of Moscow’s 30-year struggle against encroachment into its sphere of influence by militant Islam. The support at times given these groups by the U.S. and Gulf Arab nations has opened a three-decade rift with Russia that began in Afghanistan and has run across the Northern Caucasus to the Balkans and now into Syria. Russia is opposed to regime change in Syria not only on principle, but because the likely new regime would be headed by an Islamist government inimical to Russian interests, analysts and diplomats say. “You can talk about arms sales and the port, but the real thing that Russia is worried about is an Islamic government coming to power in Syria,” said a senior Western diplomat, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity because of the current tension in Western-Russian relations. “Russia is obviously concerned about Islamic regimes, and perhaps most important of all, it is terrified of chaos,” said Mark Galeotti, who chairs the Center for Global Affairs at New York University. He said chaos and anarchy in the Middle East fuels the rise of Islamic extremism. “Russia feels that the West doesn’t know how to handle regime change and that the outcome is almost invariably the kind of the chaos from which Islamic extremist movements arise,” Galeotti said. The dominant member of Syria’s opposition is the Muslim Brotherhood, suppressed for 40 years by President Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad, before him. The discord in the Syrian opposition arises largely from differences between the Brotherhood and secular liberal groups, the Western diplomat said. The emergence of al-Qaeda–affiliated groups, responsible for several bombings, has added a menacing dimension. “There is a general sense in Moscow that if Syria fell to extremists’ hands, the whole Middle East could explode, which is also a security concern for the Russians,” Galeotti said. Russia’s struggle against Islamism has its roots in the 1979 to 1989 Afghan conflict, in which the Soviet Union ultimately failed with helicopter gunships and ground troops to defeat militant mujahedin armed with weapons, cash, and intelligence from Washington, Riyadh, and Islamabad. Shoulder-fired American Stinger rockets came to symbolize the conflict as they blasted Soviet helicopters out of the sky. Russian troops withdrew in defeat in February 1989. The Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991 with analysts pointing to the Afghan debacle as a primary cause. Out of the war emerged Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, which later came to wreak havoc on its former sponsors. Washington policymakers typically employ a short-term foreign policy that later comes back to haunt them, analysts said. From the Islamists’ point of view, it is hard to turn down American arms and financing when policies are aligned and then implement its agenda once it is helped to seize power. “Afghanistan [under the pro-Moscow regime] was a secular government, women were not forced to cover, they were given suffrage, yes, it was a dictatorship, but the U.S. helped … overthrow [it] and replaced it with a religious, dogmatic theocracy that destroyed Afghanistan,” said Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington. “They are doing the same thing in Syria,” he said, predicting a failed state with uncontrolled, armed groups threatening the region. “You will see Afghanistan emerging in Syria next door to Israel and it will be a huge, huge problem for the United States,” with Lebanon devolving into the equivalent of Pakistan, he said. The unfortunate choice in Syria is between a Russian-backed secular dictatorship, which allows freedom of religion and protects Christians, Alawis, and Sunni businessmen, or a U.S.- and Gulf-supported religious dictatorship with even fewer freedoms, Ahmed said. “They are repeating their history and Russia was both times on the other side,” Ahmed said. The collapse of the Soviet Union after the Afghanistan defeat opened former Soviet republics in the Caucasus to an Islamic insurgency helped by the U.S. and the Gulf that still troubles Moscow. “Chechnya is a classic example of what goes wrong when things go out of hand,” said Galeotti. “The West thought they would be politically supporting nationalists, reasonable figures, and they wind up creating a situation in which Islamic fundamentalists, terrorists, and suicide bombers found a haven.” In the Balkans, Russia defended its traditional Slavic and Orthodox Christian Serb allies — against separatist Croatians and Bosnian Muslims, whom the International Criminal Court accused of hosting an al-Qaeda unit known as the “al-Mujahideen.” Dmitri Simes, a former adviser to President Richard Nixon who heads the Center for the National Interest in Washington, says he still hears “a lot of anger” from Russian officials over what “the Clinton administration did in the Balkans.” He see a parallel in Syria, where Russian officials are especially concerned about the fate of Christians if Islamists take over. “They are concerned that Muslim fundamentalists, not just the Muslim Brotherhood, but people more extreme might come to power and it would be destabilizing for the region,” Simes said. “But as Syria is not a Russian neighbor, a possible massacre of Christians would be seen as a greater problem.” Russia might be willing to do a deal to try to ease out Assad, whom it sees as a liability, if the U.S. would offer something in return, such as an agreement on missile defense, he said. “If that was made clear to Russian officials, perhaps Putin would be prepared to deal,” Simes said. “But he is simply told that his position is morally inferior.” In the absence of a deal, Moscow strongly fears Western military intervention to overthrow yet another Russian ally, Simes said, will lead to chaos. Moscow is willing to deal because it had “no great sympathy for Assad even before he was in full massacre mode” and is backing away, realizing that “a regime like Assad’s is not in the long run sustainable,” said Galeotti. “If it were clear that regime change were not on the cards, I think Russia would be a lot more willing as allies and interlocutors,” he said. “They are digging their heels in because they feel that the only policy the West is willing to push is regime change.” Moscow would ideally prefer “a controlled, steady reformist who could in some ways manage the process and not allow Islamic fundamentalists to dominate the narrative,” Galeotti said. Russia thinks Washington’s motive to remove Assad is to weaken Iran at almost any cost, Simes said. The U.S. does not publicly discuss what it believes Russia’s motives are for backing Syria, leaving the impression that moral deficiency makes it complicit with Damascus. The closest the U.S. has come to acknowledging Russia’s fear of an Islamist regime in Syria and America’s own apparent tolerance for it came from a cryptic remark by Clinton in the U.N. Security Council chamber last March with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sitting across from her. “I know there are those who question whether Islamist politics can really be compatible with … democratic and universal principles and rights,” Clinton said. “Our policy is to focus less on what parties call themselves than on what they choose to do.” Lavrov did not respond.‘Don’t Write if You Can Talk…’: The latest from WikiLeaks As with earlier WikiLeaks "revelations," the latest batch of classified communications is bound to be something of a Rorschach test. With a wealth of cables from which to choose, readers will be inclined to see in them what they want to see. I’ve been reading some of the latest releases and I’ve read the New York Times accounts pretty carefully, but thus far, I haven’t seen anything that fundamentally alters my views about U.S. foreign policy. Nor have I seen any other commentator who says that they’ve changed their mind about some important contemporary issue either. That said, here are a few tentative reactions. First, everyone should remember that these documents are not revealed truth or literal transcripts of an event. Like most forms of diplomatic reportage, they are a version of events or a summary of impressions, as seen through the eyes of the person (in most cases mid-level officials) who are drafting the message. Even when one is just summarizing a meeting, whoever is drafting the cable gets to emphasize certain things and to omit or downplay others, and that includes the possibility that they misheard, misinterpreted, or misunderstood what was said. Context matters too: what foreign officials say will be shaped by what they are trying to accomplish and also what they think their American interlocutors want or need to hear, and it’s hard to identify the full context from these releases alone. Please note that I am not arguing that there isn’t useful information here. My point is that we bear in mind that these cables are the products of individual human drafters who have their own agendas and frailties, and that the discussions they are summarizing do not occur in isolation. And although these documents clearly tell us something about a number of key policies, they are a very incomplete picture. Second, as with previous WikiLeaks releases, we need to be very wary about our initial conclusions. Only a small number of cables have been released so far, and the media outlets that were given access to them (the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel) are picking and choosing from among the one’s they’ve seen. Until we’ve had a chance to see the full set of releases, a degree of interpretive caution is in order. Third, I am less troubled than some others about the possibility that these documents will expose gaps between what governments say they are doing and what they are actually doing. Some commentators worry, for example, that these documents have exposed the hypocrisy of the Yemeni government, which has been pretending that it wasn’t allowing the United States to conduct drone strikes on its territory. Others probably fear that some particularly pungent comments about various world leaders might get exposed, and thereby creating undesirable frictions. There’s also the concern that foreign representatives will be less candid in the future, for fear of being exposed by some subsequent leak. But let’s get serious for a second. I doubt there are any major world leaders who once believed that we held them in the highest regard, and who will now be crushed to learn that some of our officials had reservations about them. (I’m willing to bet that plenty of foreign cables say less-than-flattering things about U.S. officials too, and that those officials wouldn’t be entirely shocked were those reports to go public). I give most leaders a bit more credit than that: most people know when there are significant differences between allies and even personal points of friction, even if they are papered over with appropriate diplomatic niceties. It’s mildly embarrassing to have this out in public, but I’m not sure anybody is going to feel seriously betrayed or misled. And as for the possibility that American diplomats will be exposed as less than 100 percent honest: at this stage in our history, is all that even remotely surprising? I mean, after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Iran/Contra, the cruise missile attack on Sudan, Colin Powell’s cooked-up testimony to the Security Council in 2002, how many people are under that many illusions about the dark underbelly of U.S. foreign policy? And it’s hardly headline news to learn that the United States has been obsessed with Iran’s nuclear program, reflexively solicitous of Israel’s concerns, worried about North Korea, or deeply concerned about al Qaeda. Some of the details in these cables are interesting, but none of the dispatches I’ve read or the news accounts I’ve seen suggest that a major rewriting of recent diplomacy is in order. Fourth, the recurring theme that I keep seeing in these documents — it’s my own Rorschach, I guess — is how everybody around the world wants Uncle Sucker to solve their problems. South Korea and the U.S. talk about what to do if North Korea collapses. Israeli officials keep demanding that we deal with Iran and preserve their "qualitative military edge." Some Arab leaders in the Persian Gulf want us to stop an Iranian bomb too, but they don’t agree on the steps we should take to achieve that aim. And so on. You’d expect these documents to contain a lot of this sort of special pleading, of course, because they are reports from American officials who have been meeting with various foreign counterparts and trying to figure out what they think or want. Nonetheless, it is still striking how many pies the United States has its fingers in, and how others keep expecting us to supply the ingredients, do most of the baking, and clean up the kitchen afterwards. Fifth, the big story in the early releases — at least as highlighted in the Times — seems to be the combination of the clear U.S. obsession with Iran and the fact that some Arab leaders expressed great concern about the prospect of an Iranian bomb. It was as predictable as the sun rising tomorrow that hard-line advocates of doing whatever it takes to stop an Iranian bomb would immediately seize upon the initial releases to buttress their case, but the documents don’t actually support that conclusion. As Andrew Sullivan points out, the same people who routinely dismiss Arab calls for a different U.S. policy on the Israel-Palestinian peace process are now suddenly convinced that these same Arab leaders are pillars of wisdom. In any case, it is hardly a revelation to learn that some Gulf rulers would a) prefer a non-nuclear Iran, and b) would prefer it if the United States did the heavy lifting and bore the onus of taking care of this problem. It would be astonishing if they thought any other way. But the crucial question all along has been how to address that issue, and here these releases show some ambivalence. There is hardly a consistent chorus of voices telling the United States to go ahead and bomb the place. Some leaders seem inclined in that way; others much less so. I’ve heard other senior Arab and Muslim officials say that it would be a calamity if we did. Lastly, the big question I keep pondering is this: would it be all that bad if diplomats understood that secret deals and two-faced diplomacy wasn’t going to be that easy anymore, because the true facts might leak out sooner rather than in twenty or thirty years time? I can think of a few cases where secrecy has been useful (Kennedy’s deal over the Jupiter missiles in Turkey during the Cuban Missile Crisis comes to mind), but in general I think human beings — and this include foreign policy-makers — are more inclined to do bad things when they think they can do so without being exposed. If you have to keep something secret, that’s often a sign that you shouldn’t be doing it at all. And at the risk of seeming like a naïve Wilsonian (the cruelest thing you can call a realist like me!), the whole episode raises the larger issue of whether the citizens of a republic have the right to know exactly what representatives are doing and saying in their name, backed up by the money and military power that the citizens have paid for with their taxes. And I don’t mean finding out thirty years later, but now. I’m sure that most diplomats would prefer to minimize democratic scrutiny of their activities, as it would surely be annoying if Congress or the media or (God forbid!) ordinary citizens were to peer over their shoulders while they are trying to line up foreign support. But given that I am less and less convinced that our elites know what they are doing, I’m also less inclined to want to let them operate outside public view. But there is a real downside, which is why I retain some concerns about this latest batch of revelations. If diplomats start fearing that any conversation or cable might get leaked, they will either stop talking, stop taking notes, or stop sending message back to headquarters in any sort of republishable form. There’s an old line from Chicago city politics: "Don’t write if you can talk; don’t talk if you can nod; don’t nod if you can wink." Somehow, I’m not sure our diplomacy will be enhanced if our representatives are reduced to making facial gestures, and communicating back home only through secure telephones.What in the world is really going on at Los Alamos, Ft. Calhoun and Fukushima? There are millions of Americans that would like the truth about what is happening at these nuclear facilities, but the mainstream media has been strangely quiet. Instead, the mainstream media is running headlines such as “10 Dirtiest U.S. Beaches Named” and “Pole Dance Stops Times Square Cold”. Yes, those are actually headlines that appeared on the front pages of major mainstream news websites in the United States today. Sadly, you really have to dig to find anything about the problems that are currently happening at nuclear facilities in the United States, and the mainstream media seems to have gotten really tired of talking about Fukushima. It is almost as if the mainstream media actually prefers to talk about mindless things rather than focus on the truly important events that are happening all around us. Look, most of us are not nuclear experts, but when one of our nuclear plants is completely surrounded by flood waters and another one is being seriously threatened by a raging wildfire we have a right to be concerned. Sadly, the coverage by the mainstream media has been so sparse that the majority of Americans don’t even know that there are problems at Los Alamos and Ft. Calhoun. Most Americans also don’t understand how serious the Fukushima disaster really is. Let’s take a closer look at what has been happening at Los Alamos, Ft. Calhoun and Fukushima lately…. Los Alamos A 93 square mile wildfire has approached the perimeter of the Los Alamos nuclear lab in New Mexico. Authorities are warning that this wildfire could soon double or triple in size and an all-out effort is being made to fight it. Right now the major concern is that the raging wildfire could threaten a dump site where an estimated 20,000 55-gallon drums of nuclear waste are being stored. Instead of being stored securely, these 20,000 drums of nuclear waste are being stored in above-ground tents. Authorities are telling the public that the wildfire has gotten to within a few miles of the dump site. However, it has also been reported that the wildfire is now within 50 feet of the Los Alamos facility itself, and there was even one report that flames were “just across the road” from the southern edge of the famous lab where the very first nuclear bomb was developed during World War II. Authorities at Los Alamos continue to insist that there is nothing to be concerned about. But that is also what they said about Fukushima at first. Joni Arends, the executive director of the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, says that if the wildfires reach the nuclear waste it could be a total nightmare…. “The concern is that these drums will get so hot that they’ll burst. That would put this toxic material into the plume. It’s a concern for everybody.” But the dump site is not the only concern. According to a recent Reuters article, there is quite a bit of plutonium at the Los Alamos facility…. John Witham, a spokesman for the anti-nuclear group Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said it is the only place in the country that produces plutonium pits that are carried in the core of nuclear bombs. Three metric tons of highly radioactive weapons-grade plutonium is stored in concrete and steel vaults in the basement floor of a building near the center of the complex, with an air-containment system surrounding it, Witham said. So in light of all of this information, don’t you think that the mainstream media should be keeping us better informed about what is really going on out there? Ft. Calhoun As you read this, the Ft. Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska is completely surrounded by water, and there has been some minor leakage into some of the buildings. On Sunday, the swelling Missouri River surged past a 2000 foot inflatable berm. Approximately 2 feet of water rapidly surrounded all of the buildings at the facility. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission insists that there is nothing to worry about, but it is also being reported that flood waters are literally “at the door” of the primary buildings. Yes, this is not going to be another Fukushima, but it is a very, very serious situation. The American people deserve to be told about what is happening. In a recent article about the Ft. Calhoun disaster, Michael Wolf raised some very interesting questions about what is going on at Ft. Calhoun…. The government is telling us not to panic. All is under control, just like in Japan. But here are a few troubling inconsistencies. One, the Red Cross shelter next to the Fort Calhoun plant has been closed. They claim it was due to “decreased need.” During a flood? Now there is a no-fly zone around the plant. Then there is the disturbing news that the spent fuel rod pool was so full that they store the surplus fuel rods in a dry storage area outside the safety of the pool. How long will that area stay dry and what happens if it gets wet? One reporter claims the dry storage bunker is now half-submerged. One of the intake structures is prone to flooding that could affect the water pumps. Non-functional water pumps? Does that sound familiar? The few news reports that we have gotten out of the area have been more than a little alarming…. Sadly, most Americans don’t know anything about Ft. Calhoun because the mainstream media has been largely ignoring this story. Fukushima Of course the ongoing saga at Fukushima is one of the biggest news stories of this century. Most analysts are finally acknowledging that this is the worst nuclear disaster in history. The disaster at Fukushima will be seriously affecting our environment and the health of millions of people for decades to come. More bad news is continually pouring out of the region. For example, did you know that large numbers of people living in northern Japan now have radioactive urine? It’s true. More than 3 millisieverts of radiation has been measured in the urine of people living 30 to 40 kilometers away from Fukushima. How would you feel if that happened to you? Very, very high radiation levels continue to be detected all around Fukushima. For example, check out what an article in the Telegraph recently had to say about the level of radiation that was found in the water in one trench near the facility…. The water seeping into a trench outside the Number two reactor at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan had a radiation level of more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour. Such a high level can cause temporary radiation sickness including nausea and vomiting and far exceeds the 100 millisievert per hour which is generally regarded the lowest amount at which cancer risks are apparent. How many people in Japan (and around the world) are going to end up developing cancer as a result of this disaster? The truth is that we will probably never know the full health toll. Radiation meters are now being handed out to approximately 34,000 children that live near Fukushima. Shouldn’t this have been done about 3 months ago? The way that the Japanese authorities have handled Fukushima has been a complete and total nightmare. We may never know the full truth about what has been going on. But what we do know is that Fukushima is now the worst nuclear disaster in history. Just check out the following excerpt from a recent article by Stephen C. Jones…. By way of comparison, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that occured in 1986 in the Ukraine, Russia- heretofore the worst nuclear disaster on record- burned for 10 days and cumulatively killed an estimated 1 million people worldwide. The Fukushima, Japan nuclear disaster has 5 nuclear reactors burning, 2 in partial meltdown and 3 in full meltdown- and they’ve ALL been uncontrollably burning since March 11th. Its been over 3 months and this nuclear disaster remains completely out of control. In fact, some industry estimates cite the possibility that these meltdowns will be contained (optimistically) in 1-3 years, at the very earliest. Sadly, our politicians and those that control the media apparently believe that it is better for us “not to panic” than to receive the truth. So what do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below….News
range of possible strategies and responses for a world where the distinction between war and peace may be very unclear – and may no longer be a meaningful distinction at all. Back to the Present: Gray Zone Conflicts in the Age of Trump The unexpected election of Donald Trump may make it more likely, rather than less likely, that the United States will face an increasing number of gray zone conflicts in the coming years. Much about his policies remains unknown; he is still in the earliest days of his presidency, and since his campaign rhetoric contained many contradictory statements, it is not yet clear how he will govern. Nevertheless, there are at least three early signs that, taken together, suggest that U.S. adversaries may find gray zone conflicts a particularly advantageous way to pursue their interests in the next four years and possibly beyond. First, most of candidate Trump’s statements about America’s global role suggest an increased inward focus, not quite isolationism but certainly a retreat from the global engagement that has characterized U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II. He repeatedly identified ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism as an almost existential threat to the United States, and his selection of retired Army Lieutenant General Mike Flynn as his national security advisor guarantees that view will be well represented within the White House. U.S. adversaries, especially state adversaries, may well calculate that the new president may be less likely to use force around the world. This is particularly true of Russia, since Trump has gone out of his way to praise Putin as a strong leader and vowed to strengthen the U.S.-Russian relationship. With a friendly administration in office, it would make little sense to counter the United States directly and risk escalation. It would be much smarter for Russia to continue and even expand its gray zone challenges, enabling Moscow to slowly but surely expand its influence throughout eastern Europe and perhaps beyond while retaining some plausible deniability. And Putin may be particularly emboldened by Trump’s rejection of the intelligence community’s finding that Russia not only interfered with the election but did so in ways that gave Trump an advantage. (This in itself may be a more complicated form of gray zone conflict, or even an example of unrestricted warfare; an outside power directly interfering in the selection of a foreign leader has traditionally involved at least some use of military or paramilitary force, and is often described as “regime change.”) The same logic might apply beyond Russia as well. For example, Trump appeared to be taking a hard line against Iran during the campaign by promising to pull out of the six-nation nuclear deal. Yet, Iran would stand to gain quite a lot if the United States does pull out, as long as no new sanctions are put in place. It would be able to continue its nuclear program, even at a lower level, without incurring the economic challenges that led it to the bargaining table in the first place. The prospect of avoiding new sanctions might be low, but could still be enough to convince Iran to refrain from directly challenging the United States while still continuing or even expanding its support for its malevolent proxies around the world. Second, Trump is and will likely remain an unpredictable president. Not only does he lack any experience in foreign and security policy, but it became clear on the campaign trail that he does not like being challenged and often lashes out in response. Trump’s overall orientation may make the use of force less likely, but as long as he continues to be viewed as an unpredictable leader, U.S. adversaries will still have to consider the possibility that any outright challenges to U.S. interests will be met with escalation – and not just moving step-by-step up the escalation ladder, but possibly jumping several rungs entirely. That will induce a sense of caution that will make it even more likely that U.S. adversaries will seek to challenge the United States indirectly rather than directly. Adversaries who wish to avoid the risk of any escalation, no matter how low, may choose to pursue their interests and objectives through indirect and deniable conflicts in the gray zone. Third, candidate Trump repeatedly expressed skepticism about international institutions and multinational cooperation. This came through most clearly regarding NATO, especially when he suggested that the Article V collective defense commitment might not extend to allies who do not pay their fair share. That in itself may embolden Russia to try to expand its sphere of influence through gray zone conflicts in eastern Europe, perhaps even within the Baltic states. But this skepticism extends far beyond NATO and includes institutions such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization as well as less formal forms of international cooperation. Why is this relevant for a discussion on gray zone conflicts? Because multinational institutions and fora uphold international norms (however imperfectly), reinforce partnerships among like-minded nations, and help promote global transparency. Much of their work is the unheralded and decidedly unglamorous collection and distribution of information – straightforward facts and figures about the nuts and bolts of international activity. To the extent that these institutions grow weaker, so do international norms and transparency. And that, in turn, makes gray zone conflicts an even more attractive option for U.S. adversaries. Weaker norms can be undermined more easily than strong ones, and weaker transparency makes plausible deniability even easier. These trends thus suggest that gray zone conflicts will become more frequent and complex in the next four years and possibly beyond. The United States will almost certainly maintain its conventional military superiority during this time frame,[11] which means that U.S. adversaries will continue to seek asymmetric ways to pursue their interests. Growing cyber capabilities and other advanced technologies will increasingly enable them to do so in ways that previously required military force but no longer do. And the early signs from the new Trump administration will likely make gray zone strategies an even more attractive strategic choice for those who wish to challenge U.S. interests and threaten the open, liberal, and free global order that the United States has led and protected for the last 70 years. [1] International Institute of Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2016, London: Routledge, 2016, p. 19. [2] Ibid., pp. 485-490. [3] See Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Ph.D., U.S. Army, “Continuity and Change: The Army Operating Concept and Clear Thinking About Future War,” Military Review, March/April 2015, p. 16. [4] See David Barno and Nora Bensahel, “Fighting and Winning in the ‘Gray Zone,’” War on the Rocks, May 18, 2015. [5] Hal Brands, “Paradoxes of the Gray Zone,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, February 5, 2016. Emphasis in the original. [6] David Barno and Nora Bensahel, “A Guide to Stepping It Up in the South China Sea,” War on the Rocks, June 14, 2016. [7] Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy, “China’s Maritime Militias,” Center for Naval Analysis, March 2016, https://www.cna.org/cna_files/pdf/Chinas-Maritime-Militia.pdf. [8] See Sam LaGrone, “U.S. Warship Conducts South China Sea Freedom of Navigation Operation,” USNI News, October 21, 2016. [9] Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, February 1999, FBIS translation available at https://www.cryptome.org/cuw.htm. [10] The rest of this section draws on David Barno and Nora Bensahel, “A New Generation of Unrestricted Warfare,” War on the Rocks, April 18, 2016. [11] However, U.S. conventional superiority may well be challenged in the longer term, especially given the possible combined effects of constrained defense budgets, internal cost growth within the Department of Defense that limits the dollars available for combat forces, and the increasing capabilities of the Chinese military.On the occasion of World Day Against Cyber Censorship, ProtonMail and Amnesty International join forces to show how internet restrictions affect people around the world. As the world’s largest encrypted email provider, ProtonMail is the privacy tool of choice for journalists, activists and privacy conscious everyday users. Today when logging into their inboxes, ProtonMail’s 2 million users from 150 countries will see Amnesty International’s latest findings on cyber censorship. In 2016, Amnesty International documented 55 countries where people were arrested for peaceful expression online. The internet is a powerful tool for free speech and activism, but in the wrong hands it can also be a tool for repression. Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Global Issues. Share this Twitter Facebook Email “The internet is a powerful tool for free speech and activism, but in the wrong hands it can also be a tool for repression. Amnesty International has documented cases of advanced "techno-censorship" across the world, as governments race to find new tools and tactics to silence dissent. The range of cyber censorship and surveillance tactics being employed by governments is getting more sophisticated with each passing year, with dire consequences for freedom of expression,” said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Head of Technology and Human Rights at Amnesty International. “Amnesty International and ProtonMail want people who believe in a free internet to take action. The tech firms developing the architecture of the internet need to build in stronger security, with end-to-end encryption for example, that we can use to protect our rights to privacy and free speech online. The decisions made about the nature of the internet will affect our societies for a generation to come.” The decisions made about the nature of the internet will affect our societies for a generation to come. Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Global Issues. Share this Twitter Facebook Email Internet censorship around the world Each year governments around the world are increasingly restricting internet freedom. With the use of IP address blocking today Turkey and Saudi Arabia block over 50,000 and 400,000 websites respectively; including news and social media networking sites. China’s Great Firewall continues to restrict internet to over 800 million users. Cyber censorship not only steals people’s rights to freedom of information but can also have the disastrous effect of hampering creative and scientific development needed for a brighter future. Dr. Andy Yen, co-founder and CEO ProtonMail Share this Twitter Facebook Email “Cyber censorship not only steals people’s rights to freedom of information but can also have the disastrous effect of hampering creative and scientific development needed for a brighter future” – Dr. Andy Yen, co-founder and CEO ProtonMail. It is becoming an increasingly common practice for governments to shut off the Internet during moments of unrest and protest, such as Ethiopia did on more than one occasion in 2016. Last year several governments also shut down encrypted messaging apps, like Signal in Egypt and Whats App in Brazil. Cyber censorship is further exacerbated by the indifference from some of the biggest tech companies towards their users’ privacy. Last year, Yahoo confirmed that it cooperated with the NSA to implement a special surveillance software to scan all its users’ emails for the agency’s use. On 21 October 2016, Amnesty International warned that tech companies like Snapchat and Microsoft are failing to adopt basic privacy protections on their instant messaging services, putting users’ human rights at risk. Only 3 of 11 tech firms examined in Amnesty International’s ‘Message Privacy Ranking’ provide end-to-end encryption by default on all their messaging apps. Working towards ending cyber censorship “Today we are changing our login page to stimulate a debate about online privacy, digital freedom and cyber censorship. Many of our users are journalists, dissidents and everyday users who have experienced internet restrictions in one way or another and who have turned to encrypted email to secure their communications,” said Dr. Andy Yen, ProtonMail co-founder and CEO. “Cyber censorship not only steals people’s rights to freedom of information but can also have the disastrous effect of hampering creative and scientific development needed for a brighter future. Earlier this year ProtonMail launched a Tor hidden website to combat censorship and today we are happy to highlight the brave work Amnesty international is doing to protect civil liberties online.”A woman accused of threatening employees at a Canadian Tire store in Toronto with a knife last month is now charged with terrorism-related offences, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police say. Rehab Dughmosh, 32, had previously been charged with two counts of assault with a weapon, assault, uttering threats, carrying a concealed weapon, and two counts of possession of a weapon. Dughmosh now faces 14 terror-related charges under Section 83.2 of the Criminal Code, federal Crown prosecutor Howard Piafsky told CBC News. The section bans "terrorist activity," whether it takes place "in or outside Canada." Most of those charges mirror the woman's earlier charges, Piafsky said, but those actions are now alleged to have been undertaken "for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with a terrorist group." The charges laid Tuesday include one of participating in terrorist activity. That charge relates to Dughmosh allegedly travelling to Turkey and attempting to enter Syria in April 2016. Last month, Dughmosh appeared in a Toronto court where she pledged her allegiance to ISIS. "I am pledged to the leaders of the believers, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," Dughmosh said in reference to the leader of the Islamic State. When police arrived at the Cedarbrae Mall store last month, they were told a woman had threatened employees and a customer in the paint section with a golf club and a knife. One of the employees was injured, but the injuries were non-life-threatening, Toronto police said. Asked Tuesday why Dughmosh would not have been able to plead guilty today, Piafsky replied: "Before she pleads guilty, she has to make an informed choice and part of that would involve being provided with some disclosure and being able to look at it and review it." He would not confirm whether a mental health assessment will take place. Dughmosh continues to refuse legal counsel. Her next court appearance is scheduled for July 21 at 10 a.m.Dapper Vision's OpenGlass project sees Google Glass' camera as useful for more than just hands-free pictures -- it's a tool for interpreting the world around us. To show that potential, the two-person group has tested two of its Glass apps with visually impaired wearers. The first, Question-Answer, lets the poor-sighted ask both Mechanical Turk and Twitter for help in identifying objects. Memento, in turn, automatically recites notes when the user looks at a recognizable scene; it can warn users about dangerous equipment, for example. Dapper Vision tells us that the OpenGlass apps will stay in limited testing until Google lets developers offer Glassware to the general public, but the company isn't sitting still in the meantime. It's devising a way to reward Question-Answer contributors with BitCoins, and it will demonstrate new Glass-based augmented reality software next week.The Real Song For The Deaf is a hidden pre-gap track on QOTSA's third studio album, Songs For The Deaf. To access this song, you must own a CD copy of the album (or get it on iTunes, where it's listed in plain site as a track... lame.) and you have to put the CD in a CD player. You remember those? Then, when You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire starts playing, hit rewind. The CD will rewind past the beginning of Millionaire and to a whole hidden track before it. Technology is cool, ain't it? The track starts with a robotic voice saying "Huh? What?" so, when you hear words as you're rewinding, stop and hit play. That's how you hear this kickass track. Fun fact: To make this track, they rubbed balloons against the mics to make a frequency that deaf people can feel. I'm not even joking. Contents show] Versions Edit The Real Song For The Deaf Edit This is the only known version of the track. At a compact one minute and thirty-three seconds, it's no You Can't Quit Me Baby. Starting with a robo-voice saying "Huh? What?" in a confuzzled tone, a bassline slowly fades in. It's later joined by quiet synth until it all builds up with a soft, rapid percussion sound. After the song itself, you hear the sound of keys shaking, as they are going into the ignition of the car we're starting in the next track. Live Edit This song has never been performed live. Lyrics Edit Huh? What?Gerard Way And The Hormones have announced their first few U.S. shows in October. Way and his live band The Hormones will perform at the following dates and locations, according to TicketWeb and LiveNation: October 12 – The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA October 13 – The Troubadour – Hollywood, CA October 14 – Fonda Theatre – Los Angeles, CA October 17 – Trocadero Theatre – Philadelphia, PA October 19 – Paradise Rock Club – Boston, MA October 20 – Irving Plaza – New York, NY October 22- Starland Ballroom – Sayreville, NJ October 23 – Webster Hall – New York, NY Tickets for the shows go onsale this Wednesday, August 27 at 12 p.m. local time. Note that no official announcement from Way has been released yet, so we anticipate there could be more shows. We will keep our eyes out for more dates and update this post if they become available. UPDATE (4:59 p.m. EDT): Way has now made an official announcement. Two southern California dates and a Philadelphia date have been added. Way's fuzzy pink official Twitter informant Lola (pictured left) says, “For those asking, these are the only U.S. shows that I know of at the moment but I will keep you posted with info as I get it!” In the meantime, you can get a preview of Way's live show with his full set from Reading Festival on Friday.Sharp does not only churn out copiers and some snazzy looking TVs, you know, as over in Japan, they happen to roll out more than decent handsets as well. This time around, another three models of smartphones have been introduced that will make their way in the direction of NTT DoCoMo. These three models will be constructed using the EDGEST design which minimizes top, bottom and side bezels. Regardless of which model you pick, all of them will run on the Snapdragon 808 chipset which carries a hexa-core 1.8GHz CPU and the Adreno 418 GPU. The Aquos Zeta SH-01H will come with a 5.3” IGZO display with Gorilla Glass 4, a 416ppi pixel density and Full HD resolution, accompanied by 3GB RAM, 32GB of internal memory, a fingerprint scanner, a 13.1MP camera behind, a front-facing 8MP shooter, IP55/58 certification, a 3,100mAh battery and Android 5.1 Lollipop right out of the box. As for the Sharp Aquos Compact SH-02H, the name itself gives the game away that this will be a compact device of its flagship, with a 4.7” IGZO Full HD display, 3GB RAM, 16GB of internal memory, a rear 13.1MP camera, a 5MP selfie shooter, a 2810mAh battery, and an IP65/68 certification. Both flagship and this will sport 4G LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity. Last but not least, the Sharp Disney Mobile (DM-01H) will sport similar specifications as that of the SH-02H, albeit with free Disney content and branding. Filed in. Read more about Aquos and Sharp. Source: mobiltelefon.ruWe’re used to seeing projects that help humans get around (like highways and pedestrian crossings) but it is less common to see projects that help nature navigate around us. This wildlife crossing was designed by Olin Studio for West Vail Pass, Colorado as a way to help animals pass safely over the street. The design, called “Wild (X)ing,” is one entry in a design competition that aims to find a way for both wildlife and humans to travel safely in the same area. Because a highway runs through the very large White River National Forest, it poses a very real threat to the animals that make their homes there. The green bridge concept would help wildlife in the White River National Forest cross over a busy highway while staying at a safe distance from the vehicles. The wildlife bridge concept uses a repeating rhomboid shape because of its inherent strength and functionality as a modular component. The bridge is designed to be expandable when needed; if the highway is widened in the future the bridge can easily be widened along with it. Each rhomboid is actually what the designers call a “habitat module,” which is a segment of habitat naturally found in the area. Six different types of habitats have been identified for inclusion in the project, ranging from xeric grassland to wet meadow to spruce and fir forest. By combining these modules on the wildlife-friendly crossing, the designers hope to create a landscape that connects the man-made structure to the surrounding wildlife and provides a comfortable environment for fauna. If the surrounding landscape should happen to change in the future, modules can be lifted out by cranes and replaced. According to the designers, this module approach is the safest and most cost-effective way to integrate a wildlife bridge into the national park. (all images via: designboom)Castleford student Keegan Myers works on his wielding project as part of his dual credit enrollment Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017, at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls, Idaho. Idaho, which boasts an unemployment rate below 3%, saw its population boom by 2.2% over the last year, according to newly-released U.S. Census data. (Photo11: Drew Nash, AP) Idaho saw its population boom by 2.2% over the last year, leading the nation in population growth during that period, according to U.S. Census Bureau data estimates released Wednesday. The Gem State was followed by Nevada (2%), Utah (1.9%) and Washington (1.7%) and western states accounted for seven of the 10 states to see the biggest growth in terms of percentage of population between July 2016 and July 2017, according to the data. Idaho boasts a strong economy and an unemployment rate of 2.9%. The state’s Department of Labor earlier this year published a forecast predicting population would grow by about 1.4% annually through 2025, pushing Idaho's population to about 1.9 million residents. “Domestic migration drove change in the two fastest-growing states, Idaho and Nevada, while an excess of births over deaths played a major part in the growth of the third fastest-growing state, Utah,” said Luke Rogers, Chief of the U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates branch. Texas tallied the biggest numeric growth with its population increasing by nearly 400,000 residents in 2017. The state’s population now stands at nearly 28.3 million residents —an increase of more than 3 million residents since 2010. Meanwhile, seven states and Puerto Rico recorded population losses over the last year. Illinois lost more than 33,000 residents, dropping to the sixth most populous state in the union with 12,802,023 residents. It’s the fourth straight year that Illinois has recorded a population decline, according to the census data. Illinois has seen residents walk away as the state's politicians have struggled to fix its finances. The state is bedeviled by a mountain of debt and unmet pension obligations —Moody's Investor's Service estimates the state has $250 billion public pension debt. Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, has been feuding with state Democrats and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel over the best way to deal with the state's long-brewing financial crisis. In July, state lawmakers enacted Illinois' first budget since 2015 when lawmakers managed to override Rauner's veto of a budget plan that included a more than 30% tax hike. Pennsylvania, which saw a modest bounce it in its population over the last year, is now the fifth biggest state with a population of 12,805,537. The U.S. territory Puerto Rico lost more than 69,000 residents last year and filed for the equivalent of federal bankruptcy protection in May. The population exodus is likely much greater as the bureau’s estimate doesn’t account for the thousands of Puerto Ricans who left the island in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in September. Wyoming had the largest percentage decline among states, losing nearly 5,600 resident or about 1% of the state’s population. The U.S. population grew by 2.3 million to 325.7 million, a less than 1% increase in population. Net international migration decreased 1.8% -- the first drop since 2012 to 2013. Still, residents moving to the U.S. from other countries continue to be a significant factor in U.S. population growth as 1.1 million people moved to the U.S. over the last year, according to the census bureau. More: 6 reasons why Puerto Rico slid into financial crisis More: Judge tosses Chicago lawsuit over school funding formula More: The Census Bureau shows the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. are... Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2BbTNIC[Polymer bank notes are shown during a news conference at the Bank of Canada in Ottawa on April 30, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick] Politicians in municipal, provincial and federal governments are discussing the idea of a guaranteed basic income — a bold concept that has the endorsement of folks from across all party lines. A majority of councillors in the Niagara region of Ontario voted last week to support a motion asking the provincial and federal governments to develop a guaranteed basic income (GBI). Kingston city councillors passed a similar motion last month. Also, Liberal Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard appointed a cabinet committee last month on the creation of a GBI for that province. Canada’s federal minister responsible for poverty has expressed interest in the idea of a guaranteed basic income. The idea has merit as a government policy, after the implementation of immediate reforms the Liberals promised while campaigning, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Jean-Yves Duclos told the Globe and Mail. Duclos and Couillard were not immediately available for comment. Part of the minister’s mandate is to combine various federal payments to parents into a single payment, the Canada Child Benefit, and to increase the Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors. Both initiatives illustrate how Canada already has some forms of a guaranteed basic income in place. In a system with a guaranteed basic income, tax dollars are used to top up the income of every Canadian, with everyone receiving a payment that guarantees that each household has at least a minimum income. As a result, reliance on existing social services would be reduced or potentially replaced, supporters say. Detractors argue that the GBI would not actually save money because it would create disincentives to work, or that a solution that provides money to all citizens regardless of existing income will not actually reduce inequalities. There are many different forms that GBI can take, and Canada already has some programs that fit within the category: employment insurance or social security, for example. Other more ambitious experiments with GBI have been tried in this country in the past. In the late 1970s the residents of Dauphin, Man., participated in a program dubbed Mincome that provided a guaranteed minimum income for all its residents. While a final report on the project was never completed, it lifted 1,000 families out of poverty before it was cancelled in 1979. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has supported the idea of a guaranteed basic income in the past, and included it as part of the party platform for the most recent election. And the Liberals included the creation of a “basic annual income” among its policy resolutions, but it wasn’t part of the official party platform during the federal election. Some fiscal conservatives, like former Tory senator Hugh Segal, also support the idea as a means to reduce or eliminate existing social programs. Examples can also be found in other countries. In Alaska, all citizens receive a portion of revenue earned from oil, for example. This summer Switzerland is set to be the first country in the world to vote on providing a guaranteed national income for all residents. Finland is working on a proposal for a tax-free income supplement for all citizens, in part to fight high unemployment. And a Dutch city is undertaking an experiment in GBI that’s inspired in part by the earlier one in Dauphin. In Canada, pilot projects have been suggested by Segal and Conference Board of Canada chief economist Glen Hodgson. And last August, 194 Canadian physicians signed a letter in support of a GBI in Ontario, saying that it would reduce the poor health outcomes tied to poverty.Elutriation is a process for separating particles based on their size, shape and density, using a stream of gas or liquid flowing in a direction usually opposite to the direction of sedimentation. This method is mainly used for particles smaller than 1 μm. The smaller or lighter particles rise to the top (overflow) because their terminal sedimentation velocities are lower than the velocity of the rising fluid. The terminal velocity of any particle in any medium can be calculated using Stokes' law if the particle's Reynolds number is below 0.2. Counterflow centrifugation elutriation is a related technique to separate cells. Air classification [ edit ] Air classifier An air elutriator is a simple device which can separate particles into two or more groups. Material may be separated by means of an elutriator, which consists of a vertical tube up which fluid is passed at a controlled velocity. When the particles are introduced, often through a side tube, the smaller particles are carried over in the fluid stream while the larger particles settle against the upward current. If one starts with low flow rates, small less dense particle attain their terminal velocities, and flow with the stream. The particle from the stream is collected in overflow and hence will be separated from the feed. Flow rates can be increased to separate higher size ranges. Further size fractions may be collected if the overflow from the first tube is passed vertically upwards through a second tube of greater cross-section, and any number of such tubes can be arranged in series. It is used in mineral processing for size classification. The elutriation dust value is a usual measure for quantification of dust, generated by testing wherein mechanical forces such as vibration are applied to granules of e.g. a detergent agent. Elutriation is a common method used by biologists to sample meiofauna.[1] The sediment sample is constantly agitated by a flow of filtered water from below, the action of which dislodges interstitial organisms embedded between sediment grains. A very fine filter at the top captures these organisms from the overflow.[2] See also [ edit ]This article is about the bird. For other uses, see Bald eagle (disambiguation) A bird of prey from North America The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus, from Greek ἅλς, hals "sea", αἰετός aietos "eagle", λευκός, leukos "white", κεφαλή, kephalē "head") is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla). Its range includes most of Canada and Alaska, all of the contiguous United States, and northern Mexico. It is found near large bodies of open water with an abundant food supply and old-growth trees for nesting. The bald eagle is an opportunistic feeder which subsists mainly on fish, which it swoops down and snatches from the water with its talons. It builds the largest nest of any North American bird and the largest tree nests ever recorded for any animal species, up to 4 m (13 ft) deep, 2.5 m (8.2 ft) wide, and 1 metric ton (1.1 short tons) in weight. Sexual maturity is attained at the age of four to five years. Bald eagles are not actually bald; the name derives from an older meaning of the word, "white headed". The adult is mainly brown with a white head and tail. The sexes are identical in plumage, but females are about 25 percent larger than males. The beak is large and hooked. The plumage of the immature is brown. The bald eagle is both the national bird and national animal of the United States of America. The bald eagle appears on its seal. In the late 20th century it was on the brink of extirpation in the contiguous United States. Populations have since recovered and the species was removed from the U.S. government's list of endangered species on July 12, 1995 and transferred to the list of threatened species. It was removed from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in the Lower 48 States on June 28, 2007. Description The plumage of an adult bald eagle is evenly dark brown with a white head and tail. The tail is moderately long and slightly wedge-shaped. Males and females are identical in plumage coloration, but sexual dimorphism is evident in the species, in that females are 25% larger than males.[2] The beak, feet and irises are bright yellow. The legs are feather-free, and the toes are short and powerful with large talons. The highly developed talon of the hind toe is used to pierce the vital areas of prey while it is held immobile by the front toes.[3] The beak is large and hooked, with a yellow cere.[4] The adult bald eagle is unmistakable in its native range. The closely related African fish eagle (H. vocifer) (from far outside the bald eagle's range) also has a brown body (albeit of somewhat more rufous hue), white head and tail, but differs from the bald in having a white chest and black tip to the bill.[5] Head details The plumage of the immature is a dark brown overlaid with messy white streaking until the fifth (rarely fourth, very rarely third) year, when it reaches sexual maturity.[2][3] Immature bald eagles are distinguishable from the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), the only other very large, non-vulturine raptorial bird in North America, in that the former has a larger, more protruding head with a larger beak, straighter edged wings which are held flat (not slightly raised) and with a stiffer wing beat and feathers which do not completely cover the legs. When seen well, the golden eagle is distinctive in plumage with a more solid warm brown color than an immature bald eagle, with a reddish-golden patch to its nape and (in immature birds) a highly contrasting set of white squares on the wing.[6] Another distinguishing feature of the immature bald eagle over the mature bird is its black, yellow-tipped beak; the mature eagle has a fully yellow beak. The bald eagle has sometimes been considered the largest true raptor (accipitrid) in North America. The only larger species of raptor-like bird is the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus), a New World vulture which today is not generally considered a taxonomic ally of true accipitrids.[7] However, the golden eagle, averaging 4.18 kg (9.2 lb) and 63 cm (25 in) in wing chord length in its American race (A. c. canadensis), is merely 455 g (1.003 lb) lighter in mean body mass and exceeds the bald eagle in mean wing chord length by around 3 cm (1.2 in).[5][8] Additionally, the bald eagle's close cousins, the relatively longer-winged but shorter-tailed white-tailed eagle and the overall larger Steller's sea eagle (H. pelagicus), may, rarely, wander to coastal Alaska from Asia.[5] This eagle has a sizeable wingspan The bald eagle has a body length of 70–102 cm (28–40 in). Typical wingspan is between 1.8 and 2.3 m (5 ft 11 in and 7 ft 7 in) and mass is normally between 3 and 6.3 kg (6.6 and 13.9 lb).[5] Females are about 25% larger than males, averaging as much as 5.6 kg (12 lb), and against the males' average weight of 4.1 kg (9.0 lb).[2][9][10][11] The size of the bird varies by location and generally corresponds with Bergmann's rule, since the species increases in size further away from the Equator and the tropics. For example, eagles from South Carolina average 3.27 kg (7.2 lb) in mass and 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) in wingspan, smaller than their northern counterparts.[12] One field guide in Florida listed similarly small sizes for bald eagles there, at about 4.13 kg (9.1 lb).[13] Of intermediate size, 117 migrant bald eagles in Glacier National Park were found to average 4.22 kg (9.3 lb) but this was mostly (possibly post-dispersal) juvenile eagles, with 6 adults here averaging 4.3 kg (9.5 lb).[14] Wintering eagles in Arizona (winter weights are usually the highest through the year since like many raptors they spend the highest percentage of time foraging during winter) were found to average 4.74 kg (10.4 lb).[15] The largest eagles are from Alaska, where large females may weigh more than 7 kg (15 lb) and span 2.44 m (8 ft 0 in) across the wings.[4][16] A survey of adult weights in Alaska showed that females there weighed on average 5.35 kg (11.8 lb), respectively, and males weighed 4.23 kg (9.3 lb) against immatures which averaged 5.09 kg (11.2 lb) and 4.05 kg (8.9 lb) in the two sexes.[17][18] An Alaskan adult female eagle that was considered outsized weighed some 7.4 kg (16 lb).[19] R.S. Palmer listed a record from 1876 in Wyoming County, New York of an enormous adult bald eagle that was shot and reportedly scaled 8.2 kg (18 lb).[18] Among standard linear measurements, the wing chord is 51.5–69 cm (20.3–27.2 in), the tail is 23–37 cm (9.
/10 65,225.0 18,540.0 932.0 14,013.0 15.15 24.42 09/09 42,905.0 12,066.0 684.0 8,235.0 9.08 31.75 09/08 37,491.0 8,947.0 460.0 6,119.0 6.78 31.61 09/07 24,578.0 5,006.0 307.0 3,495.0 3.93 30.18 09/06 19,315.0 2,818.0 225.0 1,989.0 2.27 29.42 09/05 13,931.0 1,808.0 179.0 1,328.0 1.55 26.55 09/04 8,279.0 370.0 150.0 266.0 0.34 28.11 09/03 6,207.0 92.0 113.0 68.0 0.09 26.09 09/02 5,742.0 87.0 114.0 65.0 0.09 25.29 09/01 5,363.0 -52.0 100.0 -37.0 -0.05 0.0 Sales EBIT Depreciation Total Net Income EPS Tax Rate (%) 12/10 34,204.0 1,497.0 657.0 1,152.0 2.53 23.51 12/09 24,509.0 1,161.0 432.0 902.0 2.04 21.79 12/08 19,166.0 901.0 340.0 645.0 1.49 27.41 12/07 14,835.0 660.0 271.0 476.0 1.12 27.88 12/06 10,711.0 377.0 210.0 190.0 0.45 49.6 12/05 8,490.0 428.0 118.0 333.0 0.78 22.2 12/04 6,921.12 355.87 75.66 588.45 1.39 -65.36 12/03 5,263.7 38.99 72.74 35.28 0.08 9.51 12/02 3,932.94 -150.63 81.66 -149.93 -0.4 0.0 12/01 3,122.43 -526.43 264.03 -556.75 -1.53 0.0 Avg P/E Price/ Sales Price/ Book Net Profit Margin (%) 09/10 15.10 4.14 5.60 21.5 09/09 13.30 3.86 5.19 19.2 09/08 24.00 3.09 5.11 16.3 09/07 26.50 5.55 9.21 14.2 09/06 29.20 3.50 6.59 10.3 09/05 24.10 3.27 5.98 9.5 09/04 38.80 1.74 2.88 3.2 09/03 89.80 1.21 1.80 1.1 09/02 112.80 0.93 1.29 1.1 09/01 -185.80 NA 1.39 -0.7 Avg P/E Price/ Sales Price/ Book Net Profit Margin (%) 12/10 55.20 2.40 11.83 3.4 12/09 43.00 2.43 11.36 3.7 12/08 46.80 1.16 8.21 3.4 12/07 59.80 2.65 32.20 3.2 12/06 80.40 1.56 37.90 1.8 12/05 50.90 2.37 79.73 3.9 12/04 31.40 2.72 -79.86 8.5 12/03 445.20 4.19 -20.48 0.7 12/02 -41.60 1.82 -5.42 -3.8 12/01 -7.90 1.26 -2.80 -17.8 About the author: John Emerson I have been of student of value investing since the mid 1990s. I have continued to read and study value theory on an ongoing basis. My investment philosophy most closely resembles Walter Schloss although I employ considerably less diversification. I also pattern my style after Buffett's early investment career when he was able to purchase shares of tiny companies. I have been of student of value investing since the mid 1990s. I have continued to read and study value theory on an ongoing basis. My investment philosophy most closely resembles Walter Schloss although I employ considerably less diversification. I also pattern my style after Buffett's early investment career when he was able to purchase shares of tiny companies. Income Statement - 10-Year Summary (in millions)Note that in 2004 both companies had similar EBIT and AMZN had just a slightly better operating margin than AAPL (5.14% vs. 4.5%). Since that time AAPL has raised its operating margin steadily, while the operating margin for AMZN has decreased slightly. In 2010 APPL recorded a stunning operating margin of 28.4%; while the operating margin for AMZN had eroded to 4.4%.Revenues at AAPL increased by 7.78 times during the aforementioned period; as opposed to only 4.94 times at AMZN.The following tables summarize the average price to earnings and price to sales ratios for the two companies:In every metric with the exception of price to sales, AAPL appears to be a vastly superior company to AMZN. Further, a price to sales ratio is not a useful metric when viewed separately from operating margins. If price to sales alone was a meaningful metric then all a company would need to do would be to drop their prices significantly below their actual costs and watch their revenues expand.Say that Company XYZ has $20 in actual costs to produce a widget when their factories run at full capacity. Further assume that when the company sells their products at $22 per widget, they lack sufficient demand to run their factories at full capacity. Say the management decides to drop their price to $19 per widget. Quickly, maximum demand is met and the management decides to build an additional factory. At that point, management finds that they need to drop the price to $18 per widget to run the new factory at maximum capacity.The overall revenues of XYZ are now skyrocketing and their price to sales ratio for the company has dropped precipitously. It appears that "the sky is the limit" as far as widget sales so long as the company can lower their prices. However, the company is now losing $2 for every widget they are producing; such is the illogical nature of viewing price to sales without regard to operating margins.The logical question to ask is why has the share price of AMZN been increasing? Its gains in revenues are largely being offset by reduced operating margins. Although it could be argued that the company is increasing overall profits, the price to earnings growth (PEG) ratio for the company remains unfavorable.Let me take this a step further; in the time period from 2004 to 2010, AMZN increased its EBIT by roughly 420%. The cost of that profit expansion required the company to increase its depreciation expense by around 870%. During that same time, AAPL was able to increase its EBIT by approximately 5000%; however the depreciation expense for the company only increased by about 620%.Note that AMZN, a clearly inferior company, has consistently traded at a PE multiple 2 to 3 times APPL despite its much slower income growth and return on capital (ROC). APPL has a five-year trailing ROC of 28.5% versus 17.1% for AMZN.It appears that the Keynes quote at the top of the page applied in spades for investors who have held short positions in AMZN in the last decade.In the last decade both AMZN and AAPL have been stellar investments. The following chart tells the story:However, successful investing is not about past results; rather it is about future cash flows and a concept known as margin of safety. It would seem that investors in AMZN have abandoned all sensibility, particularly when the stock is compared on a head to head basis with AAPL. The only favorable valuation metric for AMZN is a substantially lower price to sales ratio and that has come at the expense of the companies' operating margin.The chart also reflects the perilous nature of shorting overpriced equities which have become market icons. Eventually the shorts will likely be rewarded but for nearly a decade the lofty valuations for AMZN have been maintained despite the companies' modest growth and flat to eroding margins.AMZN remains absurdly overpriced and investors who continue to buy and hold the stock do so at their own peril. Simply stated, the stock possesses no margin of safety. On the other hand, APPL appears to remain compelling despite trading near its all-time high. I do not hold either stock but it I had my choice I would select AAPL in a New-York minute.The key to Margaret Thatcher is simplicity. By comparison with the Big Ten of English history, alongside whom she must surely be ranked, she was a straightforward person. Whereas King Alfred, Edward I, Henry V, Elizabeth, Cromwell, Chatham, William Pitt, Gladstone, Lloyd George and Churchill were all, in varying degrees, complex and many-sided people capable of surprising, confounding and shocking close admirers, Thatcher was simple, consistent and reliable. A touch of the numinous: From left to right, Pope Benedict XVI, Paul Johnson and Lady Thatcher in May 2009. Her moral character as a public woman was founded on plain, uncomplicated virtues. First, and most important, came courage, the essential basis of any great political career. I never knew her to flinch or retire in confusion. But she was quite capable of a tactical retreat from an untenable position. "The great thing is to learn how to fall back under fire," she said. I was surprised to hear her say: "I learned from Monty, never dig yourself deeper into a hole." She was the opposite of brash. Quite without bravado, her courage was pretty calm and cool on the whole. She liked to repeat Jack Kennedy's mot: "Don't get mad, get even." "The only wise thing I ever heard of him saying," she added. She said: "I never lost my temper with Arthur Scargill, like Ted Heath did. Losing my temper is a dreadful mistake. That's not the same as displaying anger, if necessary a terrible anger. You must be able to inspire fear. Winston used to walk up and down the Cabinet room saying of his colleagues: ‘I want them all to feel my power.' I know how he felt though I never quite said that." Second came persistence. She said: "Flashes of courage are not enough. What matters is resolution. You must go on, and on, and on, and on, until people are sick and tired of your voice repeating the same thing." When she was right, Thatcher was never afraid of being a bore, and often was. She took the view that being boring was not a political vice. The essential thing was to be right. Once you were sure you were right, you had to hammer it home, as often and as firmly, as possible. "Hammer, hammer, hammer! That's a verb I like," she said. Once, early in our acquaintance, I said to her: "Government spends money on all kinds of things, often rightly. But there are only three things it must do because nobody else can. External defence. Internal order. And maintaining an honest currency. The more extra things it tries to do, the more likely it is these three essentials will be done badly." Thatcher liked this so much she took a pencil and notebook out of her handbag and wrote it down. Years later, she suddenly began a harangue to me with: "Paul, there are three essential things a government must do..." I interrupted: "I told you that." "Really? I must have repeated that maxim hundreds of times. I like it. I normally quote my father. But then I suspect I often do when I find a saying I think useful, and true. I'll quote you in future. But then people might not take so much notice." "Oh, thanks very much."Recently federal and provincial health ministers agreed to create a working group to explore how to improve Canadians' access to pharmaceutical drugs. In the wake of this, there is new optimism that pharmacare, publicly funded and universally available to Canadians, might one day come to pass. I support pharmacare. Many Canadians cannot afford the drugs they're prescribed and that's unjust. Yet, if Canada is to implement national pharmacare, surely we want to know more about the drugs we'll be paying for. To this end, we must tackle a pre-existing challenge: we must open up the evidence our drug regulator houses concerning drug safety and effectiveness. For decades Health Canada has kept that information confidential at the behest of drug manufacturers. This practice limits the ongoing evaluation of a drug's safety and effectiveness and, in turn, provincial and territorial governments' decision-making about which drugs to pay for, not to mention physicians and patients who make decisions about which drugs to prescribe and take. In some cases, disclosing this evidence might prevent serious harm. Consider Vioxx. Approved in 1999 for treating arthritis, it was withdrawn from markets in 2004 after thousands are estimated to have suffered cardiac arrest and death. Regulatory officials knew of this risk but kept it secret on the grounds it was company property. This practice has to stop. And so, we must reframe the "pharmacare question" from one of access to one of access to what, exactly. Our gaze must turn upstream to the producers of pharmaceutical knowledge -- companies that have long insisted that unpublished information about drug safety and effectiveness must be held in confidence by the regulator. Yet, the problems with the way that private corporations decide which pharmaceutical interventions to develop and how run even deeper. Industry has a well-documented tendency to tweak the formulation of existing drugs in order to extend their financial rewards. There is insufficient research comparing the effectiveness of competing drug treatments because drug-makers have weak incentives to demonstrate the real value of their products. Meanwhile, drug firms are shifting their focus to rare diseases. This shift may be driven less by concerns that those diseases have been traditionally marginalized, and more by the fact that the path to market for rare disease drugs tends be faster and cheaper, while the price of many of these drugs is exceptionally high. In addition, Canada's public funding for research has, over several years, been increasingly aligned with industry's goals and practices. A slew of policy initiatives from every level of government emphasize commercializing research. In this environment, the ability of publicly funded science to advance valuable pharmaceutical interventions instead of product line extensions, or independently scrutinize the evidence base behind such interventions, may be compromised. In pharmaceutical research, a wholesale rethink of the incentives, criteria, and processes for rewarding and carrying out drug research is needed. Pharmacare is not a fake fix; it represents major reform with the potential to positively influence pharmaceutical manufacturers by forcing them to provide stronger evidence of the therapeutic value of their products relative to existing ones. But absent fundamental changes in the way pharmaceutical research is rewarded, shared, and scrutinized, any new formulary will be a half measure. Those working on pharmacare need to think bigger: not only in terms of how federal, provincial and territorial governments can cooperate to create a national formulary, but also in terms of how such an institution can be designed in parallel with changes in pharmaceutical regulation and research. Health Canada now has the power to share unpublished pharmaceutical information with researchers and other governmental bodies, including a national formulary if it's created. The regulator can also attach real, enforceable post-market monitoring conditions to drug company product licenses, which is especially important for informing formulary evaluations of those interventions as real world evidence about the benefits and harms of a drug accumulates. In practice, neither is happening adequately. In pharmaceutical research, a wholesale rethink of the incentives, criteria, and processes for rewarding and carrying out drug research is needed. We need to hit the reset button so that universities are not in the business of recklessly promoting research and funding support for investigator-led and controlled drug trials and essential groups like Cochrane Canada is restored. To improve access not just to drugs, but better drugs, pharmacare has to help drive these additional, but interconnected, institutional changes. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on FacebookFood banks might allow Canadians to support hungry people in their community, but nutrition professor Valerie Tarasuk argued on CBC's Metro Morning that more action from the government is needed to really help solve food insecurity. "We have examples of social policy that enables people to feed themselves and their children," said Tarasuk, who teaches at the University of Toronto. "What's hard is breaking the sound barrier with governments." A Statistics Canada report released last year suggested that food insecurity rates have remained stable in Canada over the last five years. But Tarasuk said the numbers are still staggering. "One in eight households is struggling to put food on the table because of affordability issues," she said. Majority of food insecure people are employed "When we look at who is food insecure, there absolutely are people on social assistance, but on top of that, we have a huge problem with food insecurity among people in the workforce," said Tarasuk. She estimates the two-thirds of the people who are struggling to put food on the table are employed, but are unable to buy the food they need due to low wages or part-time and precarious work. "We can look at isolated pockets of the problem and say we need [better] social assistance. But a basic income would reach everybody," she said. Basic income, which would guarantee a minimum annual income, is set to be tested by the Ontario government in a $25-million dollar pilot project before April 2017. Need inspiration? Look to the Old Age Security pension Tarasuk said that lawmakers could look to the example of the Old Age Security pension that kicks in at age 65 as a blueprint for how basic income could impact food insecurity. "No matter what you've done for the last 65 years, at that point you become eligible for old age security and a guaranteed income supplement, and full drug coverage. At that point, you suddenly have an income floor that is indexed to inflation. And even though that income floor is not as high as the poverty line, it's still more than double of what people on welfare are getting," she said. "Researchers showed that looking at single, low-income Canadian adults in their 50s, maybe 40 per cent are food insecure. At 65, it drops by more than half." CBC Toronto's annual charity drive in support of Toronto-area food banks began on Nov. 1. The yearly open house will be held on Friday, Dec. 2. More information about the charity drive is available here.Cynthia Louise "Cindy" Brown (born March 16, 1965) is a retired American women's basketball player, at the college, Olympic and professional levels. Brown was a member of the USA Basketball team which went on to win a gold medal at the Pan American Games in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1987,[1] and the gold medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.[2] She was also a member of the gold medal winning team for the USA at the 1985 World University Games, and the 1986 World Championship team.[3][4] College career [ edit ] Born in Portland, Oregon, Brown played basketball for Long Beach State University between 1983 and 1987.[5] As a senior, she set two NCAA scoring records—the most points in a single season (974) and the most points in a single game (60).[5] The 60 point game was against San Jose State, a game Long Beach would win 149–69.[6][7] Brown was a member of the Final Four All-Tournament team in 1987, and earned first team All-America honors in 1986 and 1987.[5] Long Beach State University statistics [ edit ] Source[8] Legend GP Games played GS Games started MPG Minutes per game FG% Field goal percentage 3P% 3-point field goal percentage FT% Free throw percentage RPG Rebounds per game APG Assists per game SPG Steals per game BPG Blocks per game PPG Points per game Bold Career high Year Team GP Points FG% FT% RPG APG PPG 1984 Long Beach State 30 318 55.4% 63.3% 6.6 NA 10.6 1985 Long Beach State 30 599 58.9% 68.1% 10.0 2.9 20.0 1986 Long Beach State 33 805 59.6% 69.5% 10.2 2.5 24.4 1987 Long Beach State 35 974 57.9% 78.9% 9.9 2.6 27.8 Career 128 2696 58.3% 72.1% 9.3 2.0 21.1 Professional career [ edit ] Because the U.S. lacked a women's pro league, Brown played professionally in Europe and Japan for almost a decade.[5] She played for: Sidis Ancona (Italy) 1987–1988 [5] Toshiba Yana Gi Cho (Japan) 1988–1992 [5] Faenza Errieti Club (Italy) 1992–1994 [5] Elizur Holon (Israel) 1994–1996[5] She was selected by the Seattle Reign in the second round of the ABL Draft on June 19, 1996. A 6'-1" center/power forward, a tenacious rebounder and a strong inside scoring presence, Brown earned Second Team All-ABL honors following the 1996–97 season.[5] She was assigned to the site of her college success, the expansion Long Beach Stingrays on April 26, 1997. Before she ever reported to Long Beach, however, Brown signed with the rival WNBA. The WNBA allocated Brown to the Detroit Shock prior to the 1998 season.[5] In her first season with the Shock, she finished second in the WNBA in rebounding, and was named to the 1998 All-WNBA Second Team. Brown broke the Shock franchise record at Utah on August 10 by grabbing 21 rebounds in a game against Utah (a record which Cheryl Ford tied on June 22, 2003 at Connecticut, and which Ford broke on May 22, 2004 when she snagged 22 boards at San Antonio). On July 29, 1999, midway through her second WNBA season, Brown was traded, along with Korie Hlede, to the Utah Starzz,[9] for Wendy Palmer and Olympia Scott-Richardson. Brown played only 9 games for Utah, and retired from the WNBA following the 1999 season. Notes [ edit ] References [ edit ]26th December 2015 New genes associated with extreme longevity identified A new Big Data statistical method has identified five longevity loci, providing clues about the physiological mechanisms of successful aging. Centenarians – that is, people who live to be 100 or more – make up around 0.1% of the 40 million U.S. adults aged 65 and older. These individuals demonstrate successful aging as they remain active and alert even at very old ages. In a study this month, scientists at Stanford University and the University of Bologna have uncovered new clues about the basis for longevity, by finding genetic loci associated with extreme lifespans. Previous research has indicated that centenarians have health and dietary habits similar to the average person, suggesting that factors in their genetic make-up could contribute to successful aging. However, prior studies have identified only a single gene (APOE, known to be involved in Alzheimer's) that was different in centenarians versus normal agers. The results from this latest study indicate that, in fact, several disease variants may be absent in centenarians versus the general population. Disease GWAS show substantial genetic overlap with longevity. Shown are results for coronary artery disease and Alzheimer's disease. The y-axis is the observed P values for longevity, and the x-axis is the expected P values under the null hypothesis that the disease is independent of longevity. Cyan, blue and purple lines show the P values for longevity of the top 100, 250, and 500 disease SNPs from independent genetic loci, respectively. Red lines show the background distribution of longevity P values for all independent genetic loci tested in both the longevity and disease GWAS. The grey diagonal line corresponds to threshold for nominal significance (P< = 0.05) for longevity. The report by Kristen Fortney and colleagues, published in PLOS Genetics, is an example of using Big Data to glean information about an extremely complicated trait such as longevity. To find the longevity genes, they first developed a new statistical method, known as informed genome-wide association studies (iGWAS). This took advantage of existing data from 14 diseases to narrow the search for genes associated with longevity. By using their iGWAS method, the scientists found five longevity loci, providing valuable clues about the physiological mechanisms for healthy aging. These loci are known to be involved in various processes – including cell senescence, autoimmunity and cell signalling, as well as Alzheimer's disease. The incidence of nearly all diseases increases with age, so understanding the genetic factors for successful aging could have a large impact on health. Future work may lead to a better understanding of precisely how these genes enable successful aging. Future studies could also identify additional longevity genes by recruiting a greater number of centenarians for analysis. Comments »Byelections come in many shapes and sizes. Sometimes they pass without notice. Often the victors are a foregone conclusion. They rarely change the political weather of the nation, notwithstanding the hype. About the only consistent trait is the fevered enthusiasm with which Lib Dems participate in every byelection available. Ignored, derided or outgunned by our larger opponents on the national stage, byelections give us a precious electoral Petri dish in which we can finally compete on a level playing field. In Witney, thousands of Lib-Dem activists will descend on David Cameron’s constituency to challenge his 25,000-vote majority. Liz Leffman, our superb parliamentary candidate – a local councillor and successful businesswoman – has been omnipresent. Lib-Dem leaflets have rained down on unsuspecting doormats across the length and breadth of the constituency. Inevitably, our exertions are somewhat patronisingly portrayed as the frenetic response of a party still reeling from the drubbing meted out to us in the general election last year. Witney byelection: Labour and Lib Dems hope to cash in on Tory divisions Read more But maybe – just maybe – something else is going on. When I visited a farm in Witney recently I was struck how, as we stood in lush Oxfordshire pastures admiring a herd of cattle grazing in near perfect bucolic harmony, the fearful prospect of a “hard” Brexit dominated the conversation. I didn’t ask, but my strong impression was that the family I was visiting had never contemplated voting anything other than Conservative in the past. Indeed, the national status and personable charm of their outgoing MP would have retained an irresistible appeal for such farming voters. But their unease at what is happening to our country – and what may happen to their family farm – was palpable. What will happen to rural subsidies? Will farm exports be checked at the border? What effect will the plummeting pound have on the price of fertilisers? Why is the government still not providing answers to even the most elementary questions? These anxious queries are repeated in myriad ways across a constituency that mixes traditional farming with hi-tech startups and a world-beating Formula One industrial cluster. A majority of local voters might traditionally vote Conservative, but a majority voted for remain on 23 June too. And they have been telling Lib-Dem canvassers in growing numbers that they do not want to be railroaded towards an economically self-harming “hard Brexit” by Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and David Davis. They are desperate to see a sensible, balanced approach to our future outside the EU. They are increasingly dismayed by the needless turbulence created by a Conservative party that appears – once again – more intent on talking to itself rather than serving the long-term interests of the country. Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I would urge any Green, Labour and moderate Conservative voter in Witney to set aside their traditional party loyalties and support Liz Leffman.’ Photograph: Tom Pilston for the Guardian Could this carry Liz Leffman across the winning line? Unlikely – if not wholly impossible, as there is no other candidate from any other party remotely near challenging the Conservatives. Not only would it represent a Lazarus-like resurrection for the Lib Dems, the likes of which we haven’t seen in a generation, it would also require a spectacularly sudden and wholesale collapse of support for the Conservatives. Such sudden abandonment of political parties in government tends only to happen when people are directly feeling the detrimental economic effects of their policies – that may well happen in the next few years, but at present it is an anticipated fear rather than a lived reality for many people in Witney. But even if such a dramatic upset does not occur today, a strong challenge to Conservative hegemony by the Lib Dems in Witney could nonetheless send a powerful message straight to Theresa May: don’t take your own people for granted, they don’t like the unyielding manner in which you appear to have interpreted the referendum vote; don’t throw the single market baby out with the EU bathwater, the value of people’s jobs and livelihoods cannot be entirely subjugated to the issue of immigration; you may be politically insulated from any meaningful political accountability by a phalanx of aggressive support in the Brexit press, but remember it’s voters not newspaper editors to whom you are ultimately answerable. So I would urge any Green, Labour and moderate Conservative voter in Witney to set aside their traditional party loyalties and support Liz Leffman as the only candidate able to challenge the hard Brexit-supporting Conservative candidate. I realise I may not be the most obvious person to appeal to Labour voters but we all now operate in an entirely altered political environment. The livid anger of the coalition years between Labour and the Lib Dems – the former condemning every compromise as a betrayal, the latter every denunciation as a denial of economic reality – has now been supplanted by a huge chasm between openness and introversion where we broadly find ourselves on the same side in favour of openness. British politics is hugely fluid and unpredictable right now. We have a prime minister without a mandate of her own presiding over a hardline Brexit government that is ignoring the deep fractures in a country crying out for more unity, not further division. A vote for Liz Leffman today in Witney could help to tip the balance back to greater reason and moderation.Android Basics: User Interface Learn the basics of Android and Java programming, and take the first step on your journey to becoming an Android developer! This course is designed for students who are new to programming, and want to learn how to build Android apps. You don’t need any programming experience to take this course. If you’ve been using a smartphone to surf the web and chat with friends, then you’re our perfect target student! Learning anything new can be tough. We will walk you through the process of making Android apps, but to get the most out of this course, you must bring your enthusiasm for learning, and budget time on your calendar to learn with us. By the end of this course, you will have learned how to build an app’s layout and then practiced those skills by making a birthday card app. If you’re curious about the road even farther ahead, these are the free courses that make up the Android Basics Nanodegree, in order:A young man travels with a female companion in a semi-private train compartment they share with strangers including a single gal.The jolts and shocks of train travel are too much to handle for the hard-working young man, who is tormented by a headache and doesn't believe in suffering in silence. His plight brings out the Florence Nightingale in his fellow passenger.The young lady catches him out of his wife/girlfriend's sight and relieves him of his pain with her handy Amrutranjan roll-on balm. She applies it vigorously, as he purrs and moans in ecstasy.When comes time for lights-out, the young man insists his lady-friend occupy top berth so he can take the bottom, right across from Florence, and spend the rest of the night expressing his gratitude. And they all live happily ever after.Well, not really, that would be absurd. "Extra marital pain relief, is that what they are talking about?" asks a baffled Bobby Pawar, chief creative officer, JWT India "These are the sort of bad jokes that drunken people tell each other. They shouldn't be filmed." Too late! Every bit is on film and this, a fairly recent campaign from 118-year-old health-care brand Amrutanjan. Combine it with the ‘What An Ass’ and ‘Don't Tag Me’ from Flying Machine and the online driven ‘Don’t stare at my T_ _s’ campaign for Fastrack, and we are prompted to resurrect the question "does sex sell in advertising?" The fact that it does has already impressed itself with sickening clarity on human kind.But this tale isn't about Indian advertising surviving puberty and emerging at the other end wiser and worldlier. It seems the hormones are wreaking havoc still. Naturally, now we must ask how much is too much and, perhaps, more importantly, should commercials have helpful viewer appropriate cues too? "Warning: Do not watch if parents in the vicinity. Rated A - Awkward" (it's just a thought).Indeed categories such as deodorants (commercials for brands like Axe Set Wet Zatak and Wild Stone, for instance, are infamous), innerwear (the Amul Macho 'Toing' ad got many knickers in a twist), contraceptives and condoms ( Kamasutra and more recently a global campaign for Moods titled 'Your time, your place'), among others, have explored this genre of creative to its fullest.However, over the years, more marketers across categories, and not just the usual suspects, are negotiating the precincts of what is acceptable — sexual innuendos, male fantasies, female fantasies, skin, more skin, all of the above.According to Mythili Chandrasekar, senior VP and executive planning director, JWT, "Sexuality and innuendo work in any category that is part of sexual 'preparation'." This explanation accounts for lingerie, personal products, cosmetics, contraceptives, et cetera. "In fact'makes me feel sexually attractive' becomes the key pay off. If sensuality is part of a food product too, it works," says Chandrasekar. Consider for instance American reality TV star Kim Kardashian devouring a salad. Clearly, salads can be sexy. But, not always! For instance, who would have thought an ad for a beverage brand like Mirinda could be naughty? We didn't. But that was before we saw the latest commercial titled 'caught in the act' for Pepsi's orange coloured drink (though the result was more distressing than desirable.)The ad is an accumulation of shots featuring people of all sorts emerging from rooms, dark corners and park benches dishevelled and gasping. Of course, they weren't on a marathon run or on the run from a posse of police armed with stout clubs, silly. The lot was left breathless because they couldn't stop drinking the beverage till the bottle was empty. Then there are others who are more brazen beasts.Watch and lifestyle brand Fastrack had a young lady slowly and patiently undressing herself while she waited for her boyfriend (at least we think that was the nature of that relationship) to hang up the telephone and hook up with her. Alas, it was clear the conversation was more engaging. This particular series, starring Genelia and cricketer Virat Kohli, continues with just a few venue changes — there's the time in the ATM booth and on another occasion in a cockpit.At 30,000 feet she's in for a spot of luck. And then there's Britannia's Bourbon biscuit that was so irresistible for another young lady that she made actress Meg Ryan's 'faking an orgasm in Katz's Deli' scene from the 1989 hit film When Harry Met Sally seem like a Disney clip. Alright, so maybe that's a bit of a stretch; the fully-clothed Ryan was, after all, rather convincing.But it wasn't the first time Britannia exposed its wanton side for general viewing. In 2009 after a long hiatus the company launched a series of print ads for Bourbon. One ad ran with the line: ‘When In Rome, Do The Romans’. That's right, no typo that one. It received positive reviews generally. But medium does matter and sex in television commercials make ads cringe-worthy more often than not.Furthermore, in cases where sexual provocation and sleaze are not the category-code, so to speak, a spot can quickly turn into "a one-night stand with a brand" as Scarecrow's co-founder Manish Bhatt puts it, rather eloquently. True we are all sexual creatures and are genetically coded, designed if you will, to respond to subliminal or explicit sexual stimuli. However, when it comes to advertising, is using sex to sell your wares strategically right for brands where sex is not inherent in the brand vocabulary, in any measure? Consider Amrutanjan. If you aren't familiar with the yellow ointment in the little bottle that will annihilate your aches and pains, ask your parents, or even your grandparents, they'll know. (Just remember our fair ad warning at
do so. Accordingly, this Court should disallow the taxation of costs and disbursements to the Contestants to the extent Contestee has inadequately described his costs or it deems them unnecessary or unreasonable.... III. CONCLUSION For the foregoing reasons, Contestants respectfully request that this Court disallow Contestee's costs and disbursements to the extent he has improperly classified them as "costs," inadequately described them, or failed to justify them as necessary and reasonable. Dated: May 8, 2009 Source: Contestants Objections to Contestees Bill of Costs and Disbursements via MNCourts.gov [PDF] Unsurprisingly, the Coleman campaign essentially argued that the Franken campaign did not adequately provide needed detail. The brunt of their argument can be summarized with the following quote from the third page, "[t]he burden is on the prevailing party [Franken] to show that its claimed costs are necessary and reasonable." The Coleman campaign also took issue with the expedited status of the many transcripts and witness filing fees that the Franken campaign incurred. From a details point of view, the Coleman filing did not contain any attached exhibits or material evidence supporting any of their claims. The Franken campaign responded on May 13th in 9 pages by addressing each of their claims and Coleman's associated refutations. The Coleman campaign did not refute each item as the Franken campaign noted $5,392 worth of requested disbursements lacking objections. The introduction and conclusion of Franken's response is excerpted below as posted on the MNCourts site on May 21st: Contestee Al Franken ("Contestee") respectfully submits that his costs should be awarded and in the full amount requested pursuant to Minn. R. Civ. P. 54.04. Contestee has submitted a sworn affidavit and numerous invoices documenting costs and disbursements necessarily incurred, as required. Contestants have submitted no affidavit in response. Nor have they suggested that the total amount requested is unreasonable for a complex, seven-week, exhibit-intensive trial. Instead, they raise a series of ill-founded objections, all of which should be rejected. Contestee's costs were reasonably incurred, necessary to the defense of Contestants' lawsuit, and are fully recoverable under Rule 54.... For all of these reasons, Contestee submits that the full amount itemized in the Bill of Costs and Disbursements should be taxed to Contestants. The costs were reasonably incurred, necessary for the presentation of relevant and admissible evidence at trial, and should be awarded to Contestee as the prevailing party in this action pursuant to Rule 54.04. Dated: May 13, 2009 Source: Contestees Response to Contestants Objections to Bill of Costs and Disbursements via MNCourts.gov [PDF] The ECC issued their ruling today by awarding the Franken campaign roughly two-thirds of their requested disbursements. The publicly available filing from the ECC is fairly terse and without details; the entire document is quoted below: You are hereby notified that a judgment has been entered in the above entitled matter Pursuant to The Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order for Judgment, Judge Elizabeth A. Hayden, Judge Kurt J. Marben and Judge Denise D. Reilly dated April 13, 2009. Judgment Information Entered Date: April 14, 2009 Debtor(s): Cullen Sheehan; Norm Coleman. Creditor(s): At Franken Monetary Award: Monetary Amount: $94,783.15 A true and correct copy of this notice has been served by mail upon the parties. Please be advised that notices sent to attorneys are sent to the lead attorney only. *Pursuant to MSA 548.09, Judgment shall be docketed upon the filing of an Affidavit of Identification of Judgment Debtor* Note: Costs and interest will accrue on any money judgment amounts from the date of entry until the judgment is satisfied in full. Dated: June 10, 2009 Source: Notice of Entry of Judgment Taxation of Costs via MNCourts.gov [PDF] The ECC order appears to retroactively take effect on April 14th and requires the Coleman campaign to pay $94,783.15 in reimbursements to the Franken campaign. I am unsure as to when the "date of entry" officially begins; the interest rate on any delinquent payments is also not explicitly given. The ECC may have also provided additional documentation that has not yet been made available. A decision from the MN Supreme Court is still pending, but according to John Kostouros the Director of Communications for the Judicial Branch, their opinion "will be released during normal business hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday-Friday)." Until this unknown date occurs, political posturing will continue as several outside groups have filed additional lawsuits relating to the MN Senate Election. While the outcome rests solely in the hands of the MN Supreme Court, the battle for public opinion never ends. I'll try to detail these auxiliary lawsuits later next week, after completing the necessary research. Published on June 11st at 11:09 PM CT :: 0 Comments The Minnesota Supreme Court convened today at 9 AM CT for the oral arguments associated with Norm Coleman's election appeal. The proceedings lasted approximately 69 minutes; upon their conclusion, each candidate's representation addressed the media on the second floor of the Minnesota Judicial Building. The unabridged oral arguments follow as publicly provided by the Minnesota Judicial Branch and Twin Cities Public Television; low bandwidth audio from within the chamber is also available: Video:.WMV, 01:08:47, 78.1 MB [Mirror: TPT.org] Audio: All files are.WAV, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 Coleman's lead attorney, Joseph Friedberg began the hearing with what was supposed to be a ten minute introduction. Ten minutes turned into thirty as the five judge panel peppered Coleman's representation with questions and critiques. Despite the barrage of questions, the most telling exchanged occurred in the opening moments of the hearing: Justice Page: We have one case for argument this morning, in the matter of the contest of general election held on November 4, 2008 for the purpose of electing a United States Senator from the State of Minnesota. Mr. Friedberg I see you have reserved 10 minutes for rebuttal. Joseph Friedberg [Coleman]: With the court's permission your honor. Justice Page: You may proceed when you are ready. Mr. Friedberg: Morning and may it please this court; my name is Joe Friedberg, I represent [Norm Coleman]. Let me begin by saying that Minnesota is quite different from many states. We have problems within our institutions and when we do, we deal with them candidly and openly, we don't minimize them or sweep 'em under the rug to be discovered later by a federal court during 1983 litigation. That's why finding of fact 47 of the trial court is so surprising. Announcing that we are proud of rejecting only 0.5% of our total ballots cast in November is misleading at best. The only ballots that get rejected are absentee ballots; and our officials rejected 4% of them; 12,000 citizens who made good faith efforts to vote were disenfranchised for a variety--. Justice Page: Did these 12,000 citizens comply with the absentee ballot voter requirements. Mr. Friedberg: Many of them did substantially your honor, many of them did. Justice Page: Substantially? What does that mean? Source: Minnesota Judicial Branch [Mirror: TPT.org] The remainder of Mr. Friedberg's opening address revolved around Justice Page's seemingly rhetorical, yet legally unanswered question quoted above. The arguments meandered from justice to justice as Friedberg attempted to answer each question. Justice Anderson, Dietzen, Gildea and Meyer each took issue with the Coleman campaign's lack of evidentiary support with regard to their inconsistent application of the strict vs. substantial compliance argument. Justice Meyer prominently entered the fray with this exchange toward the end of Mr. Friedberg's initial rebuttal: Justice Meyer: Where is evidence from the overwhelming majority of the counties and cities? Mr. Friedberg: Every auditor we called, as I recall, made exceptions [to the admittance of absentee ballots]. Now I think we only called 26 or 27--. Justice Meyer: And we have 87 counties, we are reviewing the work of a panel of three trial court judges here and they took evidence. Where is the evidence? Even as you called, as you said, you didn't even call witnesses from a majority of Minnesota's counties. You are asking us to presume, based on the testimony from a sampling of counties that that practice is applied to a majority of the counties. Source: Minnesota Judicial Branch [Mirror: TPT.org] Friedberg responded by hesitantly referencing the assumed equality of populations within Bush vs. Gore to compare the "relaxed standard in Brower County with the unrelaxed standard in Palm Beach." Friedberg would then go on to state that "we have made our case" when "Plymouth kicks out 75 for signature mismatches and 31 counties in the state kick out none." I think Friedberg has a valid point from a mathematical standpoint if true; the Plymouth scenario presents a significant outlier and the aforementioned sampling of "26 or 27" counties represent a statistically sound sampling of all 87 counties. An inconsistent application of absentee ballot compliance in "26 or 27" counties would indicate to me, although devoid of legal rigor, that a problem existed, regardless of the remaining 50 or so counties. Whether the Coleman campaign adequately provided evidence to support this claim is vague at best. Mr. Friedberg's time expired and Marc Elias, Franken's lead attorney, stepped up to the podium whereupon stating his name received his first question from Justice Page: Justice Page: Council, before you get to that finding of fact, let me ask you a question. Hopefully council for the other side will be able to respond to this on the rebuttal. To the extent that the United States Senate will make the ultimate decision here, and the extent that they don't have to follow what we do. How do we issue an opinion, without it being an advisory opinion? In essence, do we have authority to do anything here? Marc Elias [Franken]: Your Honor, this question was raised with the district court as to whether the court had jurisdiction. The court found, and we believe appropriately so, that the court had jurisdiction to determine who received the most lawful votes, even though the Senate has within its jurisdiction to decide who is seated. Source: Minnesota Judicial Branch [Mirror: TPT.org] Elias would then go onto quote a South Dakota case involving Tom Daschle from his days as a Congressman. The referenced case was eventually linked to a Supreme Court decision stating that so long as the state process does not impede the US Senate, the state court is not "deprived of jurisdiction." The MNSC clearly has the power to declare a winner under Minnesota Statute, but the US Senate is under no obligation to act in accordance with any decision. The issuance of an election certificate for the sole purpose of full representation is irrelevant to the Supreme Court's present responsibility; an election certificate will apparently only be issued upon the thorough completion of the appeals process. The sole duty of the MN Supreme Court is to determine the candidate who received the largest number of legally cast votes, not to ensure federal representation or for any other purpose. Elias would then go on to perform a small bit of math in the hopes of illustrating the futility of the Appellants' case: Mr. Elias: From the March 31st order of the trial court, in which [the Coleman campaign] held that of all the rejected absentee ballots, the parties proved registration for approximately 650; 650 of all of the ballots presented to the court. That's voter registration, that's not all of the other requirements that appellants now have complaints about. But this is the most fundamental requirement, that the voter be registered. Of those 650, 351 were opened and counted. So the universe of ballots, properly plead and about which this trial took place, stands at 299. Now, obviously the margin separating the two candidates is 312. As a result, even if everyone of the three-hundred or so ballots, for which voter registration was proven, doesn't mean the witness was registered, doesn't mean that the certificate was completed, it doesn't mean that they only cast one ballot, but that they were at least registered. Even if all three-hundred of those were for the appellant, and even if all three-hundred met all other requirements, it would still be impossible for the appellants to make up the difference. Source: Minnesota Judicial Branch [Mirror: TPT.org] The remainder of Elias' time was spent discussing the finer points of due process and equal protection. Elias contended that the discrepancies between each county served to "grease the joints" of election reporting. He later defended any breach of due process or equal protection on the grounds that the inconsistencies were not intentional or systematic and could therefore not be classified as in bad faith or fraudulent as required within Bush vs. Gore. Elias concluded his presentation by stating that election officials used "the different tools, available to them in the different jurisdictions" to "administer a fair election" within the confines of the law. Mr. Friedberg then returned to the podium for the final fifteen minute stint and made three main assertions before the court adjourned. He first presented the varying processes by which each county voided an invalid ballot, thus potentially creating cases where the voter was registered, but their vote was not counted due to a failure to comply with another statutory requirement. Friedberg then reasoned that these registered voters should have their vote counted based upon the application of substantial compliance. Justice Page then questioned the lack of evidence presented by the Coleman campaign specifically relating to these uniquely registered and rejected voters. Friedberg countered by stating that the ECC would not accept the evidence despite his effort, to the point of "test[ing] the trial court's patience." Justice Anderson then explicitly asked Friedberg if their were any instances of fraud. Friedberg responded by simply stating "absolutely not" and added that there was no fraud of any kind; election, voter or otherwise. During Elias' statement, Justice Deitzen began to muddle through the messy statute associated with the challenging of ballots; Deitzen would later finished his line of questioning with Friedberg at the helm. Although the statute is not definitive, the application, as implement by the Attorney General during the recount, precluded either campaign from challenging the inclusion of any absentee ballot. This meant that once an absentee ballot was included by an election official for any reason, it would be opened and counted. This practice differed from the in-person portion of the recount in which the campaigns were allowed to challenge the election officials' ruling. Upon conclusion of the hearing, Norm Coleman and Joseph Friedberg jointly addressed the media: Video:.WMV, 09:37, 158MB The general gist of Coleman's address was that there are voters who have not had their vote counted, and are therefore disenfranchised; until they are enfranchised the campaign will continue to represent the interests of these 4,400 voters. This statement seems to align with Friedberg's opening remarks. Mr. Friedberg cited Minnesota's Judicial history of addressing all problems before they reach the federal level. Drawing from this prior statement it seems logical to conclude that if the MNSC does not address all of the problems, the Coleman campaign will seek federal relief. Marc Elias then addressed the media after the Coleman procession exited the foyer: Video:.WMV, 04:19, 71.1MB Marc Elias' brief address was followed up by a few soft questions from the media. Elias basically reiterated that he was confident of a Franken victory, but that he had no specific timeline in mind for a Supreme Court decision. If I had to guess at a timeline I would say by July 4th, but I really have no idea; the whole ordeal could drag out even further depending on what the MNSC concludes. Coleman's best case scenario is for the ECC to resume the trial with different rules and Franken's best case scenario is an outright win. Its also possible for this to end up in federal court as discussed above. I doubt very much will happen within the next two weeks. I also stopped by the Ramsey County Court House to obtain some other court documents that I'll hopefully be able to post sooner rather than later. Published on June 1st at 4:13 PM CT :: 2 Comments The Coleman campaign filled their brief with the Minnesota Supreme Court on April 30th, the last possible day for submission. An overview of the 62 page document is excerpted below: ISSUES PRESENTED ON APPEAL 1) Whether the trial court erred in excluding evidence regarding (a) the disparate application by election officials of the statutory standard governing absentee ballots and (b) the presence of illegal votes in the certified vote totals? Trial Court's Ruling: Such evidence was irrelevant to whether the ballots before it were legally cast. Apposite Authorities: Minn. Stat. § 209.12; U.S. Const. amend. XIV. 2) Whether the trial court violated the constitutional protections of equal protection and due process when it declared Respondent received the highest number of "legally cast votes" where the record demonstrated the number of "illegally cast" ballots, under the court's own definition, that were counted on election day and during the recount greatly exceeded the margin between the candidates? Trial Court's Ruling: Already-counted absentee ballots, even if illegal under the court's own definition, were properly included in the tally because Minnesota law does not provide any remedy for retracting such ballots from vote totals and the Fourteenth Amendment does not require that similar ballots in the same election be treated the same. Apposite Authorities: Minn. Stat. § 209.12; Hanson v. Emanuel, 297 N.W. 749 (Minn. 1941); Berg v. Veit, 162 N.W. 522 (Minn. 1917); Roe v. State of Alabama, 43 F.3d 574, 581 (lith Cir. 1995); Griffin v. Burns, 570 F.2d 1065, 1078 (lst Cir. 1978); U.S. Const. amend. XIV. 3) Whether the trial court violated the constitutional protections of equal protection and due process when it imposed a strict compliance standard for rejected absentee ballots rather than a substantial compliance standard like that actually applied by election officials (and in accord with this Court's longstanding policy favoring enfranchisement)? Trial Court's Ruling: Rejected absentee ballots that do not strictly comply with the statutory requirements may not be included as "legally cast" ballots regardless of whether election officials also followed a strict compliance standard. Apposite Authorities: Fitzgerald v. Morlock, 120 N.W.2d 339, 345-47 (Minn. 1963); Andersen v. Rolvaag, 119 N.W.2d 1,10 (Minn. 1962); In re Contest of School District Election, 431 N.W.2d 911,915 (Minn. Ct. App. 1988); Minn. Stat. § 203B.12; Erlandson v. Kiffmeyer, 659 N.W.2d 724, 729 (Minn. 2003); Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000); U.S. Const. amend XIV. 4) Whether the trial court erred in declining to order inspections of precincts in which double-counting may have occurred during the recount? Trial Court's Ruling: Inspections were not required and unnecessary. Apposite Authorities: Minn. Stat. § 209.06. 5) Whether the trial court erred in ruling missing ballots from a Minneapolis precinct were properly included in the final recount tally? Trial Court's Ruling: The court gave deference to the canvassing board's determination that election night totals from that precinct be included in the tally. Apposite Authorities: Newton v. Newell, 6 N.W. 346 (Minn. 1880). Dated: April 30, 2009 Source: Appellant's Brief [PDF] Coleman's initial brief "contains 13,751 words" across five sections and focuses on the five points outlined above; the document was also written in "13-point Times New Roman format," as detailed within the Certificate of Compliance at the end of the brief. I'll now provide a brief analysis of each of the five main points: 1. The basis of this argument is that if different ballots were subjective to different standards, all ballots were treated differently. Coleman argues that had the court allowed additional evidence, a more accurate definition of a legally cast vote would have been ascertained. The Coleman campaign did not however provide any specific evidence, in this brief, to illustrate that the correlation between inconsistent standards caused any discrepancy in the final vote count. The ECC excluded this evidence because the Coleman campaign did not show that specific ballots were miscounted. 2. The "Coleman [campaign] ultimately compiled that evidence in written offers of...more than 425 illegally cast absentee ballots counted on election day. See, e.g., A.570-591; A.709-919." This number of 425 is larger than the current margin of 312, but election history and apportionment would indicate that a much larger number of illegally cast and counted votes would be required to alter the outcome; especially given the apparent randomness of the illegally counted ballots proposed by Coleman. 3. Each and every ballot that was counted by an election official, using any standard, could have been presented to the ECC for review by the Coleman campaign. The very purpose of the ECC is to act as the final arbiter for any contention raised by any participating party; their jurisdiction implies the existence of a uniform standard. If a ballot is presented to the ECC it receives uniform treatment under the strict compliance standard; if a given ballot is not alleged to contain errors, it is assumed to have been properly counted by the local election official under the strict compliance standard as dictated under MN Law. If a uniform standard was not applied by the local election officials, it was the responsibility of the Coleman campaign to flag the error for correction by the ECC; a mechanism which satisfies equal protection. 4. The Coleman campaign never presented any compelling evidence to suggest that double counting occurred. They presented a fairly limited number of precincts exhibiting overcounts (more votes than voters) and attempted to imply that double counting only occurred to the detriment of candidate Coleman; they did not however provide any concrete reasoning to support this claim either through evidence or witness testimony. Their double counting argument might have been more effective had they addressed all [PDF] overcounted precincts. Lets also not forget that the MNSC previously issued a non-binding order, before the ECC, addressing the flimsiness of the double counting evidence presented by the Coleman campaign. 5. The MN State Canvassing Board determined that the Election Night totals from Minneapolis W3-P1 should be used due to missing ballots and the ECC later adopted the Canvassing Board's stance. Without very compelling new evidence, which so far hasn't been presented, the MNSC is not going to overturn the opinion of these two election governing bodies. The Franken campaign's response on May 11th mirrored the organization of the Coleman's effort and also came on the last day of the designated timeline. The Franken response contains a direct rebuttal of the five previous points, as excerpted below: RESTATEMENT OF ISSUES PRESENTED 1) Whether the trial court acted within its discretion when it excluded cumulative and irrelevant evidence that would not have affected the outcome of the trial. Trial Court's Ruling: On multiple grounds, the evidence was properly excluded. Authorities: State v. AmoJ, 6.58 N.W.2d 201,203 (Minn. 2003); Minn. R. Civ. P. 61. 2) Whether the trial court acted within its discretion when it prohibited Appellants from presenting evidence that had never been disclosed in discovery, where the effect was to preclude a claim that was procedurally barred, factually unsupported, and without legal merit. Trial Court's Ruling: Appellants not only failed to meet their burden of proving that certain accepted absentee ballots affected the outcome of the election; they also waived these claims by failing to comply with discovery obligations. Authorities: Minn. Twim P'sbip v. Hatch,.592 N.W.2d 847, 850 (Minn. 1999); Hahn v. Graham, 225 N.W.2d 385,386 (Minn. 1975). 3) Whether the trial court was correct to judge the acceptability of absentee ballots under Minnesota statutes and case law, rather than under an invented standard that finds no support in the statutes, the Constitution, or the facts, where the party advocating the alternative, invented standard inadequately raised the claim and presented insufficient proof in support. Ruling: Appellants' claims fail on multiple grounds, and, in any event, Minnesota law governs the treatment of absentee ballots. Authorities: Cranford v. Marion County Election Bd., 128 S. Ct. 1610 (2008); Bell v. Gannaway, 227 N.W.2d 797 (Minn. 1975); Minn. Stat. §§ 203B.02 et seq. 4) Whether the trial court acted within its discretion when it determined that Appellants had failed to show a need for certain pretrial inspections. Trial Court's Ruling: On multiple grounds, Appellants failed to meet their burden. Authorities: Minn. Stat. § 209.06. 5) Whether the trial court properly refused to overturn the certification by the State Canvassing Board, where the latter had determined, after a hearing and on advice of the Attorney General, that the Election Day returns were the best evidence of the votes in a certain Minneapolis precinct. Ruling: The Board acted correctly and Appellants presented insufficient evidence to overturn its certification. Authorities: Moon v. Harris, 142 N.W. 12 (Minn. 1913). Dated: May 11, 2009 Source: Respondent's Brief [PDF] The Franken campaign basically took Coleman's argument and added a "no" or a "not" to the beginning and provided the typical supporting legal references. This is by no means unexpected, but it highlights the futility of Coleman's appeal. The Coleman campaign's best case scenario has shifted away from that of winning to that of not-losing; an invalidation seems to be their best case scenario. The Franken campaign is simply attempting to eliminate that possibility. On an interesting side note, the Franken response "contain[ed] 13,998 words" about 200 more than Coleman's first brief, but the Franken campaign chose to use the "Garamond font," instead of Times New Roman as the Coleman campaign used. The Coleman campaign responded with their reply brief on May 15th, again the last day of the deadline: CONCLUSION In order to satisfy Minn. Stat. § 209.12 and the constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process, the Court should vacate the order for judgment and reverse and remand with instructions to count the remaining absentee ballots cast by eligible voters who substantially complied with the directives of Minn. Stat. § 203B.12. Dated: May 15, 2009 Source: Appellant's Reply Brief [PDF] Parsing through all the legal pretense reveals the core of Coleman's strategy; to count sum "4,400" absentee ballots that have yet to be counted. Whether Coleman can legally justify the counting is a different matter; he seems to be using the one wrong needs another wrong to make a right approach. Illegal ballots were probably counted, and the only way to counteract the problem is by counting more illegally counted ballots. My pragmatic solution is take the 4,400 absentee ballots and separate them into piles of lawlessness; then you count the most legal pile, then the next most legal and so on and so forth until it matters, or perhaps it won't. The counting process would have to be done blindly so that only the MNSC would know the result of each pile. If the entire batch of 4,400 is iterated through, degree by degree, and Franken still leads, the legality is moot; grant Coleman's central request and then declare Franken the winner. If the counting of these 4,400 alters the outcome, then the lawyers can fight about whatever their side needs to fight about, but at least we know the legal battle has a purpose. Coleman is currently down by 312 votes, and I highly doubt he could overcome this deficit within the 4,400 currently rejected and likely illegally cast ballots his campaign seeks to enfranchise. The Coleman campaign's requested remedy may not even matter at this point, but its their best shot and both campaigns know it. Published on May 27th at 10:59 PM CT :: 0 Comments Last Friday the MN Supreme Court released their schedule for the MN Senate appeals process; the entire order is excerpted below: ORDER On Monday, April 20, 2009, appellants Cullen Sheehan and Norm Coleman filed a notice of appeal from the judgment entered by the three-judge panellin Ramsey County District Court in the above-referenced election contest On Tuesday, April 21, 2009, respondent AI Franken filed and served a motion for expedited briefing and proposed a particular briefing schedule; appellants filed a written response and proposed briefing schedule on Wednesday, April 22. The time for appeal by other parties expired on Thursday, April 23, 2009, and no other appeals have been filed. In accordance with Minn. Stat §§ 209.09, subd. 2, 209.10, subd. 4, and 209.12 (2008), the appeal shall proceed on an expedited basis. Based upon all the files, records and proceedings herein, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT: 1. Ramsey County District Court shall certify and file the record on appeal with the Clerk of Appellate Courts as expeditiously as possible, but in no event later than 15 days after the service of the notice of appeal on April 20, 2009. 2. Appellants shall serve and file their brief not later than Thursday, April 30, 2009; respondent shall serve and file his brief not later than Monday, May 11, 2009. Appellants may serve and file a reply brief not later than Friday, May 15, 2009. Briefs and appendices shall comply with the requirements of Minn. R. Civ. App, P. 128.02-.04, 130, 131.03, and 132.01. Briefs must be received by the Clerk of Appellate Courts by the deadlines noted to be timely filed. 3. Service by mail is permissible if a complete copy of the material is also transmitted to opposing counsel bye-mail or facsimile by the deadlines imposed herein. Each party shall notify the Clerk of Appellate Courts and opposing counsel of an e-mail address or facsimile number to which documents may be transmitted. 4. The court will hear argument on this matter commencing at 9:00 a.m., Monday, June 1,2009, in Courtroom 300, Minnesota Judicial Center, 25 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard, Saint Paul. Argument will proceed in accordance with the applicable provisions of Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 134. 5. Respondent's motion for expedited briefing is otherwise denied. Dated: April 24, 2009 Source: Order of Scheduling via MNCourts.gov The MNSC essentially adopted the Coleman campaign's requested timeline for briefing submissions while delaying the oral arguments for roughly two weeks beyond the final submission deadline. The first document is due this Thursday from the Coleman campaign with the Franken response due two weeks hence on the 11th of May. At that point the Coleman campaign will have 4 days to submit a final reply brief before the proceedings adjourn until June 1st; the day allocated for oral arguments. Published on April 28th at 3:27 AM CT :: 0 Comments Yesterday the Franken Campaign presented their pre-litigation timeline, and today the Coleman campaign responded: Appellants agree this is a time-sensitive case that should be resolved as expeditiously as possible, Appellants respectfully submit, however, that the parties, and the Court, must be given enough time to fully develop and consider the issues on appeal. Accordingly, Appellants respectfully request a slight modification to the briefing schedule proposed by Respondent as follows: 1. Opening brief of Appellants - April 30, 2009; 2. Opposition brief of Respondent - May 11, 2009; and 3. Reply brief - May 15, 2009. The Court may then schedule oral argument at a time convenient to it. Dated: April 22, 2009 Source: Appellants' Response to Respondent's Motion for Expedited Schedule via MNCourts.gov [PDF] The schedule above concludes on May 15th, a Friday, which seems to suggest that oral arguments would begin the following Monday, May 18th. The Coleman timeline is about two weeks longer than Franken's timeline; this discrepancy manifests itself at each stage of the pre-litigation process. It appears as though the Coleman campaign wants 3 more days to file their initial brief, above and beyond the schedule already outlined by the Franken campaign. It's also interesting to note that the Coleman schedule allows about ten days for the Franken response, while the Franken campaign only indicated that they would need five days. The Coleman campaign also increased their reply time by two days beyond Franken's proposition. It would make sense for the court to grant Coleman the additional time he is requesting for his own case, but to follow the schedule presented by Franken for deadlines that apply to Franken. It doesn't make sense to allocate ten days when they (Franken) said they could do it in five. I think the court will ultimately compromise between the two campaign's requests; thus resulting in an oral argument start date of May 11th. The Franken campaign also filed a motion with the MN Supreme Court today, although theirs was comparatively meaningless: David L Lillehaug does hereby move the Court, pursuant to Minn. R Civ. App, P 127 and 143.05, subd. 1, for admission of Marc E. Elias and Kevin J. Hamilton as attorneys pro hac vice to appear before this honorable Court on behalf of Respondent Al Franken in the above-captioned matter, This motion is based upon all files, records and proceedings herein, as well as the attached Affidavits of Marc E. Elias and Kevin J. Hamilton. This motion is submitted on the papers, and oral argument is expressly waived. Dated: April 22, 2009 Source: Respondents's Motion to Admit Attorney's Pro Hac Vice via MNCourts.gov [PDF] Marc Elias and Kevin Hamilton both actively participated in the Election Contest Court; this is simply a procedural motion that will grant these two attorneys the privilege of practicing law before the Minnesota Supreme Court. Marc Elias is registered with the DC Bar, while Kevin Hamilton is registered with the Washington State Bar. The MN Supreme Court will probably present the official appeal timeline/schedule within the next few days at which point the litigation process begins, again, although slightly different in nature and much shorter. Update [3:47 AM CT 4/24/2009]: The Supreme Court has granted Franken's request for the admission of two lawyers pro hac vice. This order really isn't a suprise, but I guess it brings the resolution just a little closer: ORDER Based upon all the files, records and proceedings herein, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the motion of David L Lillehaug to admit Marc E. Elias and Kevin J. Hamilton, Perkins Coie, LLP, pro hac vice in the above entitled matter be, and the same is, granted. Dated: April 23, 2009 Source: Order Granting Motion to Admit Attorneys Pro Hac Vice via MNCourts.gov [PDF] The bulk of the proceedings will occur out of court, through the exchange of filings, and will culminate with oral arguments presented by each campaign in public court. In previous MN Supreme Court cases relating to this election, the oral arguments have been scheduled for a single hour; the court may however allocate more time as they deem necessary. This is not a typical trial format, once the oral arguments conclude, the court will deliberate until a decision is reached. The schedule will effectively dictate the duration of the trial, unfortunately the court has not released their final timeline; but I'm sure its in the works. Published on April 23rd at 2:46 AM CT :: 0 Comments The Coleman campaign filed their motion for appeal yesterday, and today the Franken campaign responded with the following requests: Cullen Sheehan and Norm Coleman ("Appellants") have appealed the unanimous decision of the three-judge election contest court ("the District Court"), which, after a seven week trial, affirmed the unanimous Minnesota State Canvassing Board certification that Al Franken ("Respondent") received the highest number of votes in the 2008 general election for the office of United States Senator. Because of the overriding public interest in the expeditious handling and resolution of this historic matter, Respondent respectfully moves for an order that: 1. The record of the District Court proceedings be provided to the Court by the close of business tomorrow, Wednesday, April 22, 2008; 2. Briefing be expedited pursuant to the schedule below, so that the case will be ready for argument twelve calendar days following provision of the record, or Monday, May 4, 2008; and 3. A date for oral argument be set such that the case will be argued promptly after briefing is complete. This motion is made pursuant to Minn. Stat § 209.09, subds. 2 & 4, Minn. R. Civ App. P. 102 and 126, and the Court's inherent authority. GROUNDS FOR MOTION Under the United States Constitution, Minnesota is entitled to be represented by two United States Senators, Minnesota has been without its second Senator for more than 100 days, In a trial that lasted seven weeks, Appellants were given every opportunity to make their case to the District Court In its unanimous decision, the District Court declared that Respondent is entitled to the certificate of election. Now, because of the important public policy concern of ensuring that the interests of the citizens of Minnesota are properly represented in Congress, this appeal should be expedited.... 1. Expedite the Preparation and Filing of the Record.... 2. Expedite the Briefing Schedule.... Accordingly
government and bitter partisanship. Congress' major accomplishments tended to be legislation that mostly extended current policies, such as a highway bill, and legislation demanded by Obama to renew a 2 percentage point payroll tax cuts and extend student loan subsidies. Even this Congress' signature accomplishment -- a budget and debt deal enacted last summer to cut $2.1 trillion from the budget over 10 years -- delayed the most difficult decisions by assigning the supercommittee the job of finding at least $1.2 trillion in deficit savings. When that failed, House Republicans walked away from the budget deal by pressing for further cuts to domestic appropriations and reversing some on the pact's Pentagon cuts. In the Senate, Reid worked closely with the White House to use the Senate schedule for Obama's political advantage, repeatedly forcing votes on closing tax breaks for oil companies and raising taxes on upper bracket earners. But Reid failed to schedule debates on any of the 12 annual appropriations bills and the Democratic-led chamber, for the third year in a row, failed to pass a budget. Republicans also point to almost 40 items of House-passed jobs-related legislation sitting stalled in the Senate. "This isn't leadership. It is negligence," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Senate Democrats cited their progress on bills such as a renewal of farm programs and legislation to overhaul the Postal Service and give it an infusion of cash to stave off insolvency. "The reality is for as closely as divided as this Senate is, we passed a large number of bipartisan bills this year, very important bills, but as you all know, it takes two chambers to pass a law," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "On the other side, too many of the Congress members, particularly the tea party folks, think compromise is a dirty word." The Associated Press contributed to this article.The revelation that President Donald Trump, accidentally or on purpose, revealed highly classified intelligence to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador to the US is shocking. It’s the kind of offense that, when committed by anyone but the president, can lead to a prosecution under the Espionage Act and a significant prison sentence. So it’s hardly a surprise that the Washington Post’s revelation of the Russia leak led to a surge in Google searches for “Trump treason.” Eliot Cohen, a former senior State Department official for George W. Bush, declared, “If deliberate, it would be treason.” Here’s the thing, though: This isn’t treason. It’s probably not even illegal; as the Post’s Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe explain in their original piece, the president has broad discretion to declassify information, so it's doubtful he violated the Espionage Act or any other criminal statute by passing along info to Russia. But treason is a very specific crime with a definition set forth in the Constitution that Trump’s conduct doesn’t come close to meeting, for one simple reason: The US is not at war with Russia. The US has to be at war with a country for helping that country to be treason Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution lays out the definition of treason used in US criminal prosecutions: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” I looked into this issue a few years ago when Edward Snowden faced accusations of treason for disclosing highly classified NSA surveillance programs. UC Davis law professor Carlton Larson told me then that there are two broad categories of treason charges: “aid and comfort” prosecutions, and “levying War” prosecutions. The latter is rare, and typically involves someone who’s literally using an army to fight the government of the US or one of the 50 states. John Brown was convicted and hanged for treason against the commonwealth of Virginia in 1859 following his ill-fated attempt to launch a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry. Former Vice President Aaron Burr was prosecuted unsuccessfully in 1807 on charges that he conspired to levy war against the United States and create an independent country in the center of North America, combining what are now some Western states with Mexican land. Obviously, Trump did not actively conspire to wage a literal war with armies and troops and stuff against the United States. I mean, with the flood of damning leaks about the Trump administration occurring on a daily basis, I’m nervous about ruling anything out at this point, but it seems pretty unlikely. “Aid and comfort” prosecutions are also difficult. The typical defendant is someone like American-born al-Qaeda member Adam Gadahn (the first treason indictment since World War II and its aftermath), or Nazi propagandist Robert Henry Best, or Tomoya Kawakita, a joint US-Japanese citizen who abused American prisoners of war who were forced to do labor at a mining plant he worked at in Japan. What unites these cases is that they concern countries or organizations with which the US was at war, or at least a de facto state of war. The US is at war with al-Qaeda, as authorized by Congress, and the US had explicitly declared war against Germany and Japan in World War II. An “aid and comfort” prosecution requires that a defendant “adhere to” an enemy entity with which the US is presently at war. And the US is not at war with Russia. Not even close. Indeed, when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were prosecuted for sharing atomic secrets with the Soviet Union, they were not charged with treason. The US may have been in a Cold War with the USSR at that point in time, but it was not in a literal war, and in lieu of a state of war, the Rosenbergs couldn’t be accused of that specific crime. That has nothing to do with the question of their guilt (which, in the case of Julius, even the couples’ children now acknowledge). Indeed, other, uncontroversially guilty spies for the USSR/Russia, like Aldrich Ames at the CIA and Robert Hanssen at the FBI, were charged with espionage but not treason, for the same reasons. The meaning of “treason” excludes aid and comfort offered to a foreign country that’s a mere geopolitical rival but not an enemy in an actual war. A country, in other words, like Russia. What Trump did was outrageous. It’s the kind of thing that his Republican allies in Congress would gladly try to impeach Hillary Clinton for if she had won the election. But that doesn’t make it treason, and it’s irresponsible to keep throwing the term around willy-nilly.Mr Cameron said he enjoyed his jousts with Tony Blair Cameron interview In an interview for BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs he told how suspect agents "interrogated" him in Yalta in what may have been a recruitment drive. The MP also talked about his disabled son, who suffers from a combination of epilepsy and cerebral palsy. He picked an eclectic mix of music for his desert island, ranging from Benny Hill to The Killers and Mendelssohn. The Witney MP told Sue Lawley he would take a crate of whisky as his luxury and TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Cookbook as his book. CAMERON'S DISCS Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) - Benny Hill Tangled Up In Blue - Bob Dylan This Charming Man - The Smiths On Wings of Song - Mendelssohn Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead Perfect Circle - REM All These Things I've Done - The Killers The story behind Cameron's favourite song The suspected KGB approach from Russian intelligence came while he was travelling in his year out between school and university. He met a friend in Moscow and went to Yalta on the Black Sea coast, where two Russians speaking "perfect English" had turned up on a beach mostly used by foreigners. "They took us out to dinner and interrogated us in a friendly way about life in England and what we thought and politics," he said. "We were obviously very careful and guarded in what we said but later when I got to university my politics tutor said that was definitely an attempt." Wonderful boy Mr Cameron said the incident had raised eyebrows when he was being vetted to become a special adviser at the Treasury in the 1990s. His story had made the vetting officer fill his notebook, he said. Hill spent four weeks at number one Mr Cameron also talked openly and honestly about the shock of learning of his son Ivan's disability. Born in 2001, Ivan is the eldest child of Mr Cameron and his wife Sam and has a rare condition combining epilepsy and cerebral palsy that has left him needing 24-hour care. Mr Cameron told interviewer Sue Lawley the condition was apparent within a few days of Ivan's birth. He said: "You obviously worry about everything as a parent and you start asking questions. "Initially, we were told it was fine, then we went to hospital and they ran some tests and we were told he had a very rare condition which has very poor outcomes. He said the news hit "almost like mourning the loss of something, because you are mourning the gap between your expectation and what has happened," he said. He is a wonderful boy. He has got the most lovely eyes and he definitely interacts with us in the way he looks at you and the way he moves his head, David Cameron, Conservative leader "The thing that worries us is his quality of life and trying to make sure he does have a good quality of life." But he added: "He is a wonderful boy. He has got the most lovely eyes and he definitely interacts with us in the way he looks at you and the way he moves his head, but he often is in a lot of pain." He and his wife are "positive, optimistic people" he said and are determined to give Ivan all they can and ensure he is part of the family. The couple have two other children, Nancy, now two and Arthur born earlier this year, both of whom were born without Ivan's medical problems. In the interview Mr Cameron also suggested he quite enjoyed his jousts with Tony Blair in the House of Commons. He said: "Prime minister's questions with Tony Blair there is some sort of light and shadow and he's got a sense of humour... "I'm not sure with Gordon [Brown] how many light moments there will be." Childhood memories Mr Cameron insisted he had not given up on his promise to end "Punch and Judy" politics. But he admitted the Commons was a theatre, adding "You have to do a bit of bopping from time to time." The Tory leader said the live version of Bob Dylan's Tangled Up In Blue would be the song he would take to his desert island if only allowed one record. The sound of the audience and Dylan's "rasping voice" would make him feel less lonely, he said. Mr Cameron revealed his childhood musical hero is none other than saucy old-school comic Benny Hill. He said the comedian's 1971 chart-topper Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) was the only song he knows all the words to. "This really just reminds me of my childhood," he said. Desert Island Discs is broadcast at 1115 BST on Sunday.Leadership of one of the NCAA’s most high-profile committees changed hands this month. And while the outgoing chair led the Division I Committee on Infractions through significant improvements to the process, the new chair is at the helm of an established committee confident in its promise to deliver fair, consistent decisions. Greg Christopher, athletics director at Xavier Greg Christopher, athletics director at Xavier, became chair of the Division I Committee on Infractions on Sept. 1. He takes over the role as Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey’s three-year term as chair ends. Dave Roberts, special advisor to the president on issues of compliance at Southern California, will serve as vice chair, taking over the role from Eleanor Myers, law professor and former faculty athletics representative at Temple. “We are a membership organization, and we are only as good as our own service,” Christopher said. “From an athletics director perspective, we have to take accountability, not just on our own campuses, but within the governance structure, as well.” Sankey, who will continue to be a member of the committee until August 2019, also encourages campus and conference leaders to get involved on NCAA committees and governance groups. “Members in leadership positions need to be engaged in the work of the Association,” Sankey said. “We have a peer-review model for the infractions committee, and in the NCAA’s structure, those of us who work at member schools or conferences play important roles. It is still important to be an active participant in Division I issues.” Christopher has been athletics director at Xavier since 2013 and a member of the Committee on Infractions since 2012. A native of West Lafayette, Indiana, Christopher earned a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and a master’s in business administration from Miami (Ohio). He began his career in athletics administration at Purdue, where he worked in communications and fundraising functions, and he was athletics director at Bowling Green for more than six years before taking on his current role at Xavier. Christopher also served on the compliance committee at the Mid-American Conference during his years at Bowling Green, and when the conference commissioner approached him about serving on the Division I Committee on Infractions, the committee’s work intrigued him. He says his tenure on the committee has taught him more about the infractions process and, perhaps more importantly, has led him to believe in its effectiveness. “In a fast-paced industry, there’s a rush for instant analysis in everything we do, but I’ve found that this process isn’t like that. It is incredibly deliberate, thorough and exhaustive,” Christopher said. “It’s an imperfect process, but I am confident that it is as fair as it can possibly be.” Greg Sankey, Southeastern Conference commissioner and former Division I Committee on Infractions chair Christopher steps into a role that looks different than the one Sankey inherited three years ago. Sankey was the first person to chair the committee after Division I adopted reforms to the infractions process in 2012. As a result of that comprehensive review, the committee expanded from 10 to as many as 24 members, and the committee now includes a former U.S. attorney general, a former general counsel for the FBI, and former college football and men’s basketball coaches. “I would rank the expansion of the committee as the most significant change during my time as chair,” Sankey said. “Instead of 10 members who would hear each case, we now have panels of three to seven members, depending on the nature of the case. That is an important adjustment for committee members.” The expansion of the committee provided the group a more efficient system for handling a rising case demand, resulting in increased diversity of thought and opinion. “I am really impressed with the committee itself and the debate,” Christopher said. “With such varied backgrounds, we end up having robust debates around the issues, and it leads to the best possible conclusions with the facts we have at hand.” During his time as chair, Sankey heard from members that it takes too long for infractions cases to conclude. The committee improved the time it takes to issue a decision, and as Christopher takes over as chair, he continues to consider timeliness a priority. “The number of cases and hearings have nearly doubled in the last 12 to 18 months, but the amount of time from the hearing to the decision being released has been cut significantly,” Christopher said. “I want to continue to improve around timeliness and consistency of the decisions we issue.” Even though the average time changes with caseload and complexity, the data show progress. For summary disposition cases (a process used in place of a hearing when all parties agree to the facts of the case), the average time dropped from 62 days in the latter half of 2016 to an average of just 24 days from January through July of this year. For contested cases with hearings, the average time decreased from 69 days in the second half of 2016 to an average of 55 days from January through July of this year. While no case is the same as another, a Temple University Sport Industry Research Center study commissioned by the committee in 2015 showed Committee on Infractions decisions over the decades have meaningful consistency. “The committee has used the past few years to learn about how the penalty matrix is used, and that leads to consistency,” Sankey said. “I think people observe that there are inconsistencies whether it’s decisions or penalties, yet the committee knows when we are reviewing these cases that absolutely every one of these circumstances is unique. There is no way to create absolute uniformity until all the rules violations are uniform, which will never happen. The ability to look at all of the decisions and understand the context — all of that has helped.” Christopher knows that the committee’s work not only hinges on making fair, informed decisions, but also on working to help the broader membership understand how the process works and why each decision was made. He also wants the public to have a more accurate picture of what happens in an investigation and hearing. “We need to continue to reach out to the membership and public to communicate our decisions and process as transparently as possible,” Christopher said. “Oftentimes, it comes across that the relationship between the NCAA and involved schools is adversarial, but it is actually very civil. The image we have of a courtroom situation with someone banging a gavel on the desk isn’t correct. There’s a lot of respect both in the hearing room and among committee members.”RENTON, Wash. -- For the first time since Week 10 and only the second time since Week 6, the Seattle Seahawks will face a quarterback with a Total QB rating higher than 60. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers finished the regular season with the second best a QBR in the NFL at 82.7. Total QBR of Seattle opponent QBs Since Week 7 Week QB Season QBR 7 Austin Davis STL 37.6 8 Cam Newton CAR 56.9 9 Derek Carr OAK 38.4 10 Eli Manning NYG 70.9 11 Alex Smith KC 49.4 12 Drew Stanton ARI 58.0 13 Colin Kaepernick SF 55.9 14 Mark Sanchez PHI 58.2 15 Kaepernick SF 55.9 16 Ryan Lindley ARI 37.8 17 Shaun Hill STL 38.1 Div Newton CAR 56.9 It’s the best the Seattle defense has seen since Week 6 against Tony Romo when the Cowboys defeated the Seahawks 30-23, handing Seattle it’s only home loss of the season. Romo led the league this season with a QBR of 86.7. The only quarterback the rest of the way that Seattle faced with a QBR above 60 was Eli Manning of the New York Giants, who ended the year with a 70.9 In the first five games of the season, the average QBR of the quarterbacks Seattle faced was 75.2, per ESPN Stats & Information. That included matchups with Rodgers, Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning and Romo. The Seahawks were 2-2 in those games. In the final 11 regular-season games, the average QBR for Seattle's opponents was 52.5. When the Seahawks went 6-0 down the stretch, the average QBR for the opponents was only 50.6. Cam Newton’s QBR entering last week’s playoff game was 56.9. Rodgers enters the NFC Championship Game with a QBR more than 24 points higher than any quarterback the Seahawks faced in the last eight games. Rodgers, however, is playing with a torn calf muscle that is hindering his mobility.In a major change in the debate related to the death of a woman in Ireland that abortion activists are using to push legalizing abortion, a newspaper admits that the woman may not have sought an abortion before she died. An Irish Times reporter admits Savita did not request abortion, according to hospital records. The pro-life group Personhood USA notes that, in a radio interview on Ireland’s “Coleman at Large” program, Irish Times reporter Kitty Holland admitted the death of Savita Halappanavar may not have been related to Ireland’s abortion laws. After publishing the article “Woman ‘denied a termination’ dies in hospital”, Holland backpedaled, saying, “I can’t tell for certain — who knows what will come out in that inquiry? They may come back and say… there was no request for termination…” The group said radio host Coleman found discrepancies in the timeline reported by Holland and the Irish Times. Holland claimed that her article was based on an interview of Savita’s husband, and that his recollection “may be a little muddled.” “It is shameful that the small faction of abortion fanatics in Ireland have tried to exploit the tragic deaths of Savita and her child to further their cause,” stated Josh Craddock, Personhood USA’s United Nations Liaison. “The damage by the Irish Times article by Kitty Holland has been done, and there are dire consequences – the extremist abortion groups of Ireland are now pushing legislation for unrestricted abortion on demand, against the will of the people.” Personhood USA contends that physicians worldwide agree that even if an abortion had been requested, Savita’s life could not have been saved by the dangerous procedure. The group said India’s well-respected Dr. Divakar was quoted by The Hindu, stating: “Based on information in the media, in that situation of septicaemia, if the doctors had meddled with the live baby, Savita would have died two days earlier.” “Ireland is the safest place in the world to have a baby,” added Jennifer Mason, Personhood USA spokesperson. “While the world mourns the death of this young mother and her child, we must be responsible to research the facts. Sensationalist stories printed by the Irish Times have caused widespread panic, and our only recourse is to review the facts and look to more accurate sources for information in the future.” The Life Institute has said that these are ‘extraordinary admittances’ given the global hysteria raised by the sensationalist reporting of Savita’s death by the Irish Times. The newspaper’s description of events led to an uproar when it was suggested that Savita had been allowed to die because of Ireland’s ban on abortion, and because of a supposed ‘Catholic ethos’ interfering with necessary medical treatment to save her life. In the interview with the Coleman at Large programme, Kitty Holland was firstly asked why she wrote in a later article in the Observer that “the fact that Savita had been refused a termination was a factor in her death has yet to be established” when she omitted that caution from the Irish Times story that first broke the story of Savita’s death to the world. She was then pressed to explain discrepancies in Irish Times reporting as to when Savita was started on antibiotics in Galway University Hospital. She then said: “All one can surmise is that his recollection of events — the actual timeline and days — may be a little muddled… we only have Praveen and his solicitor’s take on what was in or not in the notes ….we’re relying all the time on their take on what happened… ” “Oh, I’m not satisfied of anything. I’m satisfied of what he told me, but I await as much as anyone else the inquiry and the findings. I can’t tell for certain — who knows what will come out in that inquiry? They may come back and say she came in with a disease she caught from something outside the hospital before she even arrived in, and there was no request for termination.., ” she told the radio program. CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE! The pro-life Life Institute responded. “But Holland and the rest of the Irish and international journalists never referred to any ‘muddled’ recollections or to the possibility that there ‘was not request for a termination’ when abortion campaigners were shrieking that Savita had died because she couldn’t get an abortion,” said Niamh UÍ Bhriain. “This has been the most cynical and deplorable exploitation of a tragedy that I have ever witnessed in my lifetime.” “At a time when Indian newspapers are printing headlines saying that ‘Ireland Murders Pregnant Indian Dentist’ perhaps it is time for the truth to emerge from the Irish Times,” she added.Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images President Barack Obama arrives with Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel during an event in the East Room of the White House on Jan. 7. Updated 4:22 p.m. ET -- President Barack Obama named his choices for two of the nation's prominent national security posts Monday, teeing up a likely confirmation struggle over his pick for the Secretary of Defense, a position that's historically drawn overwhelming bipartisan support. Obama tapped former Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican war veteran whose stances on Israel and Iran have angered some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, to head the Pentagon. He also announced Monday his choice of counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to be the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency. "Chuck Hagel is the leader that our troops deserve," Obama said at the announcement at the White House. "He is an American patriot." Noting that Hagel served in the Vietnam War, Obama said that the Purple Heart recipient "knows that war is not an abstraction." Even before Obama made it official, the nomination of former GOP Senator Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense generated an outcry from both sides of the aisle. NBC's Chuck Todd reports. "In Chuck Hagel, our troops see a decorated combat veteran of character and strength," Obama said. "They see one of their own." Thanking the president for the nomination, Hagel pledged to offer his "honest and most informed counsel" to the administration. The White House hopes to paint the sometimes gruff Hagel as a truth-telling war hero with extensive experience on the world stage, while opponents question his support of Israel and his commitment to preventing a nuclear Iran. The former Nebraska lawmaker has also come under fire for his 1998 opposition to an ambassadorial nominee for being "openly, aggressively gay." He recently apologized for the remark. (In his opening remarks Monday, Obama alluded to the recent repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy towards gay service members, referencing the Pentagon's commitment to allowing them to "serve the country they love, no matter who they love.") Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay member of the Senate, told NBC's Andrea Mitchell Monday that she wants to speak to Hagel to determine whether his apology for the remark is "sincere and sufficient." In an interview with the Lincoln Journal Star, Hagel charged that foes have "completely distorted" his record on the issues and that he now has "an opportunity to set the record straight" on Israel and other issues. Part of that process has already begun, as the White House has been “reaching out to a number of groups and individuals with regards to this nomination,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday. Carney suggested such preemptive measures are necessary given how quick critics are to pounce: “it is certainly an unfortunate reality that has become the norm here in Washington, that even when names are bandied about in the press as possible nominees, that a process begins where critics jump all over them. And you know, that's just part of -- one of the reasons why Washington has become a more fractious place.” Hagel's controversial nomination comes after U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name from consideration to be the next Secretary of State amid criticism for her role in the administration's investigation of a September attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. If confirmed, Hagel would be the first former enlisted soldier to become the secretary of defense. His views of international conflict are heavily influenced by his own service in the Vietnam War; he won two Purple Hearts for his service and still has pieces of shrapnel embedded in his chest. A vocal critic of the troop surge in Iraq, Hagel has questioned his own party's foreign policy strategy and further irked Republicans by endorsing Democrat Bob Kerrey in Nebraksa's tight Senate race last year. (Kerrey lost.) Brennan, one of the president's most trusted advisers, has spent most of his career at the C.I.A. He was considered for the same post in 2009 but withdrew from consideration after critics said he had failed to speak out against interrogation techniques such as waterboarding that human rights groups believe to be torture. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a onetime POW who has been a vocal opponent of torture, said he has concerns about Brennan's nomination. "I appreciate John Brennan’s long record of service to our nation, but I have many questions and concerns about his nomination to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, especially what role he played in the so-called enhanced interrogation programs while serving at the CIA during the last administration, as well as his public defense of those programs," McCain said in a statement. On Monday, Obama praised Brennan for his "commitment to the values that bind us as Americans." "He has worked to embed our efforts in a strong legal framework," Obama said of Brennan. "He understands we are a nation of laws." Winning laughs at the generally somber announcement, outgoing Pentagon chief Leon Panetta said that, after a long career in public service, he would welcome the opportunity to spend time at his California walnut farm. "Dealing with a different set of nuts," he joked. NBC's Ali Weinberg contributed to this report.Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. continued their father’s attacks on CNN Sunday even as President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE’s rhetoric toward the network grows more heated. “I love how CNN looks to #1A [First Amendment] as a justification to not uphold basic journalistic integrity or an ethical standard #FakeNews,” Trump’s son Eric tweeted on Sunday. I love how @CNN looks to #1A as a justification to not uphold basic journalistic integrity or an ethical standard #FakeNews https://t.co/physxhfJrP — Eric Trump (@EricTrump) July 2, 2017 He was referencing a tweet from CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta, in which Acosta said he hoped people were “enjoying #4thofjulyweekend and celebrating our cherished #1A [First Amendment] freedoms enshrined in our Constitution which cannot be taken away.” Hope you are enjoying #4thofjulyweekend and celebrating our cherished #1A freedoms enshrined in our Constitution which cannot be taken away — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) July 1, 2017 Eric Trump’s tweet came roughly an hour before his father continued his attack on CNN early Sunday morning, tweeting a modified WWE video showing him beating up a man with a CNN logo over his face. Eric Trump retweeted the video. Donald Trump Jr. responded to a tweet from Acosta about the video. Acosta asked: "Isn't pro wrestling fake?" "Yes, just like your coverage," the president's son responded. Yes, just like your coverage. https://t.co/ZLmiTVpDce — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 2, 2017 ADVERTISEMENT The president also bashed the press during a July Fourth concert honoring veterans in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night. “The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House, but I’m president and they’re not,” Trump said, headlining the Celebrate Freedom Concert at the Kennedy Center.Darren Bent has had successful surgery on his ruptured ankle ligaments. The Aston Villa striker, 28, will be out for three months and is doubtful for England's Euro 2012 campaign in Poland and Ukraine. "Darren Bent underwent surgery tonight [Monday] in a London clinic to repair ruptured ligaments in his left ankle," an Aston Villa statement read. "The operation was a complete success and it is expected he will resume full training in around 12 weeks." BENT'S ENGLAND RECORD Debut: March 2006, England 2-1 Uruguay March 2006, England 2-1 Uruguay Appearances: 13 13 Goals: 4 Bent sustained the injury at Wigan in February after landing awkwardly following a challenge from Antolin Alcaraz. He is unlikely to be available until the end of May, while England's first Euro 2012 game is against France on 11 June. "I'm gutted to be out for so long at such a crucial stage of the season," Bent wrote on Twitter at the time. "Hopefully my recovery will be as quick as possible." Bent had been hoping to play in his first major tournament with England after failing to make the squads for the World Cups in 2006 and 2010. He still has a chance of making the Great Britain team at the London 2012 Olympics, as one of three over-age Villa players approached over their availability.Raw Food: When the first raw restaurant opened in New York in 1999, raw food seemed like a really weird and experimental thing. But Trotter was already on board, and he published a cookbook, Raw, in 2003. By the time The Times was writing trend pieces about raw food finding its way into high-end resorts in 2006, Trotter and his restaurant's optional raw menu were considered among the movement's stalwarts. "For us, raw food is here to stay. It's part of our repertoire at this point. It's not that we just dabbled in it," he told The Times. A 2003 CBS preview of the book included recipes for "Bleeding Heart Radish Ravioli With Yellow Tomato Sauce" and "Portabello Mushroom Pave' With White Asparagus Vinaigrette," which it described: "The meatiness of the marinated portabellos is enormously satisfying, but the aromatic flavor of jalapeno, garlic, ginger, cilantro and soy are what pushes this creation over the top. The creamy white asparagus contributes richness and acts as the perfect cohesive element." Offal: Many Chicagoans were not amused at The Times headline to its Trotter farewell: "Chicago Losing a Chef Who Refined Its Stockyards Palate." Quipped public radio game show host Peter Sagal: "Sure. Before Charlie Trotter all we Chicagoans ate was offal and boiled hooves." But actually, offal is hot stuff these days. Chefs like San Francisco's Chris Cosentino have been making the stuff trendy over the last five years or so. But Trotter has been an offal fan for years, and has proved his mastery of the insides through his haggis recipes, which he's apparently been perfecting for decades. He won a Distinguished Citizen Award at Chicago's 166th annual Feast of the Haggis in September, where, according to the Tribune, "Trotter gave the organizers his recipe that has a little bit of an Asian bent to it. 'It’s a little bit lighter. It’s got ginger and lemongrass and things that cut into the richness of it. From my standpoint, the only wine that can possibly stand up to it is a huge syrah that can just cut into the richess and the pungency of the flavors. Otherwise it’s going to blow away any other thing.' " This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.And with a lack of development having been a weakness of the team in the past, how these new developments work should give us a clear indication on whether or not Ferrari can maintain a title charge. Ferrari SF70H front wing detail Photo by: Sutton Motorsport Images / sutton-images.com One of the biggest differences has come with the front wing where, although the philosophy is the same, several changes have been made. The mainplane is now divided into three sections, with two full length slots traversing it, the forwardmost of which is arrowed (blue). The outer section of the wing has been entirely revised, with the arc shape (white arrow) revised in shape and pushed further from the endplate. Mirroring these changes are further adaptations to the upper, outer sections of the wing (left unpainted) and arrowed (yellow) with a much more distinct squared tunnel shape appearing, much like the one we’ve seen Mercedes use for some time now. All of these changes point toward a more concerted effort to shape the airflow passing across and around the front face of the tyre. Ferrari SF70H front wing comparison Photo by: Giorgio Piola It’s also worth noting that the chord length and shape of the inner part of the flaps (painted in white) have been amended too, changing the level of downforce being generated and the shape of the Y250 vortex being shed by the mainplane and controlled by the flap tips. Furthermore, the flap adjuster (black arrow) has been moved slightly inboard too, making way for the more pronounced arch. Cooling Louvres Ferrari SF70H bodywork detail Photo by: Giorgio Piola Cooling is of huge priority to the teams, as too much of it means you’re giving up drag for no real benefit, too little and it can have a debilitating effect on the power unit. The increased temperatures in Bahrain have forced Ferrari to at least look at some more expansive cooling options, with these longer cooling panels fitted for scrutineering. You’ll note that the designers are not satisfied with a simple louvre though, as the V cutouts in each surface are a deliberate attempt at changing how the hot air is evacuated and mixes with the air that flows over the sidepod. Floor Ferrari SF70H triangular splitter extensions Photo by: Giorgio Piola It seems that Ferrari alone has thus far taken advantage of the freedom afforded to the teams with the new regulations ahead of the sidepods, with its triangular splitter extensions featuring a hole in the surface, allowing air taken in underneath them to filter into the flow that passes around the front face of the sidepod undercut. This fully enclosed hole is permissible because it lies ahead of a point 450mm forward of the rear face of the cockpit template, unlike other areas of the floor. Ferrari SF70H top view, undertray sensors detailed Photo by: Giorgio Piola Another area of intrigue since pre-season testing has been Ferrari’s use of the floor for a secondary function. The first iteration was simply a conduit embedded into the floor which aroused more suspicion when it was seen with thermal stickers placed on it, leading to questions about what was housed within (above, inset). Ferrari SF70H floor detail Photo by: LAT Images It’s understood that the conduit houses pipework that transports oil to the gearbox, in order to compartmentalise the cooling from what is going on under the skin of the car. In China, the team took this one step further, creating a lip on the upper surface of the floor shaped like a butterfly's wing (arrowed). Not only is this shaped in order to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of that part of the floor but it adds some much needed rigidity after rumours of Ferrari running some kind of flexi-floor
: Watch Your Manor We are working our way through the drag and party brunches in Washington. We had a ball at Watch Your Manor, though the service and food could have been a bit better. Read our review here. Best Roll Out of Bed Brunch: El Rey You won’t find much at El Rey—just a large, festive patio, burritos, chips and salsa, and mimosas. But, that’s really all you need. Rough Friday night? Roll out of bed and head over to El Rey to get after it again. Read our review here. Best Hotel Brunch: The Grill Room at Capella You’d be hard pressed to find a nicer hotel in Washington than Capella. The, modern, glamorous hotel is stunning and the service impeccable. We loved the truffle burger and the cinnamon raisin French toast. Read our review here. Best Brunch to See and Be Seen: Fig & Olive This posh CityCenterDC restaurant is a beautiful spot for cocktails or a business lunch on the patio. On the weekends, you’ll find it full of beautiful 20-somethings and a fair share of Europeans. This is one brunch where we won’t be wearing our Lululemon leggings. Read our review here. Best Ambiance: Compass Rose We loved the cozy, eclectic, and Bohemian Compass Rose, an international-themed restaurant built into a row house off 14th Street. It reminds us of a hostel in Southern Spain with a bit of North African flair. The cool spot is owned by a local couple and organizes the menu by nation. Order the Shakshuka and the beignets. Read our review here. Most Instagrammable Brunch Food: DC Harvest DC Harvest is a true gem. The H Street restaurant sources more than three quarters of its menu from local farmers and butchers—yet it’s incredibly affordable and unpretentious. There’s a great bottomless deal, fresh, hearty classic brunch fare, beautiful cheese plates, and stunning, delectable desserts. Plus, the bar has marble counter tops. Read our review here. Most Reliable: Lavagna We’ve been brunching at Lavagna for five years and the restaurant never does us wrong. Too bad we can’t say that about boys or Bitches. The pastas are made in-house—the risotto and the fried egg ravioli will blow your mind. The bottomless deal, fruit plate, and chocolate pot du creme are personal reasons for repeated visits. Read our latest review here. Best Service: La Tomate La Tomate is a family-run Italian bistro that’s been in business in Dupont Circle for 28 years. While this might seem boring, it’s actually anything but. The brunch is bottomless and utterly delicious. The bread basket alone is worth the trip—but the brunch burger with a fried egg seals the deal. Darling Natalina, an Italian Nonna and owner, will seat you at your table and force dessert upon you, like any good Grandmother would. Read our review here. Best Gluten-Free: True Food Kitchen The Bitches say: A. A healthy brunch that is still satisfying. A great addition to Mosaic District and a restaurant that’s worth a trip to the suburbs. The smoothies and the breakfast tacos hit the spot. Plus, the gluten- and dairy-free chocolate cake with coconut milk ice cream is the stuff dreams are made of. Read our review here. Best Patio: Doi Moi Doi Moi is a stunning restaurant and patio, with its white tables, chairs, and umbrellas, is perfect for a summer brunch. The cocktails can’t be beat, and the shareable dishes of Asian food are delish. Gather a group of beautiful Bitches and brunch there, followed by a day on 14th Street, when the warm weather arrives. Read our review here. Best Brunch Deal: Mandu Mandu Mandu Mandu is an absolute steal at more food than you could ever eat for $15: order a brunch entree, plus receive a smorgasbord of Asian appetizers and dessert—three course for $15. Plus, t two things Bitches love, the cocktails and the patio, are both great. Read our review here. Best Brunch for Visitors: Central Located on Pennsylvania Avenue? Check. Owned by a famous, original D.C. era chef? Check. High end? Check. Bottomless? Check. Central has it all. The upscale French restaurant the perfect place to bring out-of-towners on any occasion, but at brunch, the restaurant offers a three-course prix fixe plus bottomless. Read our review here. Best Mexican Brunch: Guajillo Guajillo serves authentic Mexican cuisine in a fun, unpretentious, and family-friendly environment. It’s a family-run Mexican restaurant with real Oaxacan fare. Read our review here. Best Brunch Date Spot: Centrolina Centrolina is the perfect spot for a low-key, intimate brunch. You can’t go wrong with an Italian influenced brunch menu and excellent service in a unique environment. Don’t leave without trying the ricotta gnocchi with apricot sage butter and toasted black walnuts. Read our review here. Best Hangover Brunch: Bar Deco Bar Deco is great for a hearty, group brunch in an urban space with great music and outstanding service. We’d go back to watch a football game on the roof or to catch up with a group of friends. Read our review here. Best of Neighborhoods Best Brunch in Barracks Row: Chesapeake Room Chesapeake Room had a makeover—and came back better than ever. The deviled eggs were delicious and that spicy fried chicken and waffles would make any Southerner proud. It’s perfect, hearty fare for a wintry day. Read our review here. Best Brunch in Navy Yard: Scarlet Oak Scarlet Oak is a relaxed and unpretentious neighborhood restaurant with fresh, well-prepared American fare, a large patio, and a great bottomless deal of $15. We’d sit out on the patio drinking bellinis and eating that fried chicken eggs Benedict every weekend if we could. Read our review here. Best Brunch Downtown: Casa Luca We were so impressed by Casa Luca, which isn’t surprising as we loved sister restaurants Fiola and Fiola Mare. The beautiful space offers a gourmet prix fixe meal with a bottomless option. It’s no surprise that the bread basket and pastries were phenomenal, but we’ve never gotten so excited about a salad. (A kale Caesar, if you must know.) Read our review here. Best Brunch in Cleveland Park: St. Arnold’s Mussel Bar With its moules frites and waffles in a cozy, comfy environment, St. Arnold’s is a solid no-frills neighborhood brunch for a cold day. Worth the trek up the red line just to chill out in this laid-back spot. The service is fantastic, too. Read our review here. Best Brunch in Georgetown: Chez Billy Sud We love everything about Chez Billy Sud—the charming, vintage restaurant is built into a cottage of sorts. They serve delectable pastries, snazzy cocktails, and a great brunch burger. It’s about time Georgetown got a decent restaurant. Read our review here. Best Brunch in Takoma Park: Republic Republic comes to us from Blacks Restaurant Group, the folks behind BlackJack, Black Salt, and Pearl Dive. Inside, the restaurant is like a vintage speakeasy, with lots of black, white, red, and glam. Outside, there’s an unpretentious patio with wooden tables and organic vibes. The seafood is great—and the craft cocktails even better. And, the monkey bread will blow your mind. Read our review here. Best Brunch in Shaw: Right Proper Brewing Co. Shaw has lots of great restaurants but not enough brunch. We saddled up to the picnic benches at Right Proper Brewing Co. for beers, burgers, and grilled cheese. While the brunch menu is small, the pancakes are top notch. Beer and pancakes, Bitches. Read our review here. Best Brunch in Capitol Hill: Barrel This cozy whiskey bar and restaurant on Pennsylvania has character—and great food. Though the chef was quickly booted off Top Chef, we’re happy he’s back in the kitchen. The cinnamon roll and sparkling cocktail were phenomenal. Plus, the pasta is made in house. Read our review here. Best Brunch in Bethesda: Silver We’re taking the red line out to Silver, which has all the good things about the classic Silver Diner, but wrapped up nicely in a brunch menu: delicious milkshakes, epic pancake platters, and some chicken pot pie. Plus it’s super family-friendly, too. Read our review here. Best in Mosaic District: Brine We love spending the day at Mosaic District: the shopping, the farmer’s markets, the movies, the fun! While Target is worth the trip, so is True Food Kitchen. Then, we discovered Brine and we’re confident Mosaic is a brunch go-to. Our Brine review will post next week, but trust us, this spot is worth a visit. Review coming next week! The Worst Worst Overall: Ping Pong Dim Sum The overarching theme with Ping Pong’s brunch is that while the dishes have exotic flavor descriptions, the food itself lacks flavor and the ingredients are of the worst quality—resulting in a mesh of bland, confusing, often icky bites. We literally said “ew” after most of our bites and just had to stop eating. The Bitches stopped brunching. Read our review here. Worst Mimosa: Philos You know the rule with brunch: As the quantity increases, the quality decreases. That is a fact of life we lament most in bottomless, endless brunches. The mimosas at Philos were made with Sunny D and champagne, the latter of which we couldn’t even taste. What a poor excuse for a mimosa. Read our review here. Worst Letdown: Satellite Room We love the vibe and scene at Satellite Room, and the bottomless deal is a good one. But they minimized the menu—no more chicken biscuits! The quality of the food declined as well: the bacon was greasy and the hash browns were from the freezer. And our server took 20 minutes to arrive with water or mimosas on a 95 degree day. Read our review here. Worst Ambiance: Ankara Ankara offers authentic Turkish food with great service in a truly unfortunate and lackluster restaurant. There’s an enormous patio and a cheap bottomless and endless option, but it’s located on 19th Street in an ugly part of town. And the build out is hideous: bright lights, low ceilings, cheap furniture—it reminds us of a cafeteria. It’s not totally their fault; the last restaurant there (Levantes) was ugly, too. Read our review here. Worst Mexican: Rosa Mexicano Once upon a time, we were young, stupid, and loved Rosa Mexicano. Oh, the long lost days of tableside guac. Our taste buds have grown more discerning, the District’s competition in restaurants has improved, and, most importantly, the quality of cuisine at Rosa has gone down. We won’t judge you if you go for the mimosas and guacamole, though. Read our review here. Worst Service: Brookland Pint We trekked over to Brookland, as we’re in love with the neighborhood. Brookland Pint is a cozy, unpretentious neighborhood spot—but why were the servers so moronic? They sat us directly next to a table of toddlers in an empty restaurant and said “no” to every common request. Read our review here. Worst Buffet: Mari Vanna Mari Vanna, the Russian restaurant on Connecticut Avenue, is kitshy in the best possible way and frequented by Russians. The service was awful—and buffets are just difficult. We would have loved to appreciate Russian cuisine, but it was cold, mushy, and poorly executed on the buffet line. Next time, we’ll just take shots of vodka. Read our review here. Worst Hotel Brunch: Nage Oh, poor Nage. The food was awful years ago; it’s still pretty bad now. Worse than the food is the hideous ambiance reminiscent of a 1990s motel—fingerprints on the windows, a vintage ATM, and the poor wait staff dressed as if they work at Denny’s. How does that Marriott even stay in business? Read our review here. BitchBiz: Bitches Who Brunch partners with Lavagna, Central, DC Harvest, The Grill Room at Capella, Crave, Glen’s Garden Market, Guajillo, La Tomate, Mosaic District, and Silver. While this article was written independently, we do receive compensation from these companies.Short version David Attenborough has written Kingdom of Plants as well as voiced it. He’s on form. If it wasn’t for the Sky3D logo at the beginning, you’d never guess it was touched by the hand of Murdoch. Long version David Attenborough is a puzzle. It’s easy enough to say why he’s the best science communicator on television. It could be his infectious enthusiasm. Or maybe it’s knowing when not to speak and let the images speak for themselves. But that’s only half the programme. Attenborough shows tend to be extremely well-filmed. What is it about Attenborough that works so well to get the best out of the camera operators? For the three programmes in Kingdom of Plants they had the right location to film. Instead of traipsing around the planet, they shot mainly in Kew Gardens. A large number of sequences are time-lapse to show plants in motion. This is not new in itself. He covered similar ground twenty years ago in The Private Life of Plants. However, techniques have improved since then and not just because the output can be in HD. Still while the technology has changed, a lot of entry-level botany hasn’t in the past twenty years, so The Private Life of Plants casts a bit of a shadow over Kingdom of Plants. The new series, with half the time of the BBC production, is understandably lacking in places. What makes Kingdom of Plants worth watching is that Attenborough hasn’t settled for making a highlights version of his earlier series. Is not just the plants that star in series, he has something extra. Kew itself is a character in the series. Attenborough emphasises the unique collections at Kew and its scientific role. In one episode Attenborough talks to Carlos Magdalena about his work saving Nymphaea thermarum. In the next episode it’s a talk about identifying and preserving café marron. He talks about the architecture too. I now have a new appreciation of the Alpine House, including why you would stick a load of plants that need to be cool under lots of glass in the sunshine. There is a sense a few times that he’s done some of this before. The Nepenthes sequence in The Private Life of Plants with the pitchers hissing as they open is extremely memorable. It’s done again in Kingdom of Plants and technically it may be better, but it’s not quite the same impact. On the other hand things that are classic Attenborough, like getting down to flower-level to talk about an orchid, are what you tend to watch these things for. Physically there’s no reason why someone else couldn’t do the same, and getting to ground level to talk about a plant on the ground is a sensible and obvious idea. It’s just that when someone else does it, you feel like they’re attempting an Attenborough impression. Another element of any good Attenborough impression is the enthusiasm. He still has this, and this is probably the secret element in his programmes. He has a genuine interest and wonder in the subjects he makes a programme about. Is the 3D impressive? Well, the 2D is impressive. And I wonder if one reason there’s only three episodes is partly from the sheer work it takes to film in this quality. As far as 3D goes it’s some of the best I’ve seen, but I’ve not seen a lot and the stuff I have seen has tended to be disappointing. When the images appear to be deep in the television, it’s usually good. When the images poke out of the television, like a branch bearing blossoms, it’s less successful. The images are bounded by the frame of the television so some branches seem like they’re oddly chopped off. Occasionally the depth-of-field is extremely wide so that everything from the foreground to the horizon a long way away looks 3D but in focus regardless of distance. My eyes don’t work like that and it looks disconcerting on television. We tend not to admire television programmes in the same way as we do painting, music or even films (if they’re in black and white or have subtitles). If we did, I think we’d celebrate Attenborough’s programmes as works of art, and Kingdom of Plants would be considered as good an example of his work as anything else he’s done. EDIT: And here’s a review of the book.In February, a Happy Valley pastor goes to trial in a criminal case more than 18 years in the making. That's how long seven women have lived in frustration and anger that the pastor wasn't charged after they told police that he sexually abused them in the 1990s. But now, prosecutors have taken a second look at the complaints. And based on new allegations by one of the women, they are bringing felony sexual-abuse charges against Mike Sperou, charismatic pastor of a small, under-the-radar church community that lives and worships together in a network of rented homes in Portland and Happy Valley. The seven women - who ranged in age from 11 to 16 at the time of the alleged abuse - and other former church members said Sperou claims deep emotional scars from childhood traumas and the Vietnam War. They said the church, originally called the Southeast Bible Church, seemed to start with good intentions. But they said the church evolved into a cult-like organization that dissolved family bonds as Sperou sank into heavy drinking, drug use, adultery and sexual abuse of children. After the girls accused Sperou, an investigation by Portland police produced mixed results, and prosecutors deemed the case unwinnable. But the women went to police again in 2013. The old case remains closed, but one of the women made new accusations about incidents from the same period, triggering the current criminal charges. Happy Valley pastor, accused of abuses dating from years ago, denies all allegations 41 Gallery: Happy Valley pastor, accused of abuses dating from years ago, denies all allegations The Oregonian/OregonLive generally does not disclose the names of alleged sexual-abuse victims. However, all seven women agreed to speak on the record, saying it's time the public heard their stories. Statute of limitations There is no single statute of limitations for sex crimes under Oregon law. Instead, the state sets limits based on the age of the victim and severity of the crime. Six years is the time limit for cases of criminal mistreatment, rape, sodomy, unlawful sexual penetration, incest, sexual abuse and promoting or compelling prostitution. However, if the victim was under 18 when the crime was committed the law allows prosecution within 12 years after it is first reported to police or the state Department of Human Services or before the victim turns 30, whichever comes first. In the case of Pastor Mike Sperou, the 12-year limit applies, because his accuser is less than 30 years old. The statute of limitations is four years for misdemeanor sex-crime cases of third-degree sexual abuse, exhibiting an obscene performance to a minor or displaying obscene materials to minors. And if the victim was under 18 when those crimes were committed, the time limit doesn't run out until four years after it is reported to police or the state Department of Human Services or before the victim turns 22, whichever comes first. For more crimes and time limits, visit of the Oregon Revised Statutes. On June 20, a Multnomah County grand jury indicted Sperou on three counts of first-degree unlawful sexual penetration of a child under the age of 12 - two counts relating to incidents alleged to have occurred in 1993-94 and one in 1995-96. All are Class A felonies. The alleged victim, Shannon Clark, told police that she withheld information from investigators in 1997 because "the culture of the church was to please Sperou" and because sexual contact from him "gave her validation within the church." Sperou, who married the mother of one of the alleged victims 16 years ago, continues to lead the church, now called North Clackamas Bible Community. Initially, Sperou did not respond to requests for an interview. The Oregonian/OregonLive then sent the pastor and his attorney a list of 30 facts and assertions amassed over months of reporting, giving him the opportunity to respond to all of the allegations against him. Sperou, agreed to an interview and photographs -- but no video -- at one of the church member's homes on Dec. 16. Surrounded by his attorney, his wife and several church supporters, Sperou admitted past drug and alcohol abuse but categorically denied ever molesting or abusing his accusers. He also denied each individual allegation of physical or psychological abuse. Sperou said he would welcome all of his accusers back into the church "with open arms." "I believe it is our mission to love God, to love the church and to love one another," Sperou said. After all these years, the full truth of what happened during a period of upheaval in Sperou's church may never be determined. All of the original cases are closed, due to the statute of limitations, and the current case turns on conflicting accounts of years-old events. Sperou's attorney, Steven J. Sherlag, said the women's recollections likely have been affected by passing years. "Your memory doesn't get better over time - it gets worse," Sherlag said. "Memory isn't static - it's dynamic. It is something that is modified and changed every time incidents or situations are recalled." Sherlag said individuals with false memories may truly believe they are telling the truth after coming to believe what they repeatedly have told themselves. Of course, that cuts two ways and the same could be said of Sperou's memory. A seductive mix Sharon Garrett, and her husband, Ken, were early members of Sperou's congregation, drawn by the plain-language sermons that projected a deep commitment to faith. Sperou deftly cited biblical passages apropos of any modern crisis, sprinkled with words in Hebrew and Aramaic, they said. "He was like the Pied Piper of Portland," said Sharon Garrett, attracting seekers "drawn by the music of community, spirituality, vision and purpose." Renae Allen, who left the church in 2010, said established church members took prospective members out for what she called "love bombing," a wining-and-dining campaign that persuaded them to join. Roger Whaley, a retired Gresham nurseryman who also left the church, said he now realizes he was taken in by Sperou's strong persona. "He has an uncanny ability to read people and skillfully manipulate people," said Whaley. "We mistakenly thought he was very wise." The Garretts, Whaleys and several other couples brought their children to live in rental houses on Southeast Flavel Street, Suncrest Drive, Idleman Road and Overlook Lane. The member-residents agreed to contribute at least 10 percent of their earnings to the church; others, they said, contributed much more. Sperou lived in a house called "Portnomah." Life upstairs in the house was spare, former church members said. Whole families crammed into single bedrooms, with children sometimes sleeping in windowless closets. While families scrimped and ate money-saving casseroles, they said Sperou enjoyed relative luxury, living alone in daylight-basement quarters with its own kitchen. The seven women said they felt honored if Sperou invited them to spend time with him. They could watch pay-per-view movies on his big TV and eat take-out Chinese food, pizza and ice cream. They would cozy up with him in bed, they said. In a 1997 interview with police, Sperou acknowledged that, "girls were encouraged to spend time with him," but said his wife or other adults were present when the girls came into his bedroom. He also told police that, "many times the girls would come down to his room to watch TV and while there would fall asleep and would subsequently end up spending the night." Becki Martin and Pastor Mike Sperou's ex-wife, Carole Green, along with Amy Martin, Emily Bertram and Jessica Watson, pose for a photo in the 1990s on Mike Sperou's bed. When detectives asked him whether he put his hands underneath the girls' shirts while hugging them, Sperou told police that "he probably has" but that he "meant nothing by it." He also said the accusation that he put his hands on one of the girls' panties "could have happened," but denied using his finger to sexually penetrate another girl who fell asleep while watching TV with him in bed. Sperou also acknowledged one instance of giving alcohol to the girls and confirmed to police that adult church members had confronted him about "touching the girls inappropriately when he had been drunk and wasn't aware of what he was doing." The women said Sperou told them he suffered serious emotional pain and that they helped him find relief - a great compliment to young girls seeking approval from the church leader their parents so revered. In fact, they believed it was their "duty" to comfort Sperou, the girls told Portland police in 1997. "He used to tell me that he loved me, that I was beautiful," said Jennifer Olajuyin. "He used to talk about sexual fantasies and sexual experiences he had." Bryn Garrett, the daughter of Sharon and Ken Garrett, said she was so confused by Sperou's attention that she believed it would grow into a deeper, more meaningful relationship. "He used to tell me I was beautiful," Garrett said. "He said I would grow up to be really sexy." Renae Allen said Sperou once asked her to pick up a bottle of wine for him and a pizza for five or six of the girls. She said she was shocked to see him in his underwear, lounging on the bed with them. "But by that time, they thought they should never oppose or challenge Mike," Allen said. "You didn't bring up his sins. I feel so stupid now for not being more suspicious." At first, none of the girls thought it was odd that they and Sperou were in pajamas or underwear, lying in his bed together. They said they were completely in the dark about sex. But it soon became uncomfortable. Both Rachel Schackart and Shannon Clark said Sperou masturbated while holding them against him, which Sperou denied. In 1996, the seven girls went to their parents. They told them that Sperou's initially harmless, affectionate gestures had crossed the line, that he was touching their breasts and genitals. The allegations hit the church like a bomb, touching off the exodus of several families. Portland police investigated and turned over their findings to the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office. That's when the case, which included no physical evidence or medical tests, failed to reach prosecutors' benchmarks for "winnability." After reviewing police reports, a deputy district attorney wrote a memo declining to prosecute. "I have never seen a case where a defense attorney would have so much ammunition to create, maybe justly so, reasonable doubt," the memo reads. A major stumbling block, the memo says, was the girls' own conflicting statements. The women acknowledge today that they made poor witnesses. "We didn't tell the police everything when they questioned us," Bryn Garrett said. "We denied a lot of it because we thought we were supposed to protect Mike. I really loved him, and I didn't want to get him in trouble." It was easy for the prosecutor to drop the case, said Bryn Garrett's father, the Rev. Ken Garrett, who has since become pastor of Grace Bible Church in downtown Portland. "It could have sounded to them like a bunch of disgruntled ex-church members," he said. "And most of the girls had trouble talking about it at all." Pastor Mike Sperou leads a Christmas celebration at the church in the 1990s. As the girls grew up, their feelings toward Sperou hardened. They blamed him for exploiting them and stealing their innocence. But they all had gone their separate ways and rarely spoke to one another. That is, until Jennifer Olajuyin and Bryn Garrett, both now in their early 30s, independently began to wonder if they had the basis of a civil lawsuit. Olajuyin soon contacted all the women and then approached Lake Oswego attorney Kelly Clark. He already had championed the cause of sexual-abuse victims nationwide, suing the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts of America, Mormon church and school districts. Clark was sympathetic, the women said, but insisted that they first exhaust all possibilities for criminal prosecution. Clark died a few months later, but by then, the women had contacted the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office. All seven women unequivocally stand by their allegations. And this time, prosecutors' ears pricked up when they heard their stories. For one thing, the accusers are articulate, adult women. Meanwhile, social attitudes have changed as more victims have come forward, bringing cases against adults in positions of trust. When Deputy District Attorney Christine Mascal met with the women, she found a basis for action. "This is the kind of case that deserves our full attention," Mascal said. Bryn Garrett (from left), 30, Jennifer Olajuyin, 32, and Rachel Schackart, 29, are among a group of women who have come forward to talk about alleged abuse in their youth by North Clackamas Bible Community pastor Mike Sperou in the 1990s. Sperou is currently facing charges based on allegations by one of the women from that time. Portland police Detective Heidi Helwig reinvestigated the case, saying she was impressed by the women's stories. "It says so much that they would put themselves through this process again," Helwig said. "Why would anybody do that? They are amazing, articulate women who have survived and grown, except for that big hole where justice was never served." But after Mascal evaluated the information Helwig assembled, she realized that the statute of limitations had run out on all but three new allegations from Shannon Clark. After Sperou was arrested and booked into the Multnomah County Justice Center Jail, he was released and resumed his pastoral duties. His trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 13. The defense, however, hopes to block the trial before it ever begins. In pretrial motions scheduled to be heard next week, Sperou's attorneys are expected to ask the court to dismiss the charges, arguing that the new allegations aren't new at all. The defense already has asked for all records regarding the seven women, looking for information that could discredit them or show bias in any testimony they may give. Pastor, criminal defendant Michael George "Mike" Sperou, 64, is a complicated person, by any yardstick. By his own oft-repeated accounts, he has had a very difficult life - which he cites while counseling followers or even in casual conversation. He was born in San Francisco. His mother died of cancer when he was 8, and he was shuttled through a series of Catholic foster homes, surviving, he said, on the considerable street smarts he picked up along the way. He graduated from Lynbrook High School in San Jose in 1968. Sperou said he joined the U.S. Army after high school and served in Vietnam, where he said he was wounded in action. He said he "flipped out" when he returned to the states, gripped by post-traumatic stress disorder. He said he went AWOL, living in Big Sur for nine months. While visiting Portland, Sperou experienced an epiphany and found Christ. He said he then surrendered to the Army, received an honorable discharge and moved to Oregon. Returning to Portland, Sperou enrolled at Portland State University. He attended classes from fall 1973 to summer 1979, but did not earn a degree, according to university records. Sperou also enrolled at Western Seminary, attending from summer 1974 through spring 1978, again failing to earn a degree, according to seminary records. Regardless, however, Sperou's personal magnetism attracted a flock of followers. Former church members remember mostly positive experiences from the early years in the church, but soon there were signs of trouble. Former church member Paul Clark, the father of Shannon Clark and a recovering drug addict living in Central Oregon, said he supplied Sperou with Vicodin, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana over a period of about 10 years. They often took drugs together, he said. "I started by getting him Vicodin," said Clark, 63, a church member for 16 years. "He paid top dollar for that. Later, I got him everything - coke, heroin, meth. He snorted it because he didn't like needles." According to Portland police reports, Sperou told investigators in 1997 that he had drug and alcohol problems but said he had entered treatment in 1991 and drank much less since then, with a couple of relapses. In his interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive, Sperou denied using illegal drugs in the mid-1990s and beyond. A church evolving Some former church members said that as Sperou's power grew, those who questioned any doctrine or practice - especially women - were publicly belittled and threatened with expulsion, which was equated with spiritual death. They said church members called them "unteachable" or "lower than a worm." "The women were slowly beaten down emotionally, and we felt we were terrible wives, mothers and Christians," said Jeanie Whaley, Roger Whaley's wife. "Our self-esteem was trampled on, and we worked desperately to get approval from the pastors. In our eyes, approval from them meant approval from God." At other times, the women said, they were treated harshly, disciplined by church elders who engaged in emotional abuse to break down their self-esteem. Shannon Clark remembered being forced by church members to eat a communal meal of beef stroganoff - which she hated - until she grew nauseated. "When I threw up," Clark said, the church members forced her "to eat my own vomit." Others, still loyal to the church, dispute the accounts, saying the church provides a loving environment that nurtures personal growth and commitment to faith and community. The women and former church members said Sperou brandished his PTSD like a bloody crutch, telling all he remained deeply wounded emotionally. They said Sperou's inner circle fended off any complaints about him by saying that failing to forgive his sins was far worse than the actual sins. Eventually, the women and former church members said, Sperou used his status in the church and considerable charm to seduce the wives in several church families. This caused the breakup of at least two marriages, including Sperou's own, they said. Amy Robinson, another of the women who accused Sperou of molesting her as a girl, remembers discovering Sperou with her mother in 1996. "I walked in on my mom and Mike making out, with their clothes partially removed," she said. Robinson said Sperou stomped off to the basement while her mother tried to soothe her, saying that their affectionate outburst was like "brotherly and sisterly love." Robinson's father moved out in October 1996, taking her with him, according to police reports. Two years later, Sperou divorced his wife of 23 years and afterward married Robinson's mother, Judy. Together, they still lead the church. During the 1997 police investigation, some former church members described the church as a cult or cult-like. Investigators used the same words in filing reports, and a University of Oregon expert in religious studies said that the descriptions of the church appeared to agree with cult-like characteristics. "When you have a charismatic leader... people give up themselves for the good of the group," said Marion Goldman, professor emerita of sociology and religious studies at the University of Oregon and scholar in-residence at Portland State University's Portland Center for Public Humanities. A half-dozen church members, unanimous in supporting Sperou at his interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive, all said the church has been a spiritual beacon in their lives, offering a clear direction for their faith and service. Assistant Pastor Bill Hartman said that joining the church 29 years ago changed his life for the better. "I never left the church," Hartman said. "I've made a lot of choices in my life, including some bad ones. This was a really good one." Lasting scars Pastor Mike Sperou and Judy Martin, 1995. While following progress of the revived criminal case, the seven women who came forward with the initial allegations have been renewing their friendships. But this time, Sperou isn't the keystone locking their relationships in place. The women did a lot of catching up, comparing the wounds they said they bear from their time growing up in the church, while sharing ways they have been coping. They discovered that most of them had sought temporary refuge in alcohol and drugs, learning how to numb their emotional pain. They found most had trouble budgeting their money because they never had any experience managing their own finances. They also learned that most had gone through periods of promiscuity, believing their own self-worth was defined by their sexuality. Jessica Watson said she has tried to harness her negative experiences for a positive goal. She is active in Oregon Abuse Advocates and Survivors in Service and lobbied the Oregon Legislature in hopes of having the statute of limitations lengthened for victims reporting sexual abuse. But she said she still has identity problems. "I keep trying to remind myself of who I am," Watson said. "Even with a loving husband, I still have trouble." Some, like Emily Bertram, said they have trouble trusting people - especially men - and find they're always bracing for betrayal. "I've been married for 12 years, and I still feel insecure about it," Bertram said. Bryn Garrett echoed many of the same feelings. "I don't trust people," Garrett said. "I don't think people love me when they say they do. I just don't believe people." And Shannon Clark tearfully admitted that she broke up with her last boyfriend because she had trouble being intimate with him. Some of the women have been subpoenaed to testify at Sperou's trial. All of them said they want to attend, hoping to find some kind of closure. "No matter
use our resources or personnel to enforce federal immigration law," said Sheriff Mike Reese. "It is vital to our mission of community safety that members of this community feel comfortable in calling 911 to report crimes without fear of local law enforcement enforcing ICE detainers."Samsul Said / Reuters Members of Suara Rakyat Malaysia hold up placards during a protest against the new amendments in the Prevention of Crime Act, which resurrects detention without trial, outside Parliament House in Kuala Lumpur on Sept. 30, 2013 New crime-prevention legislation that critics say would allow detention without trial for years was passed by Malaysian lawmakers early on Thursday, and immediately slammed by opposition figures and human-rights activists as a strengthening of Prime Minister Najib Razak’s increasingly authoritarian administration. Less than two years ago, Najib abolished the Internal Security Act — which historically had been used to hold political dissidents without charge — amid pledges to uphold human rights in the Southeast Asian nation. But this latest move — ostensibly a bid to combat organized crime — appears to backpedal on these pledges and comes in the wake of a crackdown on opposition figures. (MORE: Malaysia’s Multiracial Promise Marred by Bigotry and Political Persecution) “The fear is that the government may use this law against undesirable elements in the political sense rather than the criminal sense,” Kamaruddin Jaafar, an opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party MP, tells TIME. “After a similar initial promise, we previously had opposition politicians who became victims of the Internal Security Act.” The new provision allows a “Crime Prevention Board” featuring at least one former senior judge to issue two-year detention orders that can be subsequently renewed on grounds of “public order,” “public security” or “prevention of crime.” The board may determine what evidence can be used in its decisions without any legal representation from suspects. “Malaysia is taking a huge step backwards on rights by returning to administrative detention practices much like the draconian Internal Security Act,” says Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Prime Minister Najib is backing methods that do little to curtail crime but threaten everyone’s liberty.” Najib has cited recent robberies and high-profile public shootings as grounds for the ramped-up detention laws. “If the government doesn’t act, more people will become victims,” he said, adding that the provision would only target hardcore criminals and “if the police were to arrest anyone, they have to convince the judge that the particular individual should be detained.” (PHOTOS: Living in Malaysia’s Melting Pot) The 60-year-old is under pressure after leading the National Front coalition back into power with 133 parliamentary seats in May, despite receiving only 47% of the popular vote to the opposition’s 89 seats and 50% share. This disastrous showing at the ballot box is coupled with the need to court Malay hard-liners within his United Malays National Organisation (UNMO) ahead of the party conference on Saturday. “The return of detention without trial is part of a larger fight between different factions within UNMO, trying to frame themselves as being [bigger supporters of] Mahathirism,” Ong Ooi Heng, executive director of the Political Studies for Change, a Kuala Lumpur–based think tank, tells TIME, referring to Malaysia’s longest-serving Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who presided over a period of remarkable growth from 1981 to 2003. Since the disputed poll, Najib has increased race-based entitlements for ethnic Malays and increased the deployment of antiquated charges like “sedition” to corral opposition figures — policies he had previously vowed to scale back. This turnaround, says Ong, shows that “Najib is moonwalking … towards consolidating authoritarianism.” U.S. President Barack Obama was scheduled to visit Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 11 for his Southeast Asia tour — which will now take place in Indonesia (including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bali) and Brunei — but was forced to cancel the Malaysia trip in order to handle the ongoing federal-shutdown crisis at home. Even if the visit were to go ahead, Kamaruddin does not believe Obama would be able to pressure the Malaysian government on rights issues. “Unfortunately, the tendency of the government here is always to refer to what is happening in the American and Britain by saying they are also introducing laws allowing detention that do not go through the courts,” he says. MORE: To Modernize, Can Malaysia Move Beyond Race?EDMONTON — Connor McDavid wanted to start things right at Rogers Place, the new home of the Edmonton Oilers. McDavid scored two goals and added an assist as Edmonton defeated the rival Calgary Flames 7-4 on Wednesday night after a pre-game ceremony where former Oilers greats Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier figuratively passed the torch to the 19-year-old phenom. “The anticipation for this game was huge and the fans were excited and all the greats were in the building,” said McDavid. “It was an exciting night for our whole organization and it was a good way to start it. “I’m kind of happy it’s over. I’ll definitely take a lot of good memories from tonight and move on with those.” Patrick Maroon, Tyler Pitlick, Zack Kassian, Jordan Eberle and Jesse Puljujarvi also scored for the Oilers (1-0-0), who officially opened their lavish new Rogers Place building in front of 18,550 fans. Edmonton head coach Todd McLellan said that McDavid definitely grabbed a hold of the game in the second period. “He was Connor. He was our leader. He had fire in his eyes,” he said. Alex Chiasson, Troy Brouwer, Michael Frolik and Dennis Wideman responded for the Flames (0-1-0). “I don’t think that was the way that anybody drew it up,” said Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan. “We all have shared responsibility We all need to be better.” The first-ever shot in Rogers Place yielded the first-ever goal as Maroon tipped a Leon Draisaitl shot past Flames goalie Brian Elliott 1:10 into the game. Chiasson responded for the Flames just 36 seconds later, swinging out from behind the net and then batting in his own rebound behind Oilers starter Cam Talbot. Edmonton made it 2-1 five minutes into the opening period, scoring on their second-ever shot in their new building as well, as Pitlick elected to shoot himself on a two-on-one break and beat Elliott up high. Kassian added to the Oilers’ lead with five minutes left in the first, taking a long pass from Oscar Kelfbom and making a nifty move to undress Elliott. Elliott was not sharp in Calgary’s net, allowing six goals on 28 Edmonton shots. “It was kind of one of those nights where everything that could go wrong, did go wrong,” he said. “That’s not the way you want to start the season.” Calgary closed to within a goal midway through the second as Brouwer intercepted a pass and scored on a short-handed breakaway. The Flames scored another short-handed goal with nine minutes left, as Edmonton’s Milan Lucic failed to clear a loose puck in front and Frolik whacked it in. McDavid put Edmonton back in front, banking in a backhand shot for his second point of the game. He then scored his second goal of the game with 5:27 left in the second after being awarded a penalty shot. Edmonton made it 6-3 with a power-play goal with 11 minutes remaining when Puljujarvi pounced on a loose puck and scored his first NHL goal in his first game. Wideman cut back into the lead lead for the Flames on the power play a few minutes later blasting the puck from the point but Edmonton salted the game away with an empty-netter by Eberle. The two teams will face each other again in Calgary on Friday for Calgary’s home opener. “The good thing is we have these guys back at home and we’ll get back to the drawing board,” said Elliott. Notes: The 2016 first round draft selections for both teams made their NHL debuts in the game, as fourth overall pick Puljujarvi dressed for Edmonton and sixth overall selection Matthew Tkachuk played for Calgaryâ¦ Starting on Calgary’s top line was veteran Kris Versteeg, who spent the entire pre-season on a tryout with the Oilers before surprisingly signing on with the Flames.Please pray and donate whatever funds you can to help Amy Whittemore and her family. Their 15 year old daughter, Peyton, had to have unexpected brain surgery because of an aneurism. Please show your support and give to help this family through this tough time. Thank you so much! I understand that a lot of you may not know us and you never yet gotten to meet the beautiful girl that we all love so dearly, but if you could find it in your heart to help our family. Prayers and donations appreciated more than you know. Our goal is to raise as much funds as humanly possible to alleviate any stress our mother and father are going through and will have to go through. Our family would like to be able to be near my sister, living in a different city and placing our jobs on hold, this will become more difficult by the day. Whatever you feel appropriate in doing for our family, your love and support would mean the world to all of us, especially Peyton. I'd also like to thank everyone who has already reached out to us. So far the amount of prayers, love, support financially and mentally is absolutely incredible. I want to make a special thanks to redmoon, silentshibe, bitcoingirl, dogepromotions from twitter, the YMCA in Ocala, the Ronald McDonald foundation, DogeCoin,FlutterCoin, Bitcoin, Forest High School, the booster foundation, Legendz cheerleading, The employees and radiologists at Ocala Region Medical Center, ALL the families that have reached out, Peyton's friends and the Pennies for Peyton fundraiser and the unfathomable amount of love and support we have received from our own family. I know that Peyton would really appreciate all that you guys are doing for her. i know that everyone here greatly appreciates all the prayers and love for Peyton. The Peyton i know has a beautiful soul, and the brightest smile that anyone has ever seen. she is a ray of sunshine and means so much to everyone who knows her. we all miss our Pey and cant wait to see those bright green eyes and big smile once again. We're doing this all for Peyton because we all know our fighter will make it through this epic journey life has placed before her. thank you all once again for giving us such a huge support system and taking the time out of your day to pray for us. If anyone can pull through this it's Peyton, lets all stay strong for her. For more information on how to help, Mhkaz will be handling the majority of the charities you can find the links below Update 5/16/14 It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that Peyton Evans has passed away. She will be bringing the same joy, hope, and happiness she already had to 7 new families awaiting organ donation. Update 5/19/14 "After Peyton Evans' death Friday, her organs help three others" http://www.ocala.com/article/20140519/ARTICLES/140519659/0/search?p=all&tc=pgall Update 5/26/2014 We are still raising funds to help with the funeral which will be held on Saturday 5/31st in Ocala,FL and for her IMMEDIATE Family. Update 5/30/2014 Peyton Evans service will be Sat May 31 at 11:00am at First Baptist Church of Ocala on SE Maricamp. Please call Bo-Kay florist 351-3331 to donate towards the flower arrangements, I have set up an account there(account#9604) and they will be accepting all the donation and adding them towards the flowers arrangements for Peytons Funeral. This will help to make Beautiful Peytons funeral as beautiful as she was. Everyone who donates will be mentioned for your contribution and it will be extremely appreciated! Please give whatever you can, it will be very helpful, thank you all so much!!!Clearly, the world has changed considerably since then. Interacting with machines is commonplace. It's normal to respond to screen-based electronic stimuli. Work almost always involves some interaction with digital platforms. Maybe this is why video games no longer inspire the same kind of anxiety and terror from parents and caregivers as they once did. In fact, we now know that games can teach much more than just content. There are social, emotional, and meta-cognitive benefits. In 2013, the American Psychological Association published a study that identified some of the benefits of gaming, and the results were surprising. For example, in controlled tests, kids who played first-person shooters showed “faster and more accurate attention allocation, higher spatial resolution in visual processing, and enhanced mental rotation abilities.” This likely has very little to do with the violent narrative and a lot to do with repetitive execution of reflex-based actions. Essentially, first person shooters are intricate 3D virtual simulations of the carnival classic “whack-a-mole.” Players need to react fast. This is why kids who play a lot of games seem to show “measurable changes in neural processing and efﬁciency” and a positive increase in creativity. Players practice quick thinking and hurried response. Of course, neural advantages like these are vague and invisible. Research that assumes a biologically deterministic view of humanity should be questioned. When we imagine ourselves as cellular organisms first and only second as uniquely human, we equate ourselves with amoebas, insects, and animals. This theoretical approach implicitly assumes that our development and actions are determined by electrochemical and biological impulses alone. Instinct reigns. The classic conception that distinguishes humans as “moral” animals is rendered obsolete. These neuroscientific discoveries may be accurate, but when it comes to learning, is this approach useful? After all, our intention is not husbandry in a petri dish. Instead, we aim to nurture human citizens that contribute to an ethical civilization. We want our children to develop strong meta-cognitive skills. We want students to become critical thinkers that are motivated to make a difference in the world. When it comes to motivation, look to the work of Carol Dweck, Stanford professor who writes about motivation and social development. She makes a distinction between an entity theory of intelligence and an incremental theory of intelligence. When kids develop an entity theory of intelligence, they believe they have innate, fixed traits. They're praised for being smart, or being good at math. It has a negative impact on long term attitudes. When kids develop an incremental theory of intelligence, on the other hand, they understand that they have certain skills. They are praised for their effort: “you worked so hard on that problem, you solved that puzzle.” They have a growth mindset. Video games nurture an incremental understanding of intelligence. Because players are rewarded for one task at a time -- for overcoming one obstacle after another -- they learn to understand learning and accomplishment iteratively. For example, each track in Nintendo’s classic game Mario Kart has its own particular challenges. Each time a player drives it he or she addresses the weaknesses of the previous attempt. The player iterates performance incrementally, addressing shortcomings and adjusting accordingly. He or she understands that mastering one course doesn’t necessarily equate to mastery of the next. A new learning process begins at the conclusion of the previous one. Games designed for the classroom can leverage the same sort of motivational intelligence. Consider a game like Reach For The Sun (Filament Games). This resource management game is designed to teach plant life cycle sciences and photosynthesis. Players are challenged to “become a plant” and balance resources like starch and water. “Extend your roots, sprout leaves, and make your flowers bloom before winter hits.” Succeeding in Reach For The Sun is about more than just trial and error. It involves an incremental approach that’s way more authentic than a workbook, lecture, or a quiz. It is not about right and wrong; it is about simulation. Students don’t just retain textbook bullet points of photosynthesis. They understand in an experiential way that the plant is a vibrant, dynamic life system that is constantly adjusting to its surroundings. They succeed when they comprehend the way a plant relates to the world around it. Learning is about incrementally applying content in context. And context is all about iterating relationships. In the process of learning to incrementally iterate in context, students are developing metacognitive skills. Put simply, metacognition describes an individual’s ability to think about his or her own thinking. Among other things, it refers to the ability to self-evaluate a thought process and to iterate based on an analysis of strengths and weaknesses. For learners, strong metacognitive functions translate into study skills. Strong metacognitive functions mean students have the ability to identify problem areas and seek out the necessary and deliberate practice needed to compensate for weaknesses. Metacognition is also another word for what educators are talking about when we say we want to create life-long learners. When we talk about critical thinking, problem solving skills, creating innovators, or nurturing perseverance, we’re talking about metacognition. Those skills are not really unique to the new millenium. They are the same reflexive skills that have always been the prerequisite to critical thinking. Character education is code for metacognition. It's all about producing individuals who have the desire, the drive, and the skill, to look at themselves and evaluate the way they think about their place in the world. Most importantly, strong metacognitive skills translate into strong interpersonal skills. After all, the ability to look at yourself is one of life’s most important social skills. How can you relate to others if you can’t even relate to yourself? Not well. Relationships, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence all require strong metacognitive skills. What does this have to do with video games? A lot: 70 percent of gamers play their games with other people. Contrary to the popular image of the gamer as an awkward, socially inept loner, players are actually engaged with one another. Think back to that educational community that emerged in every 1980s pizza parlor around the Ms. Pacman machine. Gamers play cooperatively. They play competitively. They share tips and tricks. They work together. The teach each other how to get better at the game- Imagine a classroom where collaboration is the norm. Where assessment is collective and individual assessment and competition do not create a culture of “entity intelligence.” Game-based learning is one tool that can help make it a reality.In an industry banking on the draw of realistic visuals and dizzingly-paced action sequences, motion sickness is not uncommon. How serious of an issue it is varies from game to game and player to player, but some developers are doing everything in their power to make sure it's not a problem on their own table. During E3 earlier this year I played Techland's Dying Light, the studio's new free-running zombie IP that crosses the mad-dash parkouring of DICE's Mirror's Edge with the current zombie apocalypse trend. In the game, players take on the role of a young man tasked with doing supply runs and setting up security around a walled-off city populated by a handful of human survivors and massive hordes of infected undead. I enjoyed the way Dying Light strives to make players really consider their mortality under such circumstances and how Techland has managed to create enemies that are not only challenging and threatening, but genuinely horrifying. In June, I was able to breeze through the game's 30-minute demo without incident. As someone prone to light motion sickness, I was worried that the game's jarring first-person visuals would affect me. It did not, so when I got the chance to play a new section of the game at Gamescom this summer, I was unconcerned. After spending fifteen minutes running wildly through back allies away from a group of zombies, I became seriously ill. I reached out to Techland after the event to ask if the studio had made any significant changes to the game's head bob or tracking systems, anything that would have tampered with my proprioception. We detect motion through signals coming from the inner ear, eyes and sensory nerve endings, or proprioceptors. Throwing one of these points off-kilter and out of sync with the other two will confuse the brain into thinking the body is poisoned and needs detoxification. This brings on the dizziness, cold sweat and sometimes vomiting. Dying Light, like the oft-compared to Mirror's Edge before it, messes with players proprioception, or the way you sense your own body. Proprioception is the balancing act that our brain carries out so we know where our limbs are at all times and can use them without looking at them, like while climbing stairs or exercising. Most first person shooters don't tend to involve an on-screen character's body past what's holding onto a gun or other weapon, but in the case of Dying Light and Mirror's Edge, the emphasis on moving quickly results in some uncomfortable visual whiplash. But the hyper-awareness and depiction of a virtual body — in both titles, players can see their own hands and limbs if they look down at the right angle – could be detrimental in the long run to players without constitutions made of steel. It's why players got sick playing Mirror's Edge, and it's why I got familiar with a Koelnmesse restroom after playing Dying Light. Techland told me that the studio is aware of Dying Light's ties to motion sickness and as development continues, the issue is one they are periodically testing for. According to programmer Bartosz Kulon and animator Kamil Franosik — whose responsibility it is to make player movement look and feel natural — the studio is constantly QA testing the title and making adjustments to avoid a queasy audience. "We've checked the camera movement but also we compared field of view, the saturation of colors and changing perspective..." "We actually don't remember when it first occurred, but after we received the first alerts concerning these complications, we undertook extensive research into the processes going on in a person's brain while sensing movement," Kulon told me. "After the theoretical research we made, we wanted to compare Dying Light to other games which include similar mechanisms and some other related content. We've checked the camera movement but also we compared field of view, the saturation of colors and changing perspective — mostly the parallel lines of the buildings and architectural order in general." A handful of new gaming experiences coming out next year are offering new spins on the first-person view; some add parkour and zombies, other giant mechs and the ability to free-run up walls. After playing Titanfall for the first time at PAX Prime, I was happily surprised to walk away from Respawn Entertainment's booth without a trace of dizziness. Game designer Justin Hendry told me Respawn didn't "do anything special" to mitigate inducing motion sickness, but the studio's focus on making action flow seamlessly brought along a natural solution. "We were more worried about the complexity of our motion model than we were about people getting sick from playing," Hendry said. "We wanted everything you can do to feel seamless and natural. From wall running, to wall jumping, to double jumping, sprinting, etc. A lot of shooters require you to play through their levels the same way every time, due to the fact that you can't really get around vertically. You constantly run through the same'maze' the same way. If maps have too many 90 degree turns in enclosed spaces, that can cause motion sickness. So can spinning the camera too quickly while trying to target an enemy. "In Titanfall, you can completely control how you want to travel through spaces, so you can skip tight corridors and just jump up to the top of the building instead," he added. "You aren't forced through anything and I think this freedom lets you keep yourself out of places that might make you uncomfortable, motion wise. Basically, we never force you through spaces that could make you motion sick. Every person can tolerate a different degree of motion sickness." "Every person can tolerate a different degree of motion sickness." But unlike Titanfall, Dying Light is all about the tightly-packed buildings and narrow alleyways. Among the long list of games Techland studied to figure out where they were going wrong with their design were Battlefield 3, Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3, as well as obvious choice Mirror's Edge and Splash Damage's first-person shooter Brink. "It would be easier to say what we did not look into," Franosik said of Techland's research. Additionally, Techland turned to Youtube's wealth of personal parkour videos, many of them shot with GoPro cameras from just the angle the studio was trying to emulate for Dying Light. These videos helped them determine natural vision angles and head movement for the game. The team couldn't emphasize to me enough how much research was conducted into the issue, with developers picking into everything from how perspective shifts when certain sized obstacles are scaled to how many milliseconds it takes to swing the camera around and look at another object. "Of course, you can't really go one to one, you can't directly move the whole process from these videos into (how the game works), but it helped us to get the right feeling of what it should feel like," Techland designer Maciej Binkowski told Polygon of the company's YouTube crawl. "[The research] was really about finding small things, because you know, Battlefield 3 is not really about the frame of movement, but they have particular animations when you go over certain obstacles that we also wanted to make. We should know how everybody else does it." Techland's testing turned up some factors not directly tied to development, such as how close players are sitting to the screen and poor illumination in players' surrounding environment, such as dim lightning or too bright of a television screen. But others, such as weapons swinging faster than players are running, are in Techland's control. The studio found that one of its major problems was a jerky camera track, which would dramatically swing players' field of vision up and down when scaling or climbing objects. "Your brain feels uncomfortable when you see certain movements on camera, but your inner ear doesn't get the signal." "The problem with cameras in games like Dying Light is your brain feels uncomfortable when you see certain movements on camera, but your inner ear doesn't get the signal," Binkowski explained. "Normally in the world you get two signals: you feel the change in your body and then you see why the change happens, and then you feel okay. So in games you see that something is changing but your body doesn't really know why. That's where the discomfort comes in. Sometimes it's not only about the move itself, but rather how intense this move is, especially when you perform jumps and the camera rolls and sometimes the movement is too fast." Binkowski said Techland viewed each motion available to players in slow motion to pinpoint where camera movement was not quite right. They combed through each move frame by frame and identified the moments in which the point of view's movement was too dramatic. Techland then had to tweak the camera track during these movements without pulling them too far away from realistic moves. Something else Techland discovered that DICE learned long ago with Mirror's Edge is that a central focal point could mean the difference between illness and normalcy. DICE placed a tiny dot in the center of the screen for its game, giving players one point to focus on while moving protagonist Faith through each parkour obstacle course. Techland has done the same for Dying Light, Binkowski said, and added a small dot to the center of the screen to help players maintain balance. This dot in the center of the screen was inspired by Mirror's Edge; the tiny point helped players focus their eyes and maintain balance among their senses while free running in first person view. DICE also removed head bob from the game after reports of players feeling ill. Both solutions were implemented after the developer spoke with ballerinas to determine how they could complete long series of spins without feeling dizzy or sick. "Problems with motion sickness appear when pretty much everything moves and everything is blurry," Binkowski explained. "Like when you sit in a car and you start getting motion sickness you can actually look up and far away because those points on the horizon will move slightly or not at all. These give you more comfort. We added this little dot in the center of the screen so even when the whole world is shaking and turning there's a point that when you look at it, it's always in the same spot." After Gamescom, Binkowski said the team analyzed the demo against the E3 slice, which is how they discovered the issue with the camera track. Movements were completed at the same speed in both demos, such as climbing the side of a building, but were done so at shaper angles in the Gamescom demo. The Gamescom demo's camera had a "bigger acceleration stroke," Binkowski said — a fancy word for head bob. The problem with creating a first person hack and slash, Techland's designers said, it that unlike a first-person shooter there is no visual reference on screen when you attack an enemy. In your typical FPS, this is usually the gun you're carrying. A hack and slash comes with a hefty amount of arm swinging and a weapon that flies all over the screen while the character is still moving. Placing a dot in the middle of the screen can mitigate the problem, but won't necessarily solve it for all gamers. "This is definitely a serious issue for us," Binkowski said. "We want players to feel comfortable playing our game, we don't want to stress our players. It seems like a small number of people are affected by it, but it's really something we want to get right. "But there is no recipe that says if you put a dot in the middle of the screen and do this and this, it's gonna go away," he added. "We know all those things and we try our best and we think we're getting better and better at eliminating the feeling. It's not something that we can say we're done with yet, we're still working on it and finding new stuff and going over all the animations. There's still stuff to do, but we're close."A man wore a woman’s bathing suit, thigh high stockings and high heels on a US Airways flight from Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix on June 9, 2011. Six days later, a San Francisco man on another US Airways flight was ejected over wearing saggy pants. (Jill Tarlow) A man wore a woman’s bathing suit, thigh high stockings and high heels on a US Airways flight from Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix on June 9, 2011. Six days later, a San Francisco man on another US Airways flight was ejected over wearing saggy pants. (Jill Tarlow) SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) — Days before a San Francisco man was arrested on a US Airways flight over his saggy pants, the same airline allowed a man showing much more skin to fly. Jill Tarlow, who was on the June 9th flight from Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix, told CBS 5 the man wore a woman’s bathing suit, thigh high stockings and high heels. “I just kept thinking to myself. What if I was wearing that outfit?” Tarlow said. “Would US Airways not ask me to cover up? If a woman was in a stripper outfit they’d allow her to just board?” According to Tarlow, many passengers complained about the man’s attire to the gate staff. She telephoned US Airways after the plane landed in Phoenix. Tarlow said an airline spokesperson told her “…As long as he’s not harassing anyone or exposing himself, then we’re fine with it.” Six days later, Deshon Marman of San Francisco was removed from another US Airways flight after he allegedly refused to pull up his sagging pants. Upon hearing the news of Marman’s arrest, Tarlow then turned over the photos of the scantily clad man to Marman’s attorney Joe O’Sullivan. “I think the airline maybe has a market strategy toward drag queens and against young African Americans,” O’Sullivan told CBS 5. O’Sullivan is adamant that since the airline has no explicit dress code and allowed the scantily clad passenger to board suggest it’s not about clothing, but race. “It was racial because he is black. And he had dreadlocks and they jammed him,” O’Sullivan said. “Why would they have stopped him? No passenger complained about him. No police report says he showed he showed any flesh. YouTube and everything else is demonstrable. He was reverent, respectful. I almost felt it was obnoxious he said ‘Sir’ so many times.” A US Airways spokesperson told CBS 5 by phone Tuesday, as long as someone is not showing parts of their anatomy, they are permitted to fly. (Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)Friends, are you ready for vegan biscotti perfection? Because that’s exactly what’s about to go down. Let’s bake, yo. When I imagine a dreamy, idyllic morning, it involves a hot drink of some kind, biscotti, and sitting by a window with my journal or a good book. Oh, and obviously stretchy pants and an oversized sweater are involved. That’s a given. A reader requested I make vegan biscotti (hi, Aditi!), and I thought it was such a great idea. In my research, I learned biscotti means “twice baked” in Italian. And, as you might’ve guessed, this crunchy cookie traditionally enjoyed with a hot beverage originates from Italy – swoon. My girl, Giada, knows what’s up. This recipe is simple to make, requiring just 1 bowl and 10 ingredients! It’s also made with coconut oil and sweetened with organic cane sugar (sub coconut sugar if you’d like!). If you’ve never made biscotti, the concept is very straightforward. Make a cookie dough, shape it into two logs, bake until slightly golden brown, and cool. Then slice into small segments and bake once more. That’s it! That is, unless you want to dip these beauties into dark chocolate (and why wouldn’t you want to do that, I ask?). I think you guys are going to LOVE these biscotti! They’re: Crunchy Slightly tender on the inside Perfectly sweet Orange-scented Studded with toasted almonds Insanely delicious & Easy to make These would make the perfect treat to go alongside your favorite hot beverage in the morning, or for an evening dessert. A perfect pairing would be my 5-minute Vegan Hot Cocoa, or my 3-Ingredient Ginger Latte. Serious yum. If you give this recipe a try, let us know what you think! Leave a comment, rate it (once you’ve tried it), and don’t forget to take a picture and tag it #minimalistbaker on Instagram. We’d love to see what you come up with. Cheers, friends!Overview The World Reborn is the second gamebook in the Midnight Legion trilogy. It is larger than Operation Deep Sleep, the first book in the series, which was a KICKSTARTER staff pick. In this campaign we are releasing the second gamebook, which you can either play as a standalone adventure or as a continuation of BOOK 1: Operation Deep Sleep. We hope this campaign can help us with the final 10% of the funding necessary to make this gamebook even better than originally conceived. The Midnight Legion Box set was a STAFF PICK! Midnight Legion Reviews "Aaron has a system where memories are gradually given to you, allowing for the story and your background to unfold as you read. This is a great strength of the book, where every few sections gives you a new insight into the mystery around you." -Lloyd of Gamebooks "...one of The Best Games for Solo Players from Gen Con 2016...." -Nerdy But Flirty "This game is ideal for anyone wanting a solo roleplaying experience or even for parents who want to introduce their kids to gaming (and maybe hook them on reading at the same time)." -Josh, YTG Podcast Network, Your Turn Go! "...this series uses a highly advanced game system, offering a deeper level of character generation than a standard CYOA gamebook – featuring combat, puzzles, diplomacy, stealth and role-playing elements. Book 1: Operation Deep Sleep is available in a very attractive box set,..." -Gambook News "Just wanted to say Thank-You! Its better then I even hoped for! And the illustrations are just amazing! I have backed projects before and this it the first time I feel that the end results is worth more then my pledge! Again, Thank-You." -KICKSTARTER BACKER book 1 Jason S. "This is definitely an experience I feel I was missing in my collection, and I'm really glad I have had a chance to play this... I REALLY recommend it!" -UK Game Reviewer Slickerdrips Game System The Midnight Legion is a highly advanced, color illustrated gamebook trilogy in the style of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series, but with MUCH more control over your character and world—think of an advanced version of SORCERY or LONE WOLF, with deeper character generation. An interactive story is combined with combat, strategy, puzzles, diplomacy, stealth and role playing elements. Collect information, knowledge, and goods from the world around you to advance your character. 2-player Version In this variation, one player reads the entries like a game master to another player who experiences the world of Midnight Legion. All the rolls for the encounters are handled by the reader and the player handles all of his or her character's dice rolls. This is also a good way for the game master player to introduce the game to someone who doesn't know all the rules. Game Play You must choose whether to complete your objectives using combat, stealth or sixth sense and diplomacy. You can solve the puzzles that unlock the base’s secrets using logic, or you can try to recover your lost memories for clues. Choices Whatever you decide, your actions change the world around you and determine the encounters you face next. Every game you play will be different – and you will need all of your skills to survive. Book 2: The World Reborn More than four centuries have passed since the Devastation engulfed the Earth. The species that remained were fused and reborn in the alchemy of atomic fire. Now their diverse descendants have claimed the planet. You are an agent of the Midnight Legion, tasked with preserving life and rebuilding civilization. Only one other agent remains, and she is somewhere ahead of you, racing for your last remaining base. Unless you can reach it before she does, she will seize the command center and use its ancient weapons to unleash a second Devastation. This time, if she succeeds, nothing will survive. Your chase will lead you to new creatures, lost technologies and possibly even the clues your adversary leaves behind. But beware—there are no established paths across this constantly shifting land, and nothing is what it seems.
is a known Islamist outfit operating primarily in the southern states of India. In July 2010, 13 activists of the PFI had chopped off the hand of a professor in Kerala, accusing him of blasphemy against Islam. In March 2016, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested a person called K V Abdul Jaleel in relation to what is called the Narath training camp case. Jaleel was accused of assembling 21 men in April 2013 and training them in making bombs. Amongst these 21, there were members of the PFI. In August 2017, the Karnataka police arrested five people for the murder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker, Sharat Madivala. All five were directly or indirectly related to the PFI. In August 2016, a man named Rudresh was murdered in broad daylight in Bengaluru. In November, the police arrested the Bengaluru head of the PFI himself in connection with the murder. In 2009, two PFI activists had assaulted an ASP with weapons. It must also be noted that the PFI drew some of its cadre and leadership from the banned terror organisation, the Students Islamic Movement of India. Former Kerala chief minister, V S Achuthanandan, speaking in the Kerala assembly in 2010, had said that the PFI was aiming for ‘Islamisation of Kerala’. Several activists of the PFI have been involved in alleged cases of ‘love jihad’ in Kerala, most notably the recent Akhila (alias Hadiya) case.An influential inquiry into the future of Britain's abortion laws will begin today amid controversy over an apparent attempt by faith-based organisations to skew the balance of evidence presented to the committee of MPs. At least eight submissions of written evidence have come from medical professionals who have not disclosed their membership of Christian groups opposed to abortion on faith grounds. Six of the doctors are members or activists with the Christian Medical Fellowship, an organisation that has given its own evidence to the inquiry. Suspicion that contributors had not been transparent about their affiliations has led the clerk of the committee to take the unusual step of writing to all those who gave evidence asking them to disclose their links to any relevant organisations. The committee is examining recent scientific evidence on issues such as the long-term impact of abortion on the mother's health and whether babies born younger than 24 weeks (the current limit for most abortions) can survive. The inquiry's terms of reference specifically focus on scientific considerations and not ethical and moral arguments. Some on the committee are worried that unless witnesses are transparent about their affiliation to anti-abortion groups the inquiry will not be able to properly assess their evidence. Evan Harris MP, the Liberal Democrats' science spokesperson, said: "This inquiry is specifically about the scientific evidence not moral or religious arguments and our witnesses need to be evidence-led not ideologically or theologically driven. The CMF risk undermining the inquiry by getting people called as expert scientific witnesses when they are not." Two witnesses who will give evidence today, Chris Richards, a paediatrician and honorary clinical lecturer at Newcastle University, and John Wyatt, a neonatal paediatrician at University College London, are members of CMF, but did not disclose that on their original submission. "Everyone is entitled to an opinion but when non-experts are submitting their views about findings they really ought to declare where they are coming from so their expertise and standpoint is not misunderstood," Dr Harris said. Professor Wyatt, who sits on CMF's public policy committee, said: "I'm basically giving this submission as a private individual not a representative of any organisation. It doesn't seem to me helpful in a way to wish to diminish the impact of evidence according to the personal beliefs of the people who present them, unless one is going to do that across the board... what we are asking is for scientific evidence to be considered on its merits and avoid a sort of polarisation which so easily comes into this field." He added: "The idea that people can give information without people finding out where they are coming from - that there is some attempt to hide - is surely ludicrous in the age of Google." In an article in autumn 2005 on the CMF website he wrote that "CMF has played an important and increasing role in making submissions to government and other official bodies, commenting in the Christian and secular media and working behind the scenes through the BMA [British Medical Association], in the Royal Colleges and in parliament". His submission to the parliamentary science and technology committee's inquiry focuses partly on evidence suggesting an abortion increases the risk that a woman's subsequent pregnancies will be premature.— Calling on New Jersey to be "more solvent and more honest," Gov. Chris Christie today proposed a vast package of changes to pensions and benefits for many current public workers that will shift more costs to employees to help state and local governments cope with looming health and retirement bills. Speaking at a town-hall style event in Gloucester Township, Christie proposed changes that would affect every public worker - including judges, teachers, police officers and firefighters - such as requiring bigger contributions into their pension and paying for health care based on premiums instead of a percent of salary. "Pensions are all about numbers," he said. "There's no magic...We cannot sustain them." The proposals would provide more immediate relief for government budgets than an initial package of changes signed in March that mostly affected future hires. Stock-market losses, a growing public workforce and a decade-worth of the state not paying its bills have led to an estimated shortfall of $46 billion that represents the difference between how much New Jersey has pledged to its public workers for retirement payments and how much it has saved in investments. RELATED COVERAGE: • • • • • • • Health care costs are even bigger, with state and local governments owing an estimated $67 billion in future costs. Instead of saving or investing money for this cost, bills are paid as they come due, according to state figures. This year, the state will spend more than $2.5 billion out of a $29.4 billion budget on health care for state and school workers. Estimates for both the health care and pension gaps are current as of around July 1, 2009. For state and many school employees, Christie’s proposal would not only undo a 9 percent increase granted in 2001 for many employees, it would go further and make pension savings less lucrative than before the increase, he said. He would also increase the retirement age to 65 and penalize workers who retire early. Pensions are calculated using formulas that count how many years an employee has worked and the average salary over the final years of a career. The plan would increase the number of years included in that average from three to five for state workers and teachers, and one to three years for police and firefighters, he said. The plan would also eliminate automatic cost-of-living adjustments in pensions. Some parts of the plan would decrease costs for the state, but others — at least on paper — would make the shortfall appear to grow. For example, Christie proposed decreasing the assumed rate-of-return on investments to 7.5 percent from 8.25 percent, a move several other states have done or are considering. That means the state will assume it will make less money in the market and, therefore, require state and local governments to pay more to make up for the gap. But experts have said it’s a more realistic way of predicting how much pensions will cost. "It's going to mean more hard choices," he said. Christie also proposed restructuring how employees contribute to health care. Rather than pay 1.5 percent of salary a year toward health care costs, Christie proposed requiring employees to pay 30 percent of the price of the health care premium. Co-pays and other costs would also increase. Christie also proposed requiring all workers to contribute 8.5 percent of their salaries toward their pensions — the same as firefighters and police officers — up from 5.5 percent for other workers or 3 percent for some judges.He has previously called for recognition of varying levels of paedophilia One user called him a 'danger to women' while others came to his defence Controversial scientist Richard Dawkins provoked fury yesterday after referring to ‘mild date rape’ and ‘mild paedophilia’ in comments on Twitter. Campaigners for women and child abuse victims condemned the prominent atheist’s posts as ‘offensive and damaging’. Professor Dawkins, 73, became embroiled in the row when he made a point about logical thinking to almost a million followers on the social networking site. Scroll down for video Shocking: Richard Dawkins's tweets that sparked the Twitter storm. He used the shocking examples as a way to illustrate a type of logical argumen where a comparison does not act as an endorsement Provocative: Professor Dawkins's comments sparked fury on the social network where one user accused him of being 'a danger to women' while another urged him to 'learn compassion' The academic sparked anger by choosing the example of sexual abuse to illustrate the idea. He began by writing: ‘X is bad. Y is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of X, go away and don’t come back until you’ve learned how to think logically.’ Then he added: ‘Mild pedophilia [sic] is bad. Violent pedophilia is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of mild pedophilia, go away and learn how to think. ‘Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of date rape, go away and learn how to think.’ Despite coming under fire from scores of other Twitter users, the evolutionary biologist refused to change the topic. He went on to write: ‘Mild date rape is bad. Violent date rape is worse. Is it really so hard to understand that that doesn’t constitute endorsement of either?’ Backlash: Some of the tweets written in response to Richard Dawkins. Many were outraged by his apparently casual use of rape, and argued that they made light of the suffering victims endured The professor finally withdrew from the argument after tweeting: ‘What I have learned today is that there are people on Twitter who think in absolutist terms, to an extent I wouldn’t have believed possible.’ But Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said the scientist had belittled the ‘devastating’ effect of sexual abuse. 'Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of date rape, go away and learn how to think' Richard Dawkins He said: ‘What staggers me is that for such a self-proclaimed intelligent man to even talk in these terms is to completely miss the point. 'There is no such thing as mild or serious paedophilia. There is child abuse, and the consequence for the victim is that they can be scarred for life.’ Holly Dustin, co-director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said Professor Dawkins had ‘minimised’ abuse in his remarks. ‘Richard Dawkins is not just engaging in light-hearted philosophical discussion when he talks of “mild date rape” and “mild paedophilia”, but minimising these serious offences,’ she said. Shami Chakrabarti, of the human rights group Liberty, said even the most intelligent Twitter users should sometimes ‘put their smartphones down and count to 250’ before commenting on such sensitive topics. Response: Dawkins sent this tweet towards the end of the lively online debate, mocking some of the harsh criticism he had received ‘There is no mild rape, there is no mild paedophilia. These are terrible, terrible crimes,’ she told the Daily Telegraph website. Professor Dawkins, an Emeritus Fellow at New College, Oxford, has previously triggered outrage with comments about child abuse. 'What staggers me is that for such a self-proclaimed intelligent man to even talk in these terms is to completely miss the point' Peter Saunders, National Association for People Abused in Childhood He said in an interview last year that he could not condemn the ‘mild paedophilia’ he experienced at boarding school, adding: ‘We must beware of lumping all paedophiles into the same bracket.’ However in a statement on his website last night, he said he ‘was only talking logic’, and had ‘no desire to make light of the seriousness of any kind of rape or [sic] pedophilia’. In 2011, the then justice secretary Kenneth Clarke faced a backlash after referring to ‘serious rape’ in a BBC interview. He later stressed that ‘all rape is a serious crime’ and that he had used the ‘wrong choice of words’.DAKAR (Reuters) - Red Cross workers have found 115 bodies in Central African Republic’s diamond-mining town of Bangassou after several days of militia attacks, the president of the aid group’s local branch said on Wednesday. The battle for control of the town marks a new escalation in a conflict that began in 2013 when mainly Muslim Seleka fighters ousted then-President Francois Bozize, prompting reprisal killings from Christian militias. Recent clashes have centered on diamond-rich central and southern areas of the country, with rival militias battling among themselves to control them, aid workers say. “We found 115 bodies and 34 have been buried,” Antoine Mbao Bogo told Reuters by phone from the capital Bangui. “They died in various ways: from knives, from clubs and bullet wounds.” A senior U.N. official had previously reported 26 civilian deaths. Hundreds of militia with heavy weaponry seized the southeastern border town of Bangassou at the weekend and U.N. peacekeepers have since then been trying to wrest it back. The deployment of extra U.N. troops and air strikes have helped peacekeepers regain control of strategic points, U.N. spokesman Herve Verhoosel said on Wednesday. Clashes between militias in the central town of Bria have killed five people, he added. The U.N. is also seeking to verify the deaths of up to 100 people in the town of Alindao.In a recently converted warehouse in downtown Monrovia, Liberia’s capital city, some 30 Liberian university students are manning a bank of phones. Armed with pens, clipboards and multiple bottles of hand sanitizer, they pick up the constantly ringing receivers in quick succession. “Good afternoon. You have reached the Ebola call center. How may I help you?” It’s the national Liberian Ebola hotline, a toll-free number for residents from all over the country worried about a sick neighbor, a suspicious death in the family or troubling symptoms. It serves a vital link between a public terrified of Ebola and the government who can provide help — but pranksters often get in the way. The call center opened in early August to address the rapidly escalating number of Ebola cases in the country. Ebola spreads through contact with infected bodily fluids, and transmission most often happens in the home, where family members take care of the ill without adequate protection. To stop that chain of transmission, it is vital to get the sick out of home care and into specially designated centers where they can be treated by trained health care workers in isolation. A call to the hotline, the government promised, would result in the dispatch of an ambulance to take the sick person to a treatment center, or, in the case of someone who died, a dead body management team to pick up the corpse, which is still contagious for days after death, for safe disposal. But no one was prepared for the volume of response. From the very beginning, the center was receiving thousands of calls a day. The government had neither the ambulances to pick up the ill, nor the space to treat them. Instead of a solution, the hotline became a source of frustration. And the callers took it out on the agents at the other end of the line. “A lot of people think that we are the doctors, that we are the ambulance drivers, or the dead body teams,” says call center manager Tina Kpan. “All we do is transmit the information, but the public doesn’t understand that, and they take their anger out on us.” The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now The number of calls has declined to around 1,000 a day, says Kpan, who sports short, spiky dreads and dangling gold earrings. But it’s not exactly cause for hope. “Instead of getting one call for one sick person, we are getting reports of five or six sick people at a time,” Kpan says. The phone center’s statistician says that he is averaging 100 calls a day reporting dead bodies. Some of them are duplicate calls, he says, but the numbers are still growing. Even if the agents aren’t on the front lines of the fight against Ebola, they still feel the pain. “I am sorry for your loss,” whispered one agent into the phone as she took down details of a recently deceased 34-year-old mother from her 12-year-old daughter. The agent briefly rested her forehead in her hands upon hanging up.“You put yourself in that persons’ shoes, and sometimes you feel like its you that it has happened to,” she says. “Its very frustrating. Sometimes they just die.” On her shirt is stapled a small square of paper marked with her temperature coming into work that morning: 36.1 Celsius. Not all the calls are about the sick and dying. Some, in a way, are worse: the prank callers. Agents say that 90% of the calls are legitimate, but Kpan pulls out a thick folder filled with the recorded phone numbers of people who called simply to harass the center’s workers. Some make lewd jokes or attempt to pick up the female staffers. Others invite the agents out to eat “bush meat,” the monkey and bat flesh consumed in rural areas in a practice that may have spread Ebola into the human population. Kpan has instructed her agents to record the calls, as she plans to broadcast them on the radio in an attempt to name and shame. One prank caller had the misfortune of calling just as she was making the rounds of the phone banks. Kpan grabbed the phone from the agent. “You listen here,” she shouted into the mouthpiece. “We are here to pick up calls for sick people, and you are occupying the line. And then the public complains that we are not picking up calls. The very next time you call this number, I will have the police pick you up.” She slams the phone down, and asks the agent for the number. For the moment, she says, they don’t really have the right to call the police. When they do, she expects the call volume to go down. That may make the agents’ job easier. But it’s unlikely to indicate anything about the course of Ebola in Liberia. Contact us at editors@time.com.The Supreme Court approved Tuesday an appeal filed by Tel Aviv grocers, and stated that the Tel Aviv Municipality should act more decisively to ensure that the AM:PM and Tiv Ta'am stores do not open on Saturdays. The judges ruled that the municipality should consider using other enforcement measures, since fines alone fail to meet the purpose of the law. Related Stories: It was further ruled that under the current situation, the municipality allows the ongoing breach of the bylaw, thereby harming the rule of law. The municipality was given 60 days to decide how it plans to proceed. The ruling won widespread support among MKs from across the political spectrum. The Likud Beiteinu's Tzipi Hotovely said, "The State of Israel is a Jewish state and we must not allow a situation where the free market destroys the living of those who observe the Sabbath. A law is a law, and the Tel Aviv Municipality must uphold it." Knesset Member Dov Khenin (Hadash) said: "The Court ruled that the municipality cannot turn the law into a profit machine. It is time for a new arrangement on the matter of Shabbat in the city that would protect the workers, the small businesses and those who still wish to purchase essential goods on Saturdays." Labor's Merav Michaeli said that businesses must be closed on Shabbat, not for religious reasons but for social and cultural reasons. Meretz's Nitzan Horowitz, who is running for Tel Aviv mayor, also backed the ruling but said that if elected he would work to change the law. In 2007, grocers filed a petition with the Tel Aviv District Court, claiming there is unequal enforcement of the law, and while they are forced to shut down their stores on Saturdays in order to avoid penalties, the big chains go unharmed and therefore have a significant advantage, while they suffer significant economic damage. Tiv Ta'am (Photo: Eran Yuppy Cohen) In response, the municipality argued that under the law it cannot do more than impose fines. The Tel Aviv District Court rejected the original petition, and ruled it had not been proven that the fact that the municipality only imposes fines is unreasonable. It was added that the petitioners' claims regarding the damage to residents due to the operation of the stores on Saturdays was not established either. AM:PM (Photo: Amit Kotler) But on Tuesday, the Supreme Court reversed the ruling. "There is no doubt that the defendants are violating the bylaw," Supreme Court Judge Miriam Naor stated. "Therefore, in principle, the municipality must force these businesses to close on the day of rest. This isn't a matter of a'religious' or'secular' philosophy. It stems from the view that the law, including the bylaw, must be respected." The judge made clear that the Rest Law has social and religious values, and its significance is that "businesses would indeed be closed on the day of rest, and not because businesses that want to open their doors on Saturdays could do it provided they are willing to pay the fine." The Tel Aviv Municipality said in response: "Tel Aviv-Jaffa will continue being a free city. We will study the ruling and find a solution that will balance the rest on Saturday with the freedom the city allows, as we did until today." Meirav Crystal and Moran Azulay contributed to this report Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and TwitterA marketopia populated by the rabid people, surnamed after the companies they work for. An inane world-for-profit. Tongue-in-the-cheek market worshipping leading to perception of capital and enterprise as the pinnacle of human achievement. And don't forget your constitutional rights, fraud included. Add to that all the nice touches. The gun of sentimental value. The Nike hype. The John guy assaulting a gal and all the way threatening to sue her for damages! Wow! Consider me a Max Barry convert! Q A marketopia populated by the rabid people, surnamed after the companies they work for. An inane world-for-profit. Tongue-in-the-cheek market worshipping leading to perception of capital and enterprise as the pinnacle of human achievement. And don't forget your constitutional rights, fraud included. Add to that all the nice touches. The gun of sentimental value. The Nike hype. The John guy assaulting a gal and all the way threatening to sue her for damages! Wow! Consider me a Max Barry convert! Q: “Hey, don’t worry about it,” Vice-President John said. “Career change can be very stressful. I read that somewhere.” (c) Q: Hack was a Merchandise Distribution Officer. This meant when Nike made up a bunch of posters, or caps, or beach towels, Hack had to send them to the right place. Also, if someone called up complaining about missing posters, or caps, or beach towels, Hack had to take the call. It wasn’t as exciting as it used to be. (c) Q: They were smiling at him as if he was an equal—but of course, Hack was on the wrong floor. (c) Q: Then they stuck out their hands. “I’m John Nike, Guerrilla Marketing Operative, New Products.” “And I’m John Nike, Guerrilla Marketing Vice-President, New Products,” the other suit said. (c) Q: “Hack, we need someone who can make snap decisions. A fast mover.” “Someone who can get things done. With a minimum of fucking around.” “If that’s not your style, well… let’s forget we spoke. No harm done. You stick to Merchandising.” Vice-President John reached for the contract. “I can sign it now,” Hack said, tightening his grip. (c) Q: “Yeah.” Hack hoped he sounded confident. He didn’t really understand marketing. (c) Q: “So you know what we’re going to do?” He shook his head. “We’re going to shoot them,” Vice-President John said. “We’re going to kill anyone who buys a pair.” (c) Q: “I remember when you could always rely on those little street kids to pop a few people for the latest Nikes,” Vice-President John said. “Now people get mugged for Reeboks, for Adidas—for generics, for Christ’s sake.” “The ghettos have no fashion sense anymore,” the other John said. “I swear, they’ll wear anything.” (c) Q: “Um…” Hack said. He swallowed. “Isn’t this kind of…illegal?” “He wants to know if it’s illegal,” the other John said, amused. “You’re a funny guy, Hack. Yes, it’s illegal, killing people without their consent, that’s very illegal.” Vice-President John said, “But the question is: what does it cost? Even if we get found out, we burn a few million on legal fees, we get fined a few million more… bottom-line, we’re still way out in front.” (c) Q: Hack sat in traffic, biting his nails. This had not been a good day. He was beginning to think that visiting the marketing floor for a cup of water was the worst mistake he’d ever made. (c) Q: “Well, that’s cheaper. We can make sure we don’t take out anyone with means. For, you know, retribution. And you need ten capped, so there’s a bulk discount. We could do this for, say, one-fifty.” (c) Q: Jeeps were one of the safest vehicles on the road, Buy had read; safe for people in the Jeep, anyway. (c) Q: Until recently, Buy had thought that moving to a USA country was the best move he’d ever made, with the possible exception of changing his name from Jean-Paul. (c) Q: “I know first aid.” Not many people did; there was too much risk of being sued. (c) Q: “Nine-eleven Emergency, how can I help you?” “I need an ambulance. Quickly, a girl has been shot at the Chadstone Wal-Mart mall.” “Certainly, sir. Can you tell me the girl’s name?” “Hayley. Hayley something. Please, come straight away.” “Sir, I need to know if the victim is part of our register,” the operator said. “If she’s one of our clients, we’ll be there within a few minutes. Otherwise I’m happy to recommend—” “I need an ambulance!” he shouted, and it was only when water splashed on his hand that he realized he had started to cry. “I’ll pay for it, I don’t care, just come!” “Do you have a credit card, sir?”“Yes! Send someone now!” “As soon as I confirm your ability to pay, sir. This will only take a few seconds.”He looked at the faces around him. “Someone help her. Help her!” The kid who had loaned Buy his cellular knelt down and held the jacket over the wound. A girl began stroking Hayley’s hair. Buy dragged his wallet out from his back pocket and retrieved his credit card. Hayley’s eyes were fixed on him. I promise, he told her. I promise. “I have American Express—” “That’s fine, sir. Could you read your card number to me, please?” “Nine seven one four, oh three—” Two shots rang out from somewhere below them, close. The people around him shrieked and fled; only the kid stayed, crouching lower. “—six six—” People were screaming. Something hit the ground—or one of the Mercedes?—with a deafening boom. “Sir? Are you there? I didn’t catch the number, sir.” “Nine seven—” The kid put his hand over Buy’s. “Mister…I don’t think it matters.” Hayley was no longer looking at him. Her eyes were turned upward, at the Nike Town sign, at the fluorescent lights. Her face was white. “Oh, no,” Buy said. “No, please.” “Sir?” the operator said. “Can you please repeat your credit card number for me, sir? Sir? Are you there? Sir? Sir?” (c) Q: Hack, what you just saw was a press release. We have no intention of hunting down the people responsible, because the people responsible are us. All right? (c) Q: “You want to know why Americans took over the world, Hack? Because they respect achievement. Before this was a USA country, our ideal was the working-class battler, for Christ’s sake. If Australians ruled the world, everyone would work one day a week and bitch about the pay.” He shook his head. “Then there’s the British, who thought there was something wrong with making money. No surprise they ended up kissing the colony’s ass. The Japanese, they think the pinnacle of achievement is a Government job. The Chinese are Communist, the Germans are Socialists, the Russians are broke…who does that leave?” “Canada?” “America,” John said. “The United fucking States of America, the country founded on free-market capitalizm. I tell you, those Founding Fathers knew their shit.” (c) Q: “You mean the one time you did something nice for no reason, the person died?” (c) Q: He reddened. “Well, we still need that information. It may not seem important to you, but this is a serious suit.” She couldn’t help it: she looked at his suit. (c) Q: In order to pursue the perpetrators, we need funding, yes. The Government’s budget only extends to preventing crime, not punishing it. For a retributive investigation, we can only proceed if we can obtain funding. (c) Q: Hack said. “See, there’s this body in my kitchen—” “You’re meant to call first,” the agent said. “To set up an appointment. We can’t drop everything just because you walk in.” (c) Q: He smiled. Trespass was an assault against property and therefore a crime, but fraud was fine: fraud was practically a constitutional right, like free speech. (c) Q:ORLANDO, Fla. - An Internet video purports to show the beheading of U.S. journalist and former University of Central Florida student Steven Sotloff by the Islamic State group. Sotloff, who freelanced for Time and Foreign Policy magazines, had last been seen in Syria in August 2013 until he appeared in a video released online last month by the Islamic State group that showed the beheading of fellow American journalist James Foley. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit against the backdrop of an arid Syrian landscape, Sotloff was threatened in that video with death unless the U.S. stopped airstrikes on the group in Iraq. The man ISIS says is Sotloff speaks to the camera before he is killed, saying he is "paying the price" for U.S. intervention. In the video distributed Tuesday and entitled "A Second Message to America," Sotloff appears in a similar jumpsuit before he is beheaded by an Islamic State fighter. The masked ISIS figure in the video speaks to U.S. President Barack Obama, telling him, "Just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people." A Sotloff family spokesman said Steven Sotloff's relatives were aware of the beheading video and are grieving. The spokesman said the family has not been told by officials whether the video is authentic. Earlier, the State Department said U.S. intelligence officials were still trying to determine if the video was genuine. Students at UCF are planning to honor Sotloff, organizing a vigil for him Wednesday night at 9 p.m. at the Reflection Pond on campus. "Our UCF family mourns Steven's death, and we join millions of people around the world who are outraged at this despicable and unjustifiable act," UCF President John C. Hitt said in a statement to Local 6. Last week, Sotloff's mother Shirley Sotloff released a video pleading with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi not to kill her son. "Steven is a journalist who traveled to the Middle East to cover the suffering of Muslims at the hands of tyrants. Steven is a loyal and generous son, brother and grandson," she said. "He is an honorable man and has always tried to help the weak." U.S. Senator (D-Fla.) Bill Nelson issued a statement shortly after the Sotloff beheading video surfaced. "Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Steven Sotloff. Let there be no doubt, we must go after ISIS right away because the U.S. is the only one that can put together a coalition to stop this group that's intent on barbaric cruelty," Nelson said. ISIS has also threatened the life of British captive, David Haines. Sotloff attended UCF from 2002 to 2004, majored in journalism and was a writer for the Central Florida Future, the school's paper. He left the university before earning a degree, officials said. "This is an unspeakably terrible circumstance. We join so many others who hope for Steven's safe return," said Grant J. Heston, UCF vice president for communications and marketing, after the Foley video surfaced. Sotloff's college roommate, Emerson Lotzia, said he never imagined seeing him in an ISIS video. "It was spooky to me," Lotzia said. "I was shocked. I didn't think it was real at first and I never thought in my wildest dreams I would know somebody who is in this situation." Sotloff started his career at UCF writing for the Central Florida Future when he was a student there 12 years ago. He covered breaking news but was particularly interested in politics. "We were all taken aback when he talked about wanting to go to the Middle East and tell stories and do his thing over there. This is definitely very hard for all of us who know him and the entire UCF community," said Lotzia. A petition started on the White House website had asked for President Barack Obama to "do everything possible to free American reporter Steven Sotloff from ISIS in Syria and save his life." Watch Local 6 News and stay with ClickOrlando.com for more on this developing story. Copyright 2014 by ClickOrlando.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Abstract While premodern Arab critics did not use the label “sukhf” to categorize poems and preferred mujūn instead,3 there is no doubt that sukhf qualifies as an independent mode. In addition to being incorporated and seamlessly woven into various qaṣīdas, there are numerous poems composed by Ibn al-Ḥajjāj that should be approached and read as independent sukhf poems. As noted and illustrated in previous chapters, much of what sukhf is about is the deliberate confusion and conflation of modes and poetic registers in general and parodying them, yet there is a certain direct debt to mujūn; the mode with which it is often coupled and from which it branched off. So where does mujūn end and where does sukhf begin and is it possible to answer this question?4 While the boundaries separating the two are not always clear or easily detectible, there are, for sure, areas to which only sukhf extends, especially, but not only, in extreme scatological references.5 Moreover, there are standard mujūn topoi, themes and sub-themes that are elaborated, taken to their maximum potential, and inverted in and into sukhf, particularly in Ibn al-Ḥajjāj’s poetry. Another intimately related issue that will be addressed in this chapter is the debt to Abū Nuwās (140–198/755–813), whose name and persona are synonymous with mujūn in both popular and literary culture. The Nuwāsian influence on Ibn al-Ḥajjāj was briefly alluded to in chapter 1, particularly via Abū Ḥjukayma.6I never saw such a fine collection in a small town, and it does honour to the generosity of the donors and to the zeal for instruction of the Parsi population at Navsari. This visit will remain one of the best remembrances of my short occasion in the Parsi mofussil. This inscription, the first entry in the guestbook of Navsari’s 145-year-old First Dastoor Meherjirana Library, scrawled in the lithe, oblique hand of James Darmesteter, a French Orientalist, translator and scholar of Iranian philology and Zoroastrianism, dates back to January 1887. The son of a Jewish bookbinder, Darmesteter was elected chair of Iranian languages at the Collège de France in Paris in 1885. He travelled to India the next year to trace the origins of a few Pashto ballads. His 11-month-long itinerary included excursions to the Punjab, Peshawar and Abbottabad and brief halts in Bombay (now Mumbai) and Navsari. An article he wrote on Bombay’s oldest French library, Le Cercle Littéraire Bibliothèque Dinshaw Petit, located on Forbes Street (today V.B. Gandhi Marg in the Kala Ghoda precinct), published in Les Journal des Débats in November 1891, testifies to his visit to this thrumming commercial centre of colonial India. But what drew Darmesteter to Navsari, a sleepy town in Gujarat surrounded by chikoo plantations, about 250km from Bombay? Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint Centre of learning I first came to Navsari in 2015, looking for a house that had belonged to my paternal great-grandfather. The nationwide construction boom is visible here too as the town steadfastly embraces change—pastel-hued, one-storeyed houses with spacious otlas (porches) are now transforming into modest apartment blocks; grocery shops are making way for ritzy showrooms. When I went back in August this year, I made sure to stroll through the town, taking in the details—dense gulkand ice cream at the Yazdan Cold Drink House, the swathe of green that is Tata Baug, and the striking façade of the library on an arterial street. It is believed that Parsi migrants settled in Navsari in the 12th century, some 400 years after their arrival on the shores of Sanjan. It is
dates. For dates up to a few million years micas, tektites (glass fragments from volcanic eruptions), and meteorites are best used. Older materials can be dated using zircon, apatite, titanite, epidote and garnet which have a variable amount of uranium content.[29] Because the fission tracks are healed by temperatures over about 200 °C the technique has limitations as well as benefits. The technique has potential applications for detailing the thermal history of a deposit. Chlorine-36 dating method [ edit ] Large amounts of otherwise rare 36Cl (half-life ~300ky) were produced by irradiation of seawater during atmospheric detonations of nuclear weapons between 1952 and 1958. The residence time of 36Cl in the atmosphere is about 1 week. Thus, as an event marker of 1950s water in soil and ground water, 36Cl is also useful for dating waters less than 50 years before the present. 36Cl has seen use in other areas of the geological sciences, including dating ice and sediments. Luminescence dating methods [ edit ] Luminescence dating methods are not radiometric dating methods in that they do not rely on abundances of isotopes to calculate age. Instead, they are a consequence of background radiation on certain minerals. Over time, ionizing radiation is absorbed by mineral grains in sediments and archaeological materials such as quartz and potassium feldspar. The radiation causes charge to remain within the grains in structurally unstable "electron traps". Exposure to sunlight or heat releases these charges, effectively "bleaching" the sample and resetting the clock to zero. The trapped charge accumulates over time at a rate determined by the amount of background radiation at the location where the sample was buried. Stimulating these mineral grains using either light (optically stimulated luminescence or infrared stimulated luminescence dating) or heat (thermoluminescence dating) causes a luminescence signal to be emitted as the stored unstable electron energy is released, the intensity of which varies depending on the amount of radiation absorbed during burial and specific properties of the mineral. These methods can be used to date the age of a sediment layer, as layers deposited on top would prevent the grains from being "bleached" and reset by sunlight. Pottery shards can be dated to the last time they experienced significant heat, generally when they were fired in a kiln. Other methods [ edit ] Other methods include: Dating with decay products of short-lived extinct radionuclides [ edit ] Absolute radiometric dating requires a measurable fraction of parent nucleus to remain in the sample rock. For rocks dating back to the beginning of the solar system, this requires extremely long-lived parent isotopes, making measurement of such rocks' exact ages imprecise. To be able to distinguish the relative ages of rocks from such old material, and to get a better time resolution than that available from long-lived isotopes, short-lived isotopes that are no longer present in the rock can be used.[31] At the beginning of the solar system, there were several relatively short-lived radionuclides like 26Al, 60Fe, 53Mn, and 129I present within the solar nebula. These radionuclides—possibly produced by the explosion of a supernova—are extinct today, but their decay products can be detected in very old material, such as that which constitutes meteorites. By measuring the decay products of extinct radionuclides with a mass spectrometer and using isochronplots, it is possible to determine relative ages of different events in the early history of the solar system. Dating methods based on extinct radionuclides can also be calibrated with the U-Pb method to give absolute ages. Thus both the approximate age and a high time resolution can be obtained. Generally a shorter half-life leads to a higher time resolution at the expense of timescale. The 129I – 129Xe chronometer [ edit ] 129I beta-decays to 129Xe with a half-life of 16 million years. The iodine-xenon chronometer[32] is an isochron technique. Samples are exposed to neutrons in a nuclear reactor. This converts the only stable isotope of iodine (127I) into 128Xe via neutron capture followed by beta decay (of 128I). After irradiation, samples are heated in a series of steps and the xenon isotopic signature of the gas evolved in each step is analysed. When a consistent 129Xe/128Xe ratio is observed across several consecutive temperature steps, it can be interpreted as corresponding to a time at which the sample stopped losing xenon. Samples of a meteorite called Shallowater are usually included in the irradiation to monitor the conversion efficiency from 127I to 128Xe. The difference between the measured 129Xe/128Xe ratios of the sample and Shallowater then corresponds to the different ratios of 129I/127I when they each stopped losing xenon. This in turn corresponds to a difference in age of closure in the early solar system. The 26Al – 26Mg chronometer [ edit ] Another example of short-lived extinct radionuclide dating is the 26Al – 26Mg chronometer, which can be used to estimate the relative ages of chondrules. 26Al decays to 26Mg with a half-life of 720 000 years. The dating is simply a question of finding the deviation from the natural abundance of 26Mg (the product of 26Al decay) in comparison with the ratio of the stable isotopes 27Al/24Mg. The excess of 26Mg (often designated 26Mg* ) is found by comparing the 26Mg/27Mg ratio to that of other Solar System materials.[33] The 26Al – 26Mg chronometer gives an estimate of the time period for formation of primitive meteorites of only a few million years (1.4 million years for Chondrule formation).[34] See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] Further reading [ edit ]“Last year we handed out $120,000 to local organizations such as breakfast clubs, guide dog schools, youth clubs and hospitals. They all depend on us,” said Castellino. About a year ago, the Lions were notified the parking lot space beside Coliseum Mississauga on Rathburn Rd., which they had used the past three years on a five-year agreement, would not be available this summer. That left Castellino, once again, scrambling to find a new site. “We had absolutely nowhere to go,” he said. “For two months I hunted all over the place. I harassed everybody. I must have looked at every possible site for three miles around Square One.” Castellino finally stumbled upon a small parking lot at 3 Robert Speck Pkwy., owned by Desjardins General Insurance, that seemed suitable. Colliers International, which manages the property, was immediately supportive. “We are very grateful to Colliers and Desjardins for donating the space. I hope we’re here for a very long time,” he said. Still, Castellino was a bit worried since the site, several blocks away from Square One, was not as central, or visible to passing traffic, as previously. Also, it was not available on Fridays, which limited the market for the first time to a single day a week. “At first, it didn’t seem like the most ideal place, but we’ve been absolutely packed since we opened three weekends ago,” said Castellino. He can thank the cadre of loyal farmers and customers who return to the market year after year, some for decades. Kim Alexander’s family, for instance, has patronized the market for 31 years. Alexander herself has been going for 15 years. The City Centre resident was so perturbed when it was relocated yet once again this summer, she contacted mall officials to express her concern. “I support local farmers and I get to see who grows our food,” she said. Up to 40 farmers and vendors from across Ontario make the trek to Mississauga each summer for the market. They bring with them some of the province’s freshest fruit and vegetables, as well as homemade preserves and condiments, baked goods, seedlings, herbs and fresh flowers. Customers, more than a thousand each day, hail from as far away as Hamilton, Georgetown and Scarborough. The market is open Sundays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 3 Robert Speck Pkwy. and, beginning July 23, Wednesdays 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Celebration Square.A host of respected technology blogs have reported that several Microsoft executives have flown to Silicon Valley to hammer out the final details of the deal which would see Microsoft take charge of Yahoo!'s search engine business. Sources told Kara Swisher's All Things Digital blog that Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, is deeply involved in the talks. The terms of the deal remain unclear, but investment website 24/7 Wall St said Yahoo! would be paid $3bn (£1.8bn) upfront and collect a share of advertising revenue. 24/7 Wall St reported a source at ThinkEquity, an institutional investor, saying the deal was "imminent". Carol Bartz, Yahoo!'s chief executive, has said she is open to the deal if Microsoft offered "boatloads of money" and in May confirmed the companies were holding discussions. Yahoo's former chief executive, Jerry Yang, turned down Microsoft's offer to buy the whole of Yahoo! for $44.6bn (£27bn) last year. The companies are seeking ways to compete with Google, which this week reported a 19pc increase in profits to $1.4bn (£851m). Google dominates search in the US with about 65pc of the market. Yahoo! and Microsoft are second and third with 19.6pc and 8.4pc respectively. "Separately they're only fighting each other, instead of winning from Google," said Jack Neele, from investment bank Robeco. "They've got to do something together." Both Microsoft and Yahoo! refused to comment. More details are likely to emerge when Yahoo! announces quarterly results next week.ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — In an effort to maintain talks and to end the two-year Kurdish political stalemate, the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) are planning to sign a new agreement or revamp the 2007 strategic agreement with some changes to jointly visit the other parties. Mahmood Mohammed, spokesperson of the KDP is optimistic regarding the KDP-PUK’s new agreement as they will have a joint project to meet with other main parties, including, most notably, the Change Movement (Gorran), Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) and Kurdistan Islamic League (Komal) to break the region's political impasse.Mohammed said for the time being “meetings will be only be between the KDP and PUK until we reach an agreement on finding resolutions and reactivating those institutions that have to be reactivated,” notably referring to the parliament which has not met since 2015, following the escalation of rivalries between Gorran and KDP.Mohammed assured that the PUK-KDP agreement is not meant to marginalize other parties. “We want to lay the groundwork through which these two big powers get together,” Mohammed said. “After that … we will reach agreements with other parties as well in order to help this country pass from the current phase.” The most recent PUK-KDP Jan. 11 meeting may bear fruit this time. “It was the best meeting between the two parties held over the past three years,” a senior PUK leader said. Some in the PUK have expressed that being allied with the KDP could resolve the region’s crises.“The region’s crisis could only be solved through PUK-KDP agreements,” Sheikh Jaafar Mustafa, a military leader of the PUK and commander of the Peshmerga Ministry’s 70th Unit, told Rudaw. “The PUK and KDP have to once again ratify and alliance to reactivate the Kurdistan parliament. The PUK and KDP, together, should pay visits to other parties and together talk to them and listen to each other.”According to information obtained by Rudaw, the KDP will not start the second round of talks with other parties until it strikes a deal with the PUK. The first round of talks took place in mid-December.There have so far been several failed attempts to break this impasse. The latest initiative came from the region’s president Masoud Barzani in November 2016, calling on all the political parties to meet with one another in order to end the political stalemate and reactivate the parliament.Following the Barzani’s call, the KDP started talks with the PUK, Gorran, KIU and Komal in mid-December.The Kurdistan Region became politically deadlocked in October 2015, after the speaker of parliament and Gorran ministers were expelled from their positions in a disagreement with the KDP over an amendment to the region’s presidential law.Wrestler Jimmy 'Superfly' Snuka was one of the WWF's first high-flyers in the 1980s. In 1983, his girlfriend, Nancy Argentino, was taken from his Whitehall hotel room with a fatal head injury. The case remains unsolved 30 years later. Wrestler Jimmy 'Superfly' Snuka was one of the WWF's first high-flyers in the 1980s. In 1983, his girlfriend, Nancy Argentino, was taken from his Whitehall hotel room with a fatal head injury. The case remains unsolved 30 years later. Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka had just walked into his Whitehall hotel room, where a beautiful young woman lay in his bed. It wasn't unusual for Snuka, a married man, to spend the night with his girlfriend, Nancy Argentino. But on this night, after the budding wrestling superstar had returned from a series of World Wrestling Federation TV tapings at the Allentown Fairgrounds, something was amiss. Argentino was gasping for air. Yellow fluid oozed from her mouth and nose. Snuka grabbed the room phone and frantically dialed the front desk. Paramedics rushed her to Lehigh Valley Hospital, where Snuka later stood helplessly and watched doctors try to save his girlfriend's life. About 3 a.m., Snuka dialed a number in Brooklyn, where Louise Argentino-Upham was startled awake by her mother sitting on the bed, phone pressed to her ear. "Dead?" Caroline Argentino, Nancy's mother, cried out. "Dead?" The date was May 11, 1983. Thirty years later, Nancy Argentino's death remains unsolved. The Lehigh County district attorney's office has refused to allow the coroner to release her autopsy report over the past three decades. The document, included in a 1985 civil lawsuit, was obtained by The Morning Call from a federal archives warehouse in Philadelphia. PHOTO GALLERY: The strange story of Jimmy 'Superfly' Snuka and Nancy Argentino. Homicide charges against Snuka in the 1983 death of his girlfriend Nancy Argentino, 23, in a Whitehall Township motel, have been dismissed after Snuka was ruled incompetent to stand trial. (The Morning Call staff) (The Morning Call staff) Argentino, 23, died of traumatic brain injuries consistent with a moving head striking a stationary object, according to the autopsy. Her injuries weren't reflective of a singular head injury, wrote Dr. Isidore Mihalakis, the nationally recognized forensic pathologist who examined the body. Argentino suffered more than two dozen cuts and contusions — a possible sign of "mate abuse" — on her head, ear, chin, arms, hands, back, buttocks, legs and feet, Mihalakis wrote in his autopsy report. "In view of the autopsy findings and the discrepancies in the clinical history, I believe that the case should be investigated as a homicide until proven otherwise," Mihalakis wrote. Don Ringer talks about pro wrestlers at his establishment. Don Ringer talks about pro wrestlers at his establishment. SEE MORE VIDEOS Snuka and Argentino were the only two in the hotel room that night, records say. Snuka was later named a "person of interest" by the Whitehall Township Police Department, but no criminal charges were filed. In 1985, the Argentino family won a $500,000 wrongful death lawsuit against Snuka. Claiming he was broke and couldn't afford a legal defense, Snuka never paid. The local police investigation effectively went cold on June 1, 1983 after a follow-up interview with Snuka that was ordered by Lehigh Valley authorities and attended by WWF mogul Vince McMahon. It is still open to this day. Five months after Argentino was buried, Snuka famously soared from the top of a 15-foot steel cage and plastered "Magnificent" Don Muraco to the wrestling mat. He would go on to a Hall of Fame career that spanned five decades. For the Argentino family, closure remains elusive. "I feel like the police didn't take it as far as they should have," said Lorraine Salome of New York, Nancy's older sister. "The whole thing, for our family, is still up in the air. We still walk around wondering, 'What the hell?'" Snuka, now 70 and living in New Jersey, maintains Nancy Argentino fell and hit her head when they stopped along the highway to go to the bathroom on their way to Allentown. He wrote in his 2012 autobiography that her death, and persistent rumors that he is to blame, ruined his life. According to police records reviewed by The Morning Call, Snuka told the responding police officer and four hospital employees that he shoved Argentino, causing her to hit her head. Those accounts differ from what Snuka told detectives in his official interview after Argentino's death, when he insisted she slipped on the side of the highway. "That's the story he hung with the best," said Gerry Procanyn, a former Whitehall detective who remembers standing in the hotel room when Argentino was hurried to the hospital. The autopsy results showed Argentino, who Snuka claimed hit her head on concrete, had no gravel or similar dirt particles on her head or scalp. Officially, Procanyn is still investigating the case as a detective for the Lehigh County district attorney's office. But in reality, it's been years since he's received any new information. 'Superfly splash' In the early 1980s, Agricultural Hall at the Allentown Fairgrounds was a regular stop on the burgeoning WWF circuit. Every third Tuesday, Snuka and a ring of contemporaries that included Hulk Hogan, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Andre the Giant, would travel to Ag Hall to film several episodes of the "WWF Championship Wrestling" television show that a generation of children grew up watching. The tapings would end around 10 or 10:30 p.m., when the wrestlers filtered out to local bars like Ringer's Roost on Liberty Street, where owner Don Ringer recalls George "The Animal" Steele once ordered $64 in take-out beer. "They were all very cordial," said Ringer, who remains friends with some of the old-timers. "Even the bad guys were nice." After a few drinks, the cast would retire for the night to the George Washington Motor Lodge — bulldozed in the mid-90s and now the site of Home Depot along MacArthur Road and Route 22 in Whitehall. The next morning, they would leave for Hamburg, Berks County, and continue their circuit across the Northeast. Professional wrestling had always been a territorial business. The WWF dominated the Northeast while other promoters enjoyed a stranglehold on the markets in the South, the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. But in 1982, Vince McMahon set out to change that — and enlisted a barefoot, Tarzan-like character named Jimmy Snuka to play a leading role. McMahon bought the WWF from his father, Vince Sr., with a vision of building his regional brand into a global cable TV and pay-per-view powerhouse that, in 2012, reported annual sales of $484 million. At the height of its popularity in 1987, Wrestlemania III was watched live by millions, including 93,000 who packed into the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit — a North American record for an indoor event at the time. Before he got there, McMahon needed to find performers with name recognition in each city, said George Schire, a professional wrestling historian and author. So McMahon began raiding other territories for their most popular talent. He created a roster full of stars, including Snuka, one of his father's final acquisitions. Snuka, whose legal name is James Reiher, was born in the Fiji Islands and grew up in Hawaii. He began wrestling in the early 1970s and was a veteran of the ring by the time his straight-out-of-the-jungle character hit the WWF in 1982. For his signature move, the "Superfly Splash," Snuka would climb to the top rope and pause to extend his arms in the air with his index finger, pinkie and thumb up pointed out. With his opponent lying back-to-the-mat in the center of the ring, Snuka would fly through the air and land chest to chest. "Superfly" was one of the WWF's first high-flyers, and his style, combined with his hulking physique, made him especially marketable, Schire said. In May 1983, the WWF was on the cusp of graduating from dingy Ag Hall and arriving at the bright lights and fanfare of Wrestlemania I just two years later. Snuka, on the verge of his 40th birthday, was at the height of his career. "At that point in time, [Snuka] could have probably been the number two guy in the WWF," Schire said. 'East Coast girlfriend' Nancy Argentino was a Brooklyn girl. Raised on the 800 block of N. 27th Street by Catholic, working-class parents, she was a good student, optimistic and outgoing, according to her sisters. "I always admired her because she had a fun spirit," said Lorraine Salome, who is six years older than Nancy and the oldest of the three sisters. "She didn't have any trouble relating to people. People were drawn to her. She was just fun to be around." Nancy worked in a dentist's office from the time she was 15 or 16 and became a dental assistant. She took some college courses, but eventually dropped out to travel with the WWF. Never a wrestling fan herself, Nancy started going to matches at Madison Square Garden with one of her friends, who dated and married a WWF mainstay named Johnny Rodz, short for Johnny Rodriguez. Nancy was Italian, 5 feet 7 inches tall, 115 pounds with dark, curly hair and brown eyes. It wasn't long before she caught the eyes of the wrestlers. "You have a look and an attitude, I think, when you're raised in Brooklyn," Louise Argentino-Upham, now of Florida, said. "She was tall. She was pretty. She took good care of herself." Argentino-Upham recalls Nancy going on a date with Hulk Hogan, who would soon become the face of the booming professional wrestling industry. Nancy wasn't looking for a free ride, her sisters say, but she liked nice things and wanted the best for herself. Jimmy Snuka could provide that, and the couple started dating in 1982. About 16 years Snuka's junior, Nancy was the star wrestler's travel companion, guide and "East Coast girlfriend," as he refers to her in his book. "We slept together each time, but we also hung out," Snuka wrote. "She was a very nice girl and we got along right away." Nancy made sure Jimmy arrived at the arenas on time. Jimmy gave Nancy money to buy fur coats, dresses and whatever else she wanted, as long as she accounted for her spending, her mother, Caroline Argentino, told police in 1983. On occasion, Nancy brought Snuka to the family's home, where he would sleep on the couch. He was a good person, quiet, and never argued with Nancy, Caroline Argentino told police. But not long after the two started dating, the Argentino family began to have suspicions that Snuka was married. Caroline Argentino told police that Nancy didn't know Snuka was married and had a "wait and see" attitude about an engagement. They were planning to move into a condo together and Snuka had bought her a ring and told her he loved her in front of the family, she said. Yet older sister Lorraine was skeptical of the big-time wrestler. "I really couldn't figure out what the attraction was," she said. "She was pretty and she had a great personality and he was weird. He never spoke. He used to come over to the house and he wouldn't say one word." Lorraine was the one Nancy turned to whenever she was in trouble. And on Jan. 18, 1983, she received a message from the front desk of a Howard Johnson motor lodge in Salina, N.Y. Snuka and Nancy were in a fight, the message said, and Nancy wanted to come home. Police records documenting the incident, including Onondaga County Sheriff's Deputy Lawrence D. Witter Jr.'s sworn deposition, were presented in the 1985 civil lawsuit and reviewed by The Morning Call. The hotel manager called police after guests complained the occupants of Room 1 "were raising hell and a male was beating up a female." Police responded — and were met with almost superhuman resistance from Snuka. After a melee, it took at least five police officers and two police dogs to subdue and arrest the 6-foot-tall, 225-pound wrestler. An officer reported seeing Snuka grab Nancy by the hair when she ran out of the room and drag her face against the drywall. The police officially listed her injuries as "a bruised right thumb, a contusion to the neck, possible fractured ribs and injury to the lower back." Nancy later swore in a deposition that Snuka never struck her or intentionally harmed her. Snuka was charged with second- and third-degree assault, resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration but accepted a plea deal that dropped all of those charges in exchange for pleading guilty to harassment in April 1983. On Mother's Day, May 8, Nancy called her mom and said she would stop by the family home on the way from Connecticut to the George Washington Motor Lodge, outside Allentown. Caroline Argentino never heard from or saw her daughter again. George Washington Motor Lodge When the WWF finished its tapings at Allentown's Ag Hall on May 10, 1983, Snuka returned to the George Washington Motor Lodge to drink beers with his on-camera rival Don Muraco and fellow wrestler Mr. Fuji, according to Whitehall police records, which were subpoenaed for the 1985 civil case. Muraco and Fuji told police in their interview that Snuka told them his girlfriend was "not feeling well" and he wanted to return to his room to check on her condition. By the time Snuka walked into Room 427, Nancy was almost dead. "I thought, my God, I better try to call a doctor right away," Snuka said in his 1983 police interview. "Right away, I just went out of my mind. I didn't know what to do with her, I just called the front desk. I told them my girl is having a hard time breathing, just seems like she can't even breathe at all, whatever you do, please hurry up." The ambulance arrived at Lehigh Valley Hospital about 12:40 a.m. on May 11. Inside the emergency room, Snuka stood in one spot, staring at Nancy, according to witnesses interviewed by police. She was pronounced dead at 1:50 a.m. In the immediate aftermath, Snuka told at least five different people he pushed Nancy, and she fell and hit her head. He later said they misunderstood him. According to police records: • Snuka told the responding officer he and Nancy "were fooling around" outside the hotel room door when he pushed her and she fell, striking her head. • Two emergency room employees, Carol McBride and Susan St. Clair, told police Snuka stated he and Nancy got into an argument and "he pushed her and she fell back and hit her head." • Emergency room doctor John Fassl told police Snuka said he and Nancy were fooling around and she "was pushed and fell backwards and struck her head." At some point after the fall, they were fooling around again, with Snuka giving Nancy "light slaps to the face," Fassl told police. He also said Snuka seemed genuinely concerned for Nancy's condition. • Hospital chaplain Barbara Smith helped Snuka call the Argentino family after Nancy was pronounced dead. She told police that Snuka told her he and Nancy had stopped on the way to Allentown to go to the bathroom and were clowning around when he shoved her with "his forearm and she fell backward on her back and hit her head on the concrete." In an interview with police inside the morgue, Deputy Coroner Wayne Snyder said Nancy's body had "several black and blue marks." He suggested police interview Snuka and compare his verbal statement with the professional results of an autopsy. About 9 a.m., inside the hotel room, Snuka was interviewed by three Whitehall police detectives. There, he told what he maintains to this day is the true story of Nancy's death — a story that starts around 4 or 5 a.m., before the match at Ag Hall. Inconsistent account Jimmy and Nancy were on a highway somewhere in Pennsylvania and Nancy was "desperate to use the bathroom," Snuka told police. "She went a little into the bushes and squatted," he said, according to police records. "In the meantime there were a lot of trucks coming by. So I said to hurry up and she jumped across the grass onto the road. And then she slipped and fell backward and hit her head. Right on the concrete on the side of the road, she just slipped backward." Snuka told police Nancy "had a real bad concussion." "When I saw that I just picked her up and slapped her across the face to get her to come to again," he said. When they arrived at the George Washington Motor Lodge, about 45 minutes later, Nancy said her head hurt and she wanted to lie down. They went to sleep for a few hours. Snuka left for the fairgrounds around 1 p.m. and Nancy was breathing normally, he told police. He kissed her and said, "I'll be right back as soon as I get done." During a break around 6 p.m., Snuka returned to check on Nancy and found her sleeping with a "big lump on her head — it was swelled," he told detectives. He said he returned to check on Nancy a second time immediately after the taping ended, which Muraco and Fuji contradicted when they told police Snuka drank beer with them. When Snuka realized how bad Nancy's condition was, he called the front desk, he said. Detectives pushed Snuka about the inconsistencies in his story, and asked him about arguing with Nancy. Snuka said the argument was "nothing," and revealed that Nancy did fall inside the room and hit her head on a chair — but not because they were fighting. "She was like in a daze, so she just fell down and collapsed," Snuka said. Later, police asked Snuka again about witnesses who said Snuka told them he pushed Nancy. "Do you remember saying to [the doctor] that you and Nancy were pushing each other around and that she fell outside of the motel room?" they asked. "No-no-no-no," Snuka said. "This is explaining to him how we, you know, playing around with each other at time(s), but I didn't tell him that we, that she fell outside here. This is on the road when she fell." It appears the detectives then received a message from the district attorney's office, suggesting Snuka take a polygraph test and officers take him along the highway to find the spot where Nancy fell. Procanyn wouldn't comment on whether either of those actions was taken. Detectives obtained a copy of Snuka's schedule and the phone number for Vince McMahon and let Snuka go. Along with manager Buddy Rogers, Snuka attended Nancy's viewing and cried while leaning over the casket, according to Caroline Argentino's police interview. The family believed Snuka would come back for the funeral the next day. He never showed up. On the 30th anniversary of Nancy's death, The Morning Call left a phone message for Snuka at his New Jersey home. His third wife, Carole, whom he married in 2004, returned the call, saying Snuka did not wish to comment for this story. "He did address the subject in his book, and he has nothing more to say," she said. Representatives of McMahon's company, now known as World Wrestling Entertainment, also declined to comment. Case goes cold By all accounts in police records and recent interviews with those involved in the case, McMahon and the WWF were fully cooperative with the police investigation. On May 27, 1983, The Morning Call reported that District Attorney William Platt, now a Pennsylvania Senior Superior Court judge, said the investigation into Nancy's death was nearly complete. "It's just a matter of getting everybody together," Platt was quoted as saying, referring to the investigators and attorneys involved in the case, according to the article. Five days later, on June 1, 1983, Snuka and McMahon met with Platt, then-Assistant District Attorney Robert Steinberg and Mihalakis, the medical examiner, in the DA's office law library. Whitehall Police Detectives Gerry Procanyn, Al Fritzinger and Vincent Geiger were also at the meeting, according to police records. There's no official record of what was said and Snuka doesn't remember much of what happened, according to his book. "All I remember is [McMahon] had a briefcase with him," Snuka wrote in his autobiography. "I don't know what happened....The only thing I know for sure is I didn't hurt Nancy." Steinberg, now a Lehigh County judge, said Snuka didn't say much and McMahon "did all the talking." "I remember Vince McMahon being what Vince McMahon has always been — very effusive. He was very protective, a showman," Steinberg said, noting he couldn't recall specifics of the conversation. "He was the mouthpiece, trying to direct the conversation." Procanyn said McMahon gave authorities the phone numbers of wrestlers and managers they wanted to speak with. Fritzinger could not be reached for comment and Geiger died in 1984. Platt wouldn't comment when asked if Whitehall police pushed for charges to be filed. "I do not believe that as a judicial officer I am permitted to discuss this matter," Platt said in a written statement. "Besides that, as a practical matter, I am not privy to anything that may have happened in the matter since I left the DA's office in 1991." Even though three decades have passed, Mihalakis, the prominent pathologist whose work helped convict serial killer nurse Charles Cullen, who admitted killing 29 patients, said he remembers Argentino quite well and hasn't forgotten the facts surrounding the case. "The clear-cut forensics weren't there, but the suspicion was there," said Mihalakis, who has performed over 10,000 autopsies. "I did not have a clear-cut case. It was a very worrisome case. Obviously, there was enough there to arouse my suspicion but not enough to take it to trial. … Just because she was beaten doesn't mean she was beaten to death." After the conference on June 1, there's no record of police ever interviewing Snuka again. In March 1985, at the first Wrestlemania, "Superfly" was in the corner for Hulk Hogan and Mr. T as they faced "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and his tag-team partner. He soon disappeared from WWF television programs. Unbeknownst to most WWF viewers, the Argentino family had filed a civil lawsuit in 1985 alleging Nancy was injured because of Snuka's "intentional and/or reckless and/or negligent and/or careless" behavior that may have included "pushing, shoving and/or striking" Nancy along Route 22 or at the George Washington Motor Lodge. In a sworn affidavit on Oct. 15, 1985, Snuka said he had been terminated from WWF, his family was extremely poor and he owed $75,000 in back taxes. Snuka's attorneys withdrew their representation that year, saying he couldn't afford to pay them. The family was awarded a default judgment of $500,000, covering Nancy's future earnings and funeral expenses. They never collected a penny, according to Nancy's sisters. Snuka maintained that he never hurt Nancy. "I am very sorry that she died because she was a wonderful young lady. I regret this very deeply and personally, and I am sorry for the Argentinos' loss," he said in his affidavit in the lawsuit. "I know the Argentinos feel grief for their loss and I know they want to be comforted. They were my friends, and I hope they will find a way to show mercy on me and not take advantage of my present situation and my inability to defend their lawsuit." Aftermath Even before the Internet, the story of Argentino's death was circulated among underground wrestling newsletters, said Irvin Muchnick, an investigative journalist and author who has reported on the behind-the-scenes world of professional wrestling for more than 30 years. Muchnick wrote about the discrepancies between Snuka's accounts of that night in his 2007 book, "Wrestling Babylon." It's the work cited by almost every post about Nancy Argentino on the Internet. "It's a case of prosecutorial discretion," Muchnick said. "I think William Platt, then the DA, now a big-time judge there, exercised his discretion poorly." Platt wouldn't respond to Muchnick's comment. But Fred Conjour, the former Whitehall police chief, defended Platt's handling of the case. "Bill was one of the most professional, intelligent and concerned prosecutors that I've ever run into," he said. "He was certainly not the kind of guy who was going to shy away from anything if he thought it wasn't right." Steinberg, who said the decision was "out of my pay grade" at that time, explained that there were "missing pieces" that prevented the district attorney's
.cdpn.io/881020/br3a.jpg"></div> <div><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s.cdpn.io/881020/br5a.jpg"></div> </div> <div id="grid2" class="grid"> <div><p>Okay if I talk?</p></div> <div><p>I kinda get nervous when I take tests.</p></div> <div><p>Sorry.</p></div> <div><p>I already had an I.Q. test this year... but I don't think I ever had a...</p></div> <div><p>Uh... sure...</p></div> <div><p>Oh... that's the hotel.</p></div> <div><p>Where I live.</p></div> <div><p>Huh? Sure. Yeah. I guess. Is that...part of the test?</p></div> <div><p>Oh. it's not fancy or anything.</p></div> <div><p>Is this the test now?</p></div> <div><p>What one?</p></div> <div><p>What desert?</p></div> <div><p>But how come I'd be there?</p></div> <div><p>A tortoise. What's that?</p></div> <div><p>Of course.</p></div> <div><p>I never seen a turtle.</p></div> <div><p>But I understand what you mean.</p></div> <div><p>You make up these questions, Mr. Holden, or do they write 'em down for you?</p></div> <div><p>Whatya means, I'm not helping?</p></div> <div><p>My mother... <br>I'll tell you about my mother.</p></div> </div> <div id="grid1" class="grid"> <div><h1>CSS Grid<br>experiment in three planes</h1></div> <div><p>Don't move.</p></div> <div><p>Reaction time is a factor in this so please pay attention. Answer as quickly as you can.</p></div> <div><p>One one eight seven at Hunterwasser...</p></div> <div><p>What?</p></div> <div><p>Nice place?</p></div> <div><p>Warming you up, that's all.</p></div> <div><p>You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when...</p></div> <div><p>Yes. You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down and see a...</p></div> <div><p>What?</p></div> <div><p>Doesn't make any difference what desert... its completely hypothetical.</p></div> <div><p>Maybe you're fed up, maybe you want to be by yourself...who knows. So you look down and see a tortoise. It's crawling toward you...</p></div> <div><p>Know what a turtle is?</p></div> <div><p>Same thing.</p></div> <div><p>You reach down and flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon.</p></div> <div><p>The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not with out your help. But you're not helping.</p></div> <div><p>I mean you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?</p></div> <div><p>They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test designed to provoke an emotional response.</p></div> <div><p>Shall we continue?</p></div> <div><p>Describe in single words. Only the good things that come to your mind. About your mother.</p></div> </div> </div> !A few points: I do not have the time, nor the expertise to watch tape from the 2012 and 2013 seasons therefore I have used statistics, grades from Pro Football Focus (subscription required) and my own observations to analyse the offseason moves. I have taken the Free Agent signing's salary cap hits into account too when reviewing their impact. Obviously the draft picks and some of the Free Agent signings were intended to be long term investments however I have only considered the effect of their contracts this year. I also fully understand some of these players may or may not improve so do not consider this a definitive review of their careers with the Colts. Greg Toler (2013 Cap Figure-$4,333,333) Toler was originally signed to hopefully solidify the number two corner spot opposite Vontae. The need for a new Cornerback was created when the team let Jerraud Powers leave after a short stint with the Colts, where he was plagued with injuries. Powers has since gone on to have a successful first season with the Arizona Cardinals (ironically replacing the very man that had replaced himself with the Colts). 2012:Jerraud Powers 2013:Greg Toler PFF Overall Grade -4.4 -3.3 Targets 60 39 Receptions 39 21 Completion percentage 65% 53.8% Receiving Yards 482 264 Touchdowns 4 3 Interceptions 1 1 Pass Deflections 8 9 Quarterback Rating 105 90.1 Coverage snaps per Reception 6.8 12.5 I think it is fair to say that the Toler signing has been somewhat underwhelming thus far. He arrived with injury concerns and those concerns turned out to be justified as he missed 7 games. Obviously it is impossible to predict injuries but when a player is signed to a substantial contract, after not completing a whole season in his whole career, then the GM should definitely receive criticism if they cannot stay healthy. (Considering that "Greg Toler injury" is the second suggestion if you type his name into google, this should tell you all that you need to know about his career). While he has been on the field, the statistics suggest that he has been an improvement over Powers, despite his play often being very inconsistent. LaRon Landry (2013 Cap Figure-$5,750,000) With injury concerns and a reputation for big hits, Landry was one of the biggest and most controversial signings for the Colts this past offseason. He replaced Tom Zbikowski (who is no longer in the league and is now working for the Chicago fire service). 2012:Tom Zbikowski 2013:LaRon Landry PFF Overall Grade -2.0 -2.2 Snaps 693 799 Forced Fumbles 0 0 Interceptions 1 0 Sacks 1 0 Missed Tackles 6 16 Tackles 31 70 Defensive Stops 11 27 Run Stop Percentage 1.9% 4.2% Pagano described Landry as a "game-wrecker" when he signed and quite frankly, he has been anything but. He frequently took poor angles to the ball carrier and forced zero turnovers throughout the season. Combine that with missing 4 games due to injury and it is clear that so far, this has not been a good move by Grigson. As I said previously, regarding Greg Toler, LaRon Landry’s injury issues were well documented prior to this signing and he once again failed to play the whole season. Grigson deserves every criticism he gets regarding Landry’s health. While he did play better than Zbikowski, Landry was considered to be a franchise player (and paid like one) whereas Zbikowski was considered nothing more than a stop gap. Landry was paid handsomely and so far has failed to deliver. Both the fans and coaches alike will be looking for him to take some big steps forward in 2014. Ricky Jean Francois (2013 Cap Figure-$4,625,000) With no consistent starter opposite Redding in 2012, Defensive End was seen as a huge need in 2012. Ricky Jean Francois had been a career backup in San Francisco before signing a contract with the Colts. Seen predominantly as a run stuffing Defensive End, he was not expected to offer much as a pass rusher. Looking at his contract however, many, including myself, would argue that he should be offering more than just run stuffing abilities. 2012:Ricardo Mathews 2013:Ricky Jean Francois PFF Overall Grade -4.1 +6.5 Snaps 489 405 Sacks 0 3 QB Hits 1 2 QB Hurries 8 8 Tackles 11 14 Defensive Stops 8 15 Run Stop Percentage 3.5% 7.3% Jean-Francois only managed to play in 10 regular season games this year but he still made his presence felt when he got onto the field. He offered more in terms of pass rush than I was expecting and is definitely an upgrade over our 2012 starters. While his production has not lived up to the significant contract that he signed, it will be interesting to see how he performs going forward. Aubrayo Franklin (2013 Cap Figure-$1,105,000) In 2012, the Nose Tackle was a bit of a mismatch position for the Colts. A mixture of Antonio Johnson, Martin Teveaseu etc was clearly not a reliable group to carry forward into the 2013 season. No 2012 NT made the Colts roster which tells you a lot about how the front office felt about the position. Getting Josh Chapman back from injury was encouraging, however the front office (rightly) decided to add a veteran at the position while Chapman develops. 2012:Antonio Johnson 2013:Aubrayo Franklin PFF Overall Grade -10.4 -1.1 Snaps 456 340 Sacks 0 0 QB Hits 3 0 QB Hurries 3 4 Tackles 17 22 Defensive Stops 12 16 Run Stop Percentage 5.4% 7.4% While NT is not the most glamorous of positions, I feel that Aubrayo Franklin has performed admirably. Definitely an upgrade over what we had last year. His veteran presence will also surely have helped with Chapman's progression. A solid signing from Grigson for a very reasonable price. Kelvin Sheppard (2013 Cap Figure-$644,243) Jerry Hughes, a player who many fans considered to be a first round "bust" with a poor attitude, was traded for Kelvin Sheppard in the offseason. 2012: Moise Fokou 2013:Kelvin Sheppard PFF Overall Grade +0.9 -10.7 Snaps 390 358 Sacks 1 1 QB Hits 4 1 Qb Hurries 3 1 Tackles 28 38 Missed Tackles 5 5 Defensive Stops 18 24 Run Stop Percentage 10.5% 11.4% Percentage of Snaps in Pass Coverage 62.3% 37.6% The Sheppard for Hughes trade has been a flop. There is no other way around it. Many applauded the move initially, however it appears that the change of scenery was just what Hughes needed, notching himself 10 sacks in 2013. Meanwhile Kelvin Sheppard has been disappointing in general filling in at inside linebacker this year, although he did show signs of improvement towards the end of the season. For a team that has struggled for most of the year to find any kind of pass rush outside of Robert Mathis, this trade has certainly not turned out as planned. Erik Walden (2013 Cap Figure-$3,073,529) Walden was probably the most criticised signing of Grigson this offseason. Some fans were even looking into when the team could cut him and save money, before he had even played a snap for the Colts. We were reminded constantly that he had been brought in to "set the edge" opposite from Robert Mathis. With the departure of Freeney, Mathis would slide over to the rush linebacker spot and Walden would fill in at strong-side outside linebacker for the 2013 season. 2012:Robert Mathis 2013:Erik Walden PFF Overall Grade -2.8 -5.0 Total Snaps 642 859 Pass Rush Snaps 301 343 Sacks 7 3 QB Hits 5 10 QB Hurries 16 21 Defensive Stops 22 20 Run Stop Percentage 4.9% 2.8% Tackles 19 28 Percentage of Pass Rushing Snaps Generating Pressure 14.3% 9.9% Walden seemed to improve as the season went on and his limited pass rushing production was still more than I expected from him. I still don’t feel that he lived up to his contract this season, however he has been a relatively solid performer while Werner is developing. Bjoern Werner (2013 Cap Figure-$1,435,708) Drafted in the first round of the 2013 draft, Werner was considered to be a project pick as he would be transitioning from 4-3 Defensive end to 3-4 Outside linebacker. With the outside linebackers already set with Walden and Mathis, Werner was only expected to see limited snaps, predominantly on passing downs. 2012:Jerry Hughes 2013:Bjoern Werner PFF Overall Grade -3.4 -6.7 Total Snaps 610 312 Pass Rush Snaps 246 162 Sacks 4 2.5 QB Hits 6 0 QB Hurries 17 12 Defensive Stops 22 12 Run Stop Percentage 5.1% 5.3% Tackles 30 11 Percentage of Pass Rushing Snaps Generating Pressure 10.9% 8.9% An injury that forced Werner to miss 3 games will not have helped his transition into the league. He definitely showed some flashes in the last few weeks of the season and is a player to keep an eye on heading into the 2014 season. Lawrence Sidbury (2013 Cap Figure-$620,000) Brought in to be a situational pass rusher, Lawrence Sidbury did not see the field for a regular season game. It was an interesting signing considering he is quite an unknown player with a small contract, yet he was signed on the first day of free agency which suggests that somebody within the organisation is very high on him. In his only appearance (the first preseason game against the Bills) he had 5 QB hurries on just 37 pass rush snaps with another 2 defensive stops. This generated a very respectable +1.2 grade from Pro Football Focus. Whilst it is often premature to assume too much from preseason performances (see Rayford, Ceasar) this game was still encouraging for Sidbury. Daniel Adongo (2013 Cap Figure-$95,294) A signing that really caught the attention of people across the league, it is fair to say that he was not expected to feature much this season. He did eventually make an appearance on special teams which I feel speaks volumes about his work ethic. He is an intriguing player to watch going forward. Josh McNary (2013 Cap Figure-$119,117) Like Adongo, I did not expect much from McNary this season. However, he was activated for the end of the season and performed well in the limited snaps he got (especially in pass coverage). An impressive career with Army (all time leader in sacks with 28) should definitely leave Colts fans excited for his future with the team. Cam Johnson (2013 Cap Figure-$405,000) Only playing a very limited number of snaps, Johnson has had very little impact. With the trade of Caesar Rayford, the Colts essentially traded one for the other. Neither has really done anything on their new team and is yet another reminder that strong preseason performances can often not mean much when the real games start. Montori Hughes (2013 Cap Figure-$455,493) The team traded a 2014 4th pick to acquire Montori Hughes but are yet to see a return on their investment. He did not see action until Week 9 and even then he was in a limited role. We will have to wait and see what the future holds for Montori Hughes and the Colts. Adding a lot of new pieces to the defense was not surprising after using just 2 of their 10 available 2012 draft picks on defensive players (neither playing a single down for the Colts in 2012). Grigson added a few solid contributors but more often than not, he seemed to have paid too much for their services. With upwards of $30 million cap space heading into the 2014 offseason, hopefully he can find players that can create more of an impact for the same price. I am currently finishing off my piece reviewing the 2013 Offseason offensive moves which should go up some time in the next week, so keep an eye out for that. Feel free to add comments in the section below or hit me up on Twitter: @Colts_Comments.KALAMAZOO, MI -- Linebacker Robert Spillane, a key leader and playmaker with the Western Michigan football team is no longer with the organization the college announced Monday evening. The 6-foot-2 junior, who excelled in the center of the Bronco defense, requested and received a release, a post on the football team's official Twitter page noted. Spillane propelled himself into a leadership role early last season when he forced a fumble late in the team's game at Northwestern to secure a victory for his Broncos. He then pulled down a pivotal interception against Ohio in the Mid-American Conference championship game to keep his team's undefeated season alive. Spillane accounted for 111 tackles in 14 games last season (60 solo tackles and 51 assisted), caused two forced fumbles, had three interceptions for 23 yards and registered three sacks for 21 yards. The team's Twitter post stated "We thank Robert for all his contributions as a Bronco." There's no word yet as to Spillane's future plans.Some good news and some bad news about the forthcoming SimCity reboot. Good news: you won’t have to buy it through Origin, meaning there can be pricing competition. Bad news: you will have to play it through Origin, with a permanent online connection all the time. That’s some fairly bloody enormous bad news. But there is time to convince EA that while there are many merits to having your game online, there are also some vastly more dreadful downsides, and failing to recognise that would be a terrible shame. “Always on”, whether it’s sold as DRM, or as a feature, is a disaster for PC gaming. It renders the game unusable for a significant number of gamers, and ensures inconvenience for everyone. And while we’re obviously fully behind online features improving one’s experience with a game, and delighted to play a game that’s boosted by being connected, having it be unplayable without the internet is madly and maddeningly stupid. Joystiq reports that lead designer Stone Librande has said the always-on is necessary for the game’s “emphasis on multiplayer and regional impact, and the use of a global economy that all players can influence.” Those features sound brilliant, and when I’m in the situation to be able to use an internet connection, I’ll be delighted that they’re there. When my internet is down, when EA’s servers are playing up/being maintained, when I’m on a train or plane, when I’m at my parents’ house with their almost useless wifi, when I’m a soldier stationed in a desert, when I am unable to afford a broadband internet connection, when I live in a region where internet coverage is spotty or non-existent, when I am on my laptop outdoors… on those occasions, and for those people, it’s a mindlessly exclusionary and game-breaking choice that services no one. The game is a way off from release, and there is still plenty of time for EA to reverse this terrible decision, and instead offer an offline mode where players miss out on some of the game’s cooler features. There’s time for you to contact EA to tell them why always-on will ruin the game experience for you. There is no need for a game with such enormously broad appeal as SimCity, far more likely to be played by less hardcore gamers who do not do so much to preserve their connectivity, to be needlessly crippled. EA – don’t do it. You can read our preview of SimCity, to find out why it’s something we think is worth fighting for.EPA says water quality data shows Animas River water in La Plata County is back to normal but impact of heavy metal load in river sediment could last years Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy said late Wednesday that data shows water quality in one affected Colorado county has “returned to pre-event conditions” following a toxic mining spill in the Animas River. The Colorado department of public health and environment also said on Wednesday that people in the city of Durango can now drink water from the Animas River. The EPA caused the spill of acidic and heavy metal-laden mining wastewater Wednesday while investigating the inactive Gold King gold mine near Silverton, Colorado. “We have water quality data from August 7, 8 and 9 from La Plata County that show levels have returned to pre-event conditions,” McCarthy said at a news conference in Durango. But La Plata County, which includes Durango, is just one small part of the land mass affected by the toxic plume, which initially tested for high levels of lead, arsenic, and other heavy metals. One week after the spill, the plume had flowed into the San Juan River, and has closed waterways flowing through Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and the Navajo Nation. The EPA’s investigation was meant to remediate the site as part of a project on the nearby Red and Bonita mine. The headwaters of the Animas River, primarily Cement Creek where the EPA spilled the slurry, have been known to be polluted for years and don’t support aquatic life. There, some toxic acid mine waste has been leaching into tributaries of the Animas for decades. But the sheer volume and color of the waste leached Wednesday made the spill remarkable. Toxic waste stains Animas River in Colorado – in pictures Read more The EPA initially estimated that 1m gallons of the toxic orange-brown sludge with the acidity of beer had spilled into the Animas River, but four days later upped that estimate to 3m gallons of fluorescent waste. McCarthy said there is a “hiatus” on similar investigations at mines across the US until officials determine the cause of the spill. The EPA is conducting an internal investigation and said it is expecting an independent inquiry. Even after the shocking orange-colored initial plume abated, hundreds of gallons of acidic mining wastewater continued to spill every minute. Settling ponds are now capturing water spilling out of the mine, an effort by the EPA to treat the waste before it is released into Cement Creek. Information on the spill’s impacts on human and environmental health, however, have been sparse, as the EPA waits for analysis of the heavy metal load in both the water column and sediment. Generally, heavy metal loads in the water column are considered less harmful than those in sediment, which can persist for years and be disturbed by natural events such as spring melt. The EPA’s response to the disaster has been widely criticized by local environmentalists. Many have said the data released by the agency are incomplete without comparisons to historical data or other context and interpretation about what its impacts could be, and that the EPA waited too long to respond to the disaster. Pressures to reopen the waterways are also beginning to mount as the color of the Animas begins to return to normal, local environmentalists say, and as businesses along the Animas suffer tourist season losses.Trivia In 2018 Youtube interview with RedLetterMedia, screenwriter Simon Barrett talked about original earlier different story and script ideas and versions for The Guest. The first version of the script which he worked on years earlier and never finished was about soldier suffering from PTSD who killed another soldier while they were in war because they hated each other, and after he comes back he goes to visit his family pretending like he was his friend while instead planning on killing them too. Barrett also said how in one of the earlier drafts he wrote after director Adam Wingard told him about the story idea he had for the film, David was more of a cyborg who was rebuild after he was injured in combat, and how originally the story took place in foggy, isolated areas of Pacific north west instead of New Mexico. See moreYour average beta is born. He grow up surrounded by family. They are good times, but he barely remembers them. Then something changes; he spends 13 years being psychological castrated, mentally oppressed, (sometimes) physically abused, and viciously indoctrinated in what we term the public school system. He has no option but to go and is too inexperienced to realize what is being done to him. But, he is promised that if he does good, he will get a good job, have lots of money, marry a loving wife, and have kids of his own; he looks forward to that. While in this system he is thoroughly feminized; his natural masculine traits are banned, punished, and even drugged out of him. He sees the young alpha who beats him up and torments him. He sees that the young alpha has many more friends than him. He sees the pretty girls who ignore him smile at the young alpha and even hears rumours they do more than smile. But he is taught by this system, his church, his parents, and every authority figure he knows that if he obeys, he persists, works hard, and he suppresses his masculinity he will be rewarded with a job, a wife, a house, and a family. God, the market, and the state will smile upon him and bless him. The young bully will get his. God, the market, and the state will punish him in time. Someday our young beta will be his bully’s boss. He’ll have the nice house and pretty wife, while the bully is working at McDonald’s. So, he endures. He allows himself to be psychologically castrated. He’s slightly uneasy about it, it doesn’t feel quite right, but he goes with it because everyone is telling him to and he doesn’t fully realize exactly what he allowing to be done to him. In his spare time, he and his friends play video games to keep their minds off their lack of social life and of the shit they have to put up with at school. The young beta is almost done school looking forward to his reward, but then the powers that be tell him, not yet. You’ll get your reward, but first you have to go through a 3-6 year sentence at this other indoctrination system, labelled a university. Go through this and you will be blessed. Just remember to pay the tens of thousands of dollars of tuition, but don’t worry about it. There are loans, and with the money you’ll make, they’ll be easy to pay off. The young beta acquiesces; he’s a good person, not a troublemaker. He wants to help society, not fight it. Besides he desires his blessing. So he goes. He is taught in this university that he is evil because he is a man and men oppress women. He was taught that he is evil because the ancestors of people with his skin colour won some land in wars from the ancestors of people with different skin colour from his centuries ago. He is taught that being rich is evil, because rich people oppress the poor. He is taught his religious beliefs are evil and oppressive. It doesn’t sound right, but these are men of learning; these are the great and the good; these are the wise men of society. So he is persuaded. He avoids being dominant and manly around women, for he doesn’t want to oppress them. He becomes to question whether the house and job he was promised are his right. Is it only his greed and his “privilege” to expect these things? He’ll work hard so he deserves them, then he’ll help others with some of it. He starts going to a more liberal, less oppressive church; one that isn’t so judgmental. So, he works hard. He studies, he has a part-time jobs, and he takes out some student loans. He goes to the occasional party, maybe he has one or two short relationships, maybe he doesn’t. But he’s concentrating on school. He sees some young alphas at school. They are always at every party,including all the ones he’s not invited to. They act dominant around women and treat the women poorly. They are oppressing women, yet they always seem to have a girl in their arms and every week in class they brag about the great sex and fun times they had over the weekend. But the authorities assure our beta that those are not quality girls. Those girls don’t really like him, he’s just fooling the gullible into bed. The women don’t actually like the those oppressive men. Eventually those alphas will end up alone. Real women like the sensitive beta man. He’s just has to wait for the right girl to marry him. So, he waits, he studies. In his spare time he plays video games, because getting drunk and partying will interfere with his job and his schooling. When he graduates he’ll get a job and get married to a quality women. He’s 21 and nearing graduation. He applies for jobs, but none come. He graduates, and moves back in with family because he can’t afford an apartment, let alone his house. He works a part-time job; the alpha who used to bully him works at the same job, but is paid $1 more an hour because he’s been there longer. The bully always seems to have a girlfriend who visits him at work, the beta hasn’t had a date for a year. He keeps applying for jobs, but never seems to get any. The authorities tell him not to worry; there’s a recession, everybody is having trouble. Keep trying, we’ll bounce back anytime and there will be lots of jobs. Then you’ll get your job and your house. When you have those a wife will surely come. He spends his free time playing video games. He occasionally has fanciful ideas about starting his own business, but he doesn’t know how. He has no idea how to start. No one ever taught him and everybody had always told him to pursue a stable corporate job. After a year of applying, he finally gets an office job. It doesn’t relate to what he studied and is not very exciting but at least he’s employed. He hasn’t had a date since he graduated. One of the alphas from university works at the same job as him. The alpha is also having a liaison with the cute coworker on a different floor. He has a job, so he purchases a house. The house is expensive, it eats up a large portion of his paycheck, but he gets by. He’ll be able to raise a family with this house. In his spare time he plays video games with his friends. He doesn’t really have anywhere to meet a girl other than work and church you can’t shit where you eat and none of the girls at church are interested. He tries online dating but is mostly unsuccessful. He continues to work. He dislikes it and the office politics suck, but he’s good at it. There’s a promotion. He applies, but the alpha gets it as he’s better at office politics. A few months later the alpha leaves for a higher-paying position elsewhere, so the beta gets promoted. He’s still lonely; the promised wife is not to be found. On the other hand, he’s getting used to having no responsibilities. He can play video games whenever he wants. He can spend his money on anything he likes. Pornography and masturbation takes the edge of his loneliness. A lack of responsibility and prolifigacy with money become a norm he’s accustomed to. Finally, at age 29 he meets a women of 28 at church. she rejected him a few years ago, but after a bad break-up she started to treat him differently. She’s moderately pretty, but he can tell her looks are declining. He dates her. He likes her, although, she’s somewhat bitter about men. He finds out that she used to hook-up with the alpha’s at university and they didn’t treat her well. she’s looking for a real man. The beta’s happy because he is a real man. They get married. The beta has trouble adjusting. His wife does not allow him the freedom he got used to while single, but he loves her, so he spends less time with his friends and less time playing video games. He spends more time watching romance movies with her. They decide to have a child, but the wife wants a bigger house first. On both incomes, they can easily afford a bigger house, so they move. She gets pregnant and says she wants to quit to raise the child until he’s old enough for school. He recently got a promotion to Assistant Vice Manager of Internal Corporate Affairs, so they can afford it, barely, if he works overtime and they cut expenses. They have the child, but the wife continues to spend as they did before. She also doesn’t lose the weight she put on in pregnancy, so he’s less attracted to her. On the other hand, he put on some weight recently and he’s too busy working even more overtime to pay off credit card debt to have sex all that often, so he doesn’t mind. He loves his wife and child and would do anything for them. This goes on; his wife never does go back to work when his child reaches school age. She has a lot of time at home alone, but even then the chores never seem to be done. When his daughter is in first grade, his wife surprises him with divorce papers. She tells him that she felt alone and unappreciated; he wasn’t meeting her emotional needs, all he did was work. She also tells him she’s been cheating on him with one of the alpha’s she used to hook up with in university. That explains why she’d been losing weight recently. He goes to divorce court. His wife gets the family house, the child, and he has to pay alimony. She also gets the mutual friends from church. He has to work even more overtime to support both his family. He tries to rent an apartment on his own, but after about a couple years he can no longer afford it. Besides, it’s too big for him and he rarely sees his child anymore, anyway. She now calls his ex-wife’s new boyfriend daddy. He goes looking for a roommate. He finds an advertisement in the paper. He meets up with the guy. They talk, the other guy seems decent. They get along well. He recently broke up with his girlfriend of two years who kicked him out of her house and can’t afford an apartment on his own either. They move in together. They enjoy themselves. One good thing about the divorce is he has more free time, so he plays a lot of video games together with his new roommate. They split the rent; our beta makes more than his roommate who only has a low-skill manual labour job, but because of alimony they’re actual spending money is similar. He reconnects with old friends, one from his university days and a few recent divorcees from church, and he makes new friends through his roommate. The pain begins to fade and he begins to get used to singledom once again. A few months later while unpacking, the beta stumbles across his old yearbook. He flips through it, reminiscing about old times and old schoolmates. His roommate enters notices him reading, and hey, his roommate tells him they went to the same school and points himself out in the book. The beta realizes his roommate is the alpha who used bully him. His roommate remembers and he apologizes. The beta forgives him; they’re good friends now and in the same boat. **** This was originally going to be a small part of another post, but took on a life of its own. I am writing the rest of the original post to put up tomorrow. It will have (hopefully) have more context then.File: Hillary Clinton (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) When Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed to address the University at Buffalo, the largest campus of the State University of New York system, she negotiated a few requirements in addition to her pay of $275,000. The potential 2016 presidential candidate's agent requested that the university provide "a presidential glass panel teleprompter and a qualified operator," that Clinton's office have "final approval" of her introducer and the moderator of any question-and-answer session, as well as "the sets, backdrops, banners, scenery, logos, settings, etc," and that the topic and length of the former secretary of state's speech would be at her "sole discretion." These requirements are spelled out in a nine-page contract between the University at Buffalo and Clinton's representatives at the Harry Walker Agency. The contract was obtained through the freedom of information law by the Public Accountability Initiative, a non-profit research and educational group. The contract reveals for the first time many of the details surrounding Clinton's lucrative career on the paid speaking circuit. Since stepping down from the State Department in early 2013, Clinton has addressed scores of audiences, many of them trade conventions, Wall Street banks and other industry groups. Clinton has given paid speeches at eight universities, four of them public institutions. In those instances, she has said, she donated her fees to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the family's non-profit philanthropic organization. The Buffalo contract stipulates that the "net honorarium" go to the Clinton Foundation, but only after the "full contract fee" of $275,000 was paid to the Harry Walker Agency. The University at Buffalo issued a statement Wednesday saying "no state funding or student tuition revenue" was used to pay for Clinton's speech. The statement said that about 6,500 students and community members attended Clinton's speech on Oct. 23, 2013, at the university's Alumni Arena, and that Clinton's fee was paid for by ticket sales and other sponsorships and endowments. The Buffalo contract stipulates that a pre-speech reception featuring Clinton be closed to the news media, although the speech itself was open to the press. The contract also required that the university pay a fee of $1,000 to have a stenographer transcribe Clinton's speech, but that the transcript be "solely for [Clinton's] records," and that the university was not permitted to tape the speech. The contract required the university to reserve 20 seats in a "priority seating area" for Clinton's staff and guests, and that the university pay for any additional security requested by the U.S. Secret Service, such as
.” “The growing demand for text analytics for use in fraud detection and security management applications is another major driver that is expected to accelerate the global demand for cloud analytics.” Other segments that are anticipated to see explosive growth over the next few years include the foundational electronic health records market ($24 billion by 2020), patient engagement technologies ($34 billion by 2023), and predictive analytics tools, a $2.4 billion opportunity slated to grow at an 8.6 percent CAGR until 2020. The Internet of Things is likely to cut across most of these markets as providers and consumers invest in wearables, sensors, home monitoring equipment, and intelligent medical devices. A November report by Research and Markets predicts an incredible growth rate for the healthcare-specific IoT, which will expand from a $32.47 billion market to a whopping $163.24 billion opportunity by the end of this decade. The Internet of Things ecosystem is divided into two major arenas: physical sensor development and the creation of big data analytics tools, interfaces, and systems that will allow providers to view and utilize the resulting information. Both require significant overhauls of the patient-provider relationship, the clinical workflow, and the usability of enhanced toolsets to enable improved clinical decision support.As he seeks to get on terms with the Mercedes drivers this year, Sebastian Vettel believes Formula 1 should focus on the competition between the drivers rather than technological innovation in the sport’s regulations. The current era of rules, which were implemented at the start of 2014 and are due for a much-disputed overhaul next year, switched F1 from using normally aspirated V8 engines to turbo-powered, advanced V6 hybrid engines. Mercedes engine boss, Andy Cowell, recently explained how the current engines are now producing more power than ever before, but Vettel stated in an interview with his official website that he believes F1 should not get lost in overly complex regulations. He said: "I believe that primarily it should be about sport and accordingly which driver is fastest. "The car currently plays a significant role, as it did in the past. However, we should not lose ourselves in complicated rules." The four-times world champion, who was the only non-Mercedes driver to win in 2015, which he did on three occasions, explained that while he believes the German marque’s recent success had played a part in turning fans away from the sport, the complicated nature of the cars was also making the sport harder to follow. He said: "The domination of Mercedes during the past two years has naturally reduced the excitement for many fans. In addition, the current regulations are too detail-orientated. "I believe we should not lose sight of the motorsport's roots and that in future we are able to once again identify with the cars." Vettel was also asked if would end his career at Ferrari and the German driver described himself as “very content” with his current employment situation. He said: “Could be. However as a person I am not the type of person to constantly switch from one team to another every year. "I am not that and never have been, in no walk of life. At the moment I feel very content and we have targets that we aim to achieve together." Vettel’s comments follow statements made by Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne, who told Gazzetta dello Sport that the reason why Mercedes had enjoyed two seasons at the front of F1 was because it had understood the new rules package much faster than other teams. He said: “As soon as the rules were implemented they understood them immediately, while we took our time. But I don’t want to criticise the past. From what I saw we didn’t have the engine to win and the power unit wasn’t good enough.” Livery rumours Ferrari will reveal its 2016 car on Friday 19 February and speculation is mounting that the team could include more white elements into its colour scheme as it did during the 1970s and 1980s. The Italian team has used a predominantly red livery for the last 20 years after it was reportedly decided that the white detailing was unlucky. The Scuderia enjoyed one of the most successful periods in F1 during its time at the front of the sport at the turn of the century but it is without a title since 2007. One team that will not be running its 2016 livery when pre-season testing gets underway is Toro Rosso. The Red Bull junior team will use a plain blue design for the first test, but will unveil its full colour scheme for the new season ahead of the second test, according to team principal, Franz Tost. He said: "We are so late with everything, and we want to make a proper paint job, therefore we will present the car on the 29th in Barcelona." "The only reason why we present the car later is because we are very tight with everything, to get it ready in time. "Because of the late decision with our running for this season everything got a little bit late, but our people have done a fantastic job, the car is nearly ready, and we are absolutely on schedule. Therefore I am not worried for the first test in Barcelona." What do you think Formula should be about?As we reported last month, a Wisconsin company called Three Square Market has become the first company in the US to offer microchip implants to its employees. The firm, which designs software for breakroom markets, wants employees to use microchips to help facilitate vending-machine payments. The firm wanted to use its employees as test subjects for their product. And though the program was strictly voluntary, it marks an uncomfortable beginning of a trend that could someday result in all humans being involuntarily microchipped. Now, across the pond, companies are escalating efforts to monitor their employees. Barclays Plc has installed devices at its London headquarters that track how much time bankers spend at their desks. While a spokesperson for the bank says the devices aren’t meant to evaluate employees’ performance, their introduction has clearly spooked members of the rank-and-file, who leaked the story to Bloomberg. The devices are manufactured by OccupEye and use heat and motion sensors to record how long employees are spending at their posts. According to Bloomberg, employees inundated management with questions about the devices after they first appeared under their desks. The bank reportedly didn't neglected to inform some employees ahead of time. “Managers were peppered with queries when investment bank staff in London discovered black boxes stuck to the underside of their desks in recent months, according to several Barclays employees who asked not to be identified speaking about their workplace. They turned out to be tracking devices called OccupEye, which use heat and motion sensors to record how long employees are spending at their posts. There was a “phased roll-out” of the devices, and Barclays staff and the Unite union were notified before they were installed, although the bank did not send out a specific memo about them, according to spokesman Tom Hoskin. The Barclays employees said they don’t remember being informed about the boxes, but spokespeople for the bank said there have been no official human-resources complaints.” The devices, made by Blackburn, U.K.-based Cad-Capture, are pitched as a way for companies to find out how they can reduce office space, providing a multicolored dashboard to show managers which workstations are unoccupied and analyze usage trends. “The sensors aren’t monitoring people or their productivity; they are assessing office space usage,” the bank said in an emailed statement. “This sort of analysis helps us to reduce costs, for example, managing energy consumption, or identifying opportunities to further adopt flexible work environments.” While the devices could be part of CEO Jes Staley’s efforts to reduce the company’s real-estate footprint, Barclays employees have a reason to be paranoid. According to Bloomberg, many investment banks have been taking steps to more closely monitor their employees as banks face shrinking profit margins in key businesses like trading. “Investment banks are increasingly using technology to keep tabs on how their staff spend their time. Barclays has introduced a computer system to track how much is earned from every client, allowing bosses to determine how much time traders, analysts and salespeople should spend with each customer.” An officer with UK trade union Unite said the union was promised that data collected from the boxes wouldn’t be used to evaluate employees. “We were given assurances that the boxes did not monitor individuals or their performance,” Unite national officer Dominic Hook said in a statement. The union “will keep a close eye on the situation to make sure that the sensors are never used to spy on staff or as a means to measure productivity.” Lloyds Banking Group, which, like Barclays has been trimming its London office space, also uses similar devices. Sources inside major US investment banks like J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group and Citigroup Inc. told Bloomberg that they don’t use devices like these.The Asset Pipeline in Rails minimizes Javascript and CSS, but images are mostly left out in the cold. There are a bunch of lossless and lossy algorithms we can use to optimize and compress images as much as possible, and I’ll show you how to integrate them in the Asset Pipeline. For lossless compression we can use the sprockets-image_compressor gem, which optimizes all the PNG and JPG files without quality loss in the asset pipeline. The results are OK, but we can do better. There’s a lossy compression app for PNG files named pngquant which basically converts 32bit colors into 8bit colors in a way that’s hardly noticeable to the human eye. The result is often a 50% decrease in filesize or more. First make sure to install pngquant and that you have at least version 2. It’s best to compile from sources because some of the published binaries are older versions which don’t have the same interface. There’s a gem to use pngquant, but it only works with files, and I don’t feel a gem is necessary here since we’ll only be using one command: Rails.application.assets.register_mime_type'image/png ', '.png'Rails.application.assets.register_postprocessor'image/png ', :png_compressor do \|context, data\| IO.popen( " pngquant - ", " rb+ " ) do \|process\| process.write(data) process.close_write process.read end end We’re passing the contents of the PNG file, contained in data, to an instance of pngquant using pipes and reading the resulting compressed PNG file back out, passing it as the result of the block. Put that file in your config/initializers directory, and run rake assets:precompile to try it out. You should notice that the generated PNG files are all much smaller than their originals. Yay! Give yourself a high-five, ‘cause you just saved your visitors a lot of bandwidth. However, there’s a tiny problem: sometimes the result is actually a bigger file, and sometimes the extra compression is visually observable. For these reasons, we’d like to conditionally run pngquant< only on certain files, but not on others. We’ll also put everything in a class to show you another way of how to do things — a cleaner, more testable way. Our post-processor class should subclass ::Tilt::Template, and implement the prepare and evaluate method. We can ignore the prepare-method, and focus on the evaluate method. Check out the Tilt gem for more info. class PngQuantProcessor < :: Tilt :: Template def prepare end def evaluate (scope, locals, &block) IO.popen( " pngquant - ", " rb+ " ) do \|process\| process.write(data) process.close_write process.read end end end Inside evaluate the ‘data’ method will contain the contents of the PNG file currently being processed. It’s mostly the same as our first code. Next we have to register our little processor with the asset pipeline. Like before, put these lines in * initializers/sprockets.rb*: Rails.application.assets.register_mime_type'image/png ', '.quant'Rails.application.assets.register_engine '.quant ', PngQuantProcessor Notice the subtle changes - we’re registering an engine for all files with extension.quant instead of a post-processor for image/png. This works much like any other template engine, like.coffee, and the asset pipeline will remove the extra extension before serving it up to the client. And that’s it! Any PNG file you want to be quantized, rename its.png extension to.png.quant, and it’ll automatically be processed. Happy coding!Melbourne Victory will make its International Champions Cup debut against Juventus at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday night. Tickets for the match are available by clicking here. It's the Hyundai A-League's most successful club against Italy's most successful club, with Victory set to test itself against the reigning Serie A champions. New signings Alan Baro, Mitch Austin and James Donachie will take to the pitch in Victory colours for the first time on what promises to be a memorable night. Gates open at 5.30pm, with kick-off at 7.00pm. There will be plenty of activities around the concourse for fans to enjoy from 5.00pm, including Juventus ball juggling and a Victory mini shootout. Victory memberships and merchandise, including our new winter range, will also be available from the club's marquee located outside Gate 2. Fans that arrive early can get up close to football royalty at the Audi Players' Entrance, which Juventus will pass through before the match. Car parking is available via Gates 3, 5, 6 and 7 at Yarra Park for $10 per vehicle. Public Transport Victoria will run additional train, tram and regional train services for the match. Click here for details. The match will be broadcast live on Nine's Wide World of Sports from 6.30pm AEST. Check your local guide for details. Join the conversation on social media using #ICCVICJUV and #MVFC. Tickets for the match are available by clicking here. Go Victory!In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter's Stephen Galloway on April 2, Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn revealed that "Star Wars: Episode VII" has already begun shooting. When asked what was the most difficult part of supervising the movie, Horn responded "casting," but quickly confirmed a little later that the casting process is nearly complete. Naturally, when asked if he could disclose any names or details, he simply replied "no." Horn also discussed the difficulty of putting together the script. "It's all about the screenplay. Screenplay, screenplay, screenplay," Horn said. Discussing how it will be 35 years since "Return of the Jedi" debuted once the new film hits theaters, Horn said that the screenplay was co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams, following an early draft by Michael Arndt.Two firefighters currently facing a $4 million lawsuit from their union are now facing fraud charges from Halton police. Police announced the charges Tuesday, saying in a news release that the charges are in relation to funds donated to the head office of the OPFFA (Ontario Professional Firefighters Association) in Burlington on behalf of families of firefighters injured or killed in the line of duty. Colin Stuart Grieve, 58, of Stoney Creek, and Warren Paul Atkinson, 52, of Newmarket, were arrested today on charges of fraud over $5,000, money laundering, and attempting to obstruct justice. We're obviously encouraged by the news today, given that the authorities are taking the appropriate steps to bring these two individuals to court. - Rob Hyndman, OPFFA president "My client's position is obviously that they dispute these charges," said lawyer Gavin Tighe, who is representing Grieve and Atkinson in the civil case. According to police, Between May 12 of 2011 and Feb. 26, of 2014, the two men had conducted advocacy work to help families of retired and dead firefighters from all over Ontario to apply for Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) benefits. "The [Ontario Provincial Fire Fighters Association] received a complaint, which caused them to conduct an internal investigation into donations," a police press release reads. "The investigation revealed several large donations to the OPFFA that were never received, all linked to Atkinson and Grieve." Det. Sgt. Chris Lawson of Halton's police's regional fraud unit told CBC News the two men were working on behalf of families to get WSIB settlements. According to a Toronto Star story from last year, the union says the men helped recover more than $100 million for their clients. Lawson said the allegation is that after helping to settle with WSIB, the two men would then ask the family if they would like to donate to the union. However, they would then allegedly divert some of those funds for themselves, he said. Police say the diverted funds were worth about $250,000. OPFFA president Rob Hyndman told CBC News that the criminal charges are "somewhat of a validation" for the union. "We're obviously encouraged by the news today, given that the authorities are taking the appropriate steps to bring these two individuals to court," he said. "They were saying they were doing this on our behalf." Last year, the union filed a lawsuit that accused the two men of bilking parts of settlements from widows and families of firefighter retirees. Hyndman confirmed that lawsuit is still before the courts.By TERRY SPENCER, Associated Press FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A parent in Florida is citing profanity and violence in trying to get the local school to ban Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" — itself a cautionary tale on the banning of books. Another wants to remove Walter Dean Myers' "Bad Boy" for using the word "penis" and a homophobic slur. Elsewhere in Florida, some say global warming and evolution are a hoax and should not be taught in textbooks unopposed. Others say their local school's textbooks shortchange Islam's role in the world, while their opponents argue it's the danger posed by Muslim terrorists that's underexposed. Under a bill passed by the Florida Legislature this year, any district resident — regardless of whether they have a child in school — can now challenge material as pornographic, biased, inaccurate or a violation of state law and get a hearing before an outside mediator. The mediator advises the local school board, whose decision is final. Previously, challenges could only be made by parents to the school or district. There was also no mediator and fewer mandates. Districts must now also post online a list of all new books and material by grade level to make monitoring easier. The Florida Citizens' Alliance, a conservative group, pushed for the change, arguing that many districts ignored challenges or heard them with stacked committees, and didn't consider residents who don't have children in the schools. Members say boards rejected complaints over sexually explicit novels like Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eyes" being issued to middle school students. They also don't believe evolution and global warming should be taught without students hearing counterarguments. Keith Flaugh, a managing director of the alliance, said schools are using pornographic materials and textbooks that "totally distort our founding values and principles. They are teaching our kids socialism versus free markets. They are teaching our kids that the government is our nanny, the government is supposed to protect them." He also said children receive a biased presentation against freedom of religion and gun rights. Brandon Haught, spokesman for Florida Citizens for Science, which opposed the bill, said his group is prepared to fight any challenges made against the teaching of evolution and climate change, which nearly all biologists and climatologists agree are proven facts. Haught, a high school environmental science teacher, said he is surprised social studies and English teachers have not formed similar coalitions to defend their courses. "The alliance is pushing their narrow ideology on the public schools in any way they can and so far they're meeting with success. I can't speak for the other academic subjects they're targeting, but I know beyond a doubt that their ideology when it comes to science is grossly ignorant and doesn't belong anywhere near a classroom," Haught said. Broward County Superintendent Robert Runcie, who is president of the state superintendents association, said the changes, which took effect July 1, are "cumbersome." Districts have always encouraged parents and residents to voice concerns about materials and curricula, he said, and the mediator is an unnecessary step. The new law "creates a level of bureaucratic hurdle that could be disruptive to some good processes that are already in place," he said. To gauge the challenges made, The Associated Press recently sent public records requests to Florida's 67 school districts, seeking any complaints filed this year. Seven reported receiving at least one, including these notable complaints: — In Brevard County, home of the Kennedy Space Center, a Citizens' Alliance couple filed challenges against elementary school social studies textbooks, alleging each has dozens of inaccuracies. They say authors frequently ignore American exceptionalism and the books' assertion that global warming is caused by human activity is "blatant indoctrination." The district says no changes were made. — In Santa Rosa County, in the western Panhandle, a parent wants Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel "Fahrenheit 451" banned from schools because it contains profanity and violence. The book describes a dystopian future where firemen burn seized books after all are banned by the U.S. government. — In Nassau County, north of Jacksonville, a resident challenged the teaching of evolution, arguing that life was created and perhaps planted by space aliens. A hearing was held and the mediator is preparing a report. — In Seminole County, north of Orlando, two parents complained that a middle school ancient history textbook had no chapter on Islamic civilization while mentioning Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism. The district replied that Islam was emerging during the timeframe taught and is covered in 10th grade. — In Duval County, which covers Jacksonville, the parent of a sixth-grade girl complained that an assigned novel, "Bad Boy" by Walter Dean Myers, is too explicit for that age group because it uses "penis" and a homophobic slur. The parent also criticized its description of heroin use, gang violence and the protagonist's questioning of religion. The district agreed to warn parents before it is assigned.The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy Note 8 have a new “Samsung Experience” UI and, of course, the Bixby assistant. A user over on the Samsung Community asked about getting that new UI and Bixby on his Samsung Galaxy S7. An admin has this to say: Thanks for part of Samsung community. Would like to tell you bixby is supported in Galaxy S8 & S8+ and N8. We plan to support more models gradually in the future. Also would like to tell you new UI interface can be available with the next update so please wait till the update comes in your device. There’s no technical reason that Bixby can’t run on older devices. They won’t have a dedicated button to launch it, but the app should still work. So it’s nice to hear they will be supporting more phones. The new UI is coming in the next update, which probably means Oreo. If you don’t feel like waiting for these features, you can get them yourself.Less than 24 hours after posting a plea for donations and fosters, a local company has stepped up to help Austin Pets Alive! replace a heater that failed over the weekend. APA! said Radiant Plumbing and Air Conditioning has offered them "a generous discount" on a new heater and installation. Their discount, combined with donations made by the public, equal enough money to replace the broken heater. In addition, APA! said on their website that "all dogs in the affected kennel run have gone to sleepover or been relocated to heated kennels." Brad Casebier of Radiant Plumbing and Air Conditioning said it will take some time to get a permit and get a crane to put a unit in place, but that he is hopeful that the unit can be installed within the week. On Sunday, APA! requested donations and fosters to help with overcrowding at the shelter. “If a person cannot foster but would like to help, we will be in need of support through donations to our Winter Fund to help with heater replacement and other winter related expenses,” said APA! Director of Lifesaving Operations Mike Kaviani on Sunday. GO HERE to donate to Austin Pets Alive! GO HERE for a foster application. Blankets donated to Austin Pets Alive!Images of two opposing NFL teams standing for the national anthem and holding a giant American flag have taken the Internet by storm. Every member of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins stood for the national anthem Monday night at FedExField. Each team member took his actions a step further by helping U.S. military personnel hold a giant American flag across the field. Users across social media platforms posted pictures and video of the spectacle: #Redskins assist military members with holding of flag during National Anthem last night: https://t.co/Y3qeJSXxMz pic.twitter.com/XoBkOjGUzu — Washington Redskins (@Redskins) September 13, 2016 The entire #Redskins team left the sideline to assist military personnel hold the flag during the anthem. pic.twitter.com/OsBS5Z3CEH — Master Tesfatsion (@MasterTes) September 12, 2016 Steelers and Redskins help hold the giant American flag spread across the field. Everyone on both sides standing as far I could tell. — Ray Fittipaldo (@rayfitt1) September 12, 2016 Steelers, Redskins fans cheer at end of National Anthem tonight (via @jwpipes) pic.twitter.com/Xk1xpG3S2z — Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) September 12, 2016 “For three minutes, for us to take our helmet off and stand up and give respect is how we treat it here with the Washington Redskins,” Redskins head coach Jay Gruden said to 247 Sports, clarifying the team’s stance on the national anthem. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said that the team wanted to stand in honor of their teammate, Alejandro Villanueva, former U.S. Army Ranger who received the Bronze Star for serving three tours in Afghanistan. “I know all of our players will be standing out of respect for their teammate, Alejandro Villanueva,” Tomlin said to WPTV. The team’s actions went viral on social media as Colin Kaepernick and several other players continue to protest the national anthem.The Grand National, the world's greatest horse race, could be banned if the Green Party wins power, Natalie Bennett has said. The Green Party leader said the party would undertake a “complete review” of horse racing to look at “animal protection issues”. The review could lead to the Aintree horse race – which was watched by tens of millions of people on Saturday – being banned altogether. Miss Bennett told BBC 1’s Andrew Marr Show: “There are clearly animal protection issues there that need to be addressed – the fact of not just what happens in races, but what happens to the animals that disappear from the system, the whole range of issues.” She confirmed the policy would be in this week’s Green manifesto: “We want a complete review of all horse and greyhound racing. That’s what’s in our manifesto... “There’s a whole range of broader issues of animal protection here we really need to talk about, things like the badger cull.” Over the last decade, the Grand National has seen several horses put down after falling down and injuring themselves in the race. The Left-wing party hopes to hold the balance of power after the general election by winning up to 10 seats. Other policies are likely to include creating a fleet of hospital ships to serve the developing world and cutting the size of National Lottery prizes. Miss Bennett also said the Greens would increase the top rate of tax to 60p to force high earners to “pay back” to society. She said the rate, which would apply to those earning £150,000 per year or more, would raise “about £2billion”, but that the revenue was not the main goal of the policy. Miss Bennett told BBC 1's Andrew Marr Show: “The big focus for that is the fact of the inequality in our society, which is a huge and rising problem." “What the 60p is for is really to identify the fact that some people are taking too much out of our society; they need to pay back. In the Green party, we’re calling for a ten-to-one ratio between the top-paid and lowest-paid person in an organisation.” Miss Bennett also told the Independent on Sunday in which she says the Greens are trying to win 12 seats at the general election.FXStreet (Barcelona) - The European Central Bank (ECB) achieved its EUR 60 billion QE target in March, after beginning the purchases on March 9th. As of 3rd April 2015, the public sector bond purchases total stands at EUR 52.5 billion, while the total asset-backed securities purchases stand at EUR 4.9 billion. The total covered bond purchases, which begun on Oct. 20th, 2014, stand at EUR 64.7 billion. Monthly purchases under the Expanded Asset Purchase Programme (EAPP) will amount to EUR 60 billion, intended to be carried out until at least September 2016 and in any case until the Governing Council sees a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation that is consistent with its aim of achieving inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term. Information on these pages contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Markets and instruments profiled on this page are for informational purposes only and should not in any way come across as a recommendation to buy or sell in these assets. You should do your own thorough research before making any investment decisions. FXStreet does not in any way guarantee that this information is free from mistakes, errors, or material misstatements. It also does not guarantee that this information is of a timely nature. Investing in Open Markets involves a great deal of risk, including the loss of all or a portion of your investment, as well as emotional distress. All risks, losses and costs associated with investing, including total loss of principal, are your responsibility.Article body copy As the Douglas DC-3 soared above the Pacific Ocean en route to Japan from Indonesia, Tomoyuki Tanaka was deep in thought. The film producer’s latest movie project had just fizzled and he needed another idea for his bosses at Toho Pictures Inc. But what? RKO Pictures in Hollywood had rereleased its 1933 classic King Kong two years earlier, in 1952, and it was again a hit. Another monster movie, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, was a blockbuster for Warner Bros. Pictures in 1953. Audiences loved this genre. Tanaka needed a monster, a big monster. “Japanese filmmakers were always happy to steal a good movie idea from Hollywood,” says William Tsutsui, historian, president of Arkansas’s Hendrix College, and reigning Godzilla expert. Tanaka’s gigantic creature, however, would be uniquely Japanese from its inception right through to the latest movie, Shin Gojira (Godzilla Resurgence), released in Japan in July. So far, it’s the third-highest grossing film in Japan this year. North Americans can weigh in on Godzilla’s latest antics at select theaters until October 18. The limited release—it premiered in North America October 11—may reflect what Toho Pictures has always known: original, Japanese-produced Godzilla movies resonate most with domestic audiences, not foreign ones. After all, Japan is an island culture defined by the sea around it. “Godzilla is very much caught up in the Japanese conception of themselves as island dwellers,” Tsutsui says. “If you ask a Japanese person to tell you about their nation, the first thing they will say is: ‘Japan is an island.’” This is a salient detail. For island cultures, the sea’s embrace is at once comforting and dangerous. An island is isolated, yet accessible; cloistered, yet easily violated. Islands are vulnerable to invaders of all kinds. In the 1954 original, Godzilla lives somewhere under the sea, temporally and spatially isolated from the world—confined to his own self-sustaining island. That is, until a hydrogen bomb flings him into the modern world, much like the atomic bombing during the Second World War flung the Japanese into a nuclear world no other people on Earth have visited. The team that worked on Godzilla saw the monster as an analogy for humankind’s arrogance, and for the fear of nuclear bombs. It was a political and dark film. After the war, Japan’s vulnerability intensified. The island nation was a close witness to the cold war between Soviet Union and the United States, nuclear superpowers locked in a cold war, flexing their muscles by lobbing hydrogen bombs into the atmosphere, into the water, or onto uninhabited islands in the South Pacific. The 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test on Bikini Atoll became—and still is—the largest nuclear detonation by the US government. The explosion was so large that the fallout escaped the safety zone and rained on the Japanese fishing trawler Lucky Dragon No. 5, sickening 23 crew members with radiation poisoning. The American public was unaware of the incident. For the Japanese, it was front-page news. And when contaminated tuna hit the market, people really freaked out—they stopped eating tuna. “Taking tuna away from the Japanese is like taking deep-fried carbs away from Americans,” Tsutsui says. “A good scare will keep [them] off for a while but not too long.” Tanaka, the movie producer, pondering the money-making genius of American monster movies, saw a post-war opportunity to create an iconic Japanese monster, born of a nuclear test gone awry. Who better than the Japanese to contemplate the repercussions of splitting atoms? Toho Pictures agreed. Gojira (ゴジラ), the character’s name in Japan, is a portmanteau of gorilla and kujira, the Japanese word for whale. (The movie studio’s foreign sales department anglicized the name to Godzilla when they sold it to American distributors.) When it was released in Japan, Godzilla was a respectable top 10 hit and broke opening day ticket sales in Tokyo. In the decades since Godzilla’s birth, the only known monster with atomic breath, he became more than what Tanaka could have imagined back in 1954: a Japanese cultural icon, spawning an entire movie genre called kaiju (strange beast), and another 28 films in the franchise. Godzilla is beloved in Japan. Everyone’s favorite monster is everywhere: he promotes products, he’s a mascot for soccer teams, and he even has his own Japanese postage stamp. The movies have seen the character evolve from destructive force of nature, to benevolent protector, to comedic wrestler, and back again, in a cycle that shadows Japan’s cultural feelings about itself, its defense forces, its nuclear fears, its politics. The latest movie returns to the political roots of the Godzilla opus, says Tsutsui. “It’s essentially against the political establishment. The basic message is: the biggest threat to Japan is not, ironically, a huge lizard walking out of the ocean, but the biggest threat is a government that can’t deal with a huge lizard walking out of the ocean.” More information may spoil the plot, but Tsutsui calls the ending optimistic—Godzilla gifting the Japanese people an opportunity to create a new nation. And just like in 1954, when Godzilla’s work is done and he needs a rest, he slips back into Tokyo Bay.Image copyright AFP Image caption Mr Yanukovych fled the capital Kiev last week, after it was gripped by months of protest Russia has agreed to provide Viktor Yanukovych with protection following his ousting as president of Ukraine, report Russian news agencies. "I still see myself as the legitimate head of the Ukrainian state," he was quoted as saying, but needed protection "from the actions of extremists". Russian TV said he was in Russian territory but his precise whereabouts are unconfirmed. Mr Yanukovych fled Kiev amid deadly clashes in the capital last week. He said his overthrow was illegal as he had been "elected by Ukrainian citizens in a free vote". On Saturday, Ukrainian MPs voted to oust Mr Yanukovych and hold early presidential elections in May. But Mr Yanukovych said he believed the sessions currently taking place in the Ukrainian parliament were illegitimate. He claimed the Ukrainian parliament was taking decisions while many MPs from his Party of Regions, and lawmakers from other factions, were absent because of threats to their safety. Analysis Will the Kremlin now align itself with or distance itself from Mr Yanukovych's statement? The Kremlin too has been critical of Kiev's new government, questioning its legitimacy and warning of threats to Russia's interests in Ukraine. Just this morning the Russian foreign ministry issued a new warning that it would "strongly and uncompromisingly" defend the rights of its compatriots when they were violated by foreign governments. It could be this is just another example - alongside the fighter jets now on combat alert, patrolling Russia's borders with Ukraine - of sabre-rattling, another way to increase pressure on the new Kiev authorities to register Russia's concerns and ambivalence. What would be more worrying is if this is part of a carefully co-ordinated campaign which is also somehow linked to the move by pro-Russian armed groups who took over the Crimean parliament and government buildings in Simferopol overnight. There is no evidence that Moscow knew about or sanctioned that action. But the fact it has happened just as Mr Yanukovych has resurfaced and been allowed to challenge Kiev from Moscow is unsettling. "I think that the agreement on the settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, signed by me and leaders of the Ukrainian opposition in the presence of respected Western partners on 21 February 2014, has not been implemented," Mr Yanukovych was quoted as saying - referring to a deal to install a national unity government and call early polls agreed between Mr Yanukovych and opposition leaders after mediation by EU foreign ministers. He said he would "fight to the end for the implementation of important compromise agreements to take Ukraine out of deep political crisis". Mr Yanukovych warned that people in southern and eastern Ukraine would not accept a lawless situation where government ministers were approved by crowds in a city square, and he warned of possible armed conflict ahead. He said he had asked Russia for protection following "threats of reprisals against me and my fellows" - and Russian media quoted official sources as saying Moscow had granted the request. Ukraine has issued an international arrest warrant for Mr Yanukovych, the interim interior minister announced on Monday. Tensions The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall, in Moscow, says it should be noted that Mr Yanukovych's statement denouncing the legitimacy of the current interim leadership in Ukraine was not only relayed on Russian news agencies but broadcast over the airwaves on official Russian television. She says Mr Yanukovych has been widely criticised by senior figures in the Russian political establishment, and the assumption had been that President Vladimir Putin would want to keep his distance from him - in contrast to this very public platform
the situation won't change anything, though, so what can Christians do? The obvious route to take is to replace secular observances of Christmas with religious ones. So long as Christians continue to focus on Santa Claus coming to town to deliver gifts rather than on the birth of their savior, they will remain part of what they see as the problem. Dispensing with, or even just limiting, the role of Santa Claus and other secular elements of Christmas as probably won't be easy, but that only demonstrates just how deeply enmeshed in secular culture Christians have become. It also reveals just how much of their own religious Christmas they have abandoned in favor of secular celebrations. In effect, the harder it is the more this shows that they need to do it if they want to claim that Christmas is religious rather than secular.The MAES Symposium is being held in collaboration with SHPE this year and are having a combined conference in Cleveland, OH in November 7-11, 2018 at the 2018 SHPE conference. Conference Registration is now OPEN! • Student/Professional registration MAES Membership Info For logging into your membership account Member login page. Students: Have you paid your chapter dues? If yes, please contact your Chapter Membership Officer for your Membership Coupon Code! After you receive your code, you will have 30 days to register on the MAES Membership Website. Once you are registered, you will be eligible for all the MAES Student Member benefits! You can purchase Membership Coupon codes at: https://maes.site-ym.com/store/ViewProduct.aspx?id=3061494. New memberships: New Memberships login page. MAES Intern Tournament The MAES Intern Tournament is a competition emphasizing the value of participation in pre-professional experiences like internships, study abroad, and research experiences. The winner of the Intern Tournament will receive invaluable experience AND another accolade to add to their resume. The peer-to-peer format of the Intern Tournament also lends to the credibility of the message that pre-professional experiences, when combined with the traditional college education, can dramatically enhance an individual’s success in a STEM career. The competition, organized as a student-driven lecture series, brings together recent interns to present on their pre-professional experience and serve as mentors to other students seeking advice on how to prepare and be selected for similar experience For more information and to download the application: Application Tournament Handbook Deadline: November 2, 2018 <- New Extended date For more information, please contact intern-ament@mymaes.org. MAES Scholarships Apply for up to $5,000 in Scholarships The purpose of the MAES Scholarship Program is to increase the number of Hispanic students completing their higher education goals. Merit-based scholarships are available to MAES student members and are selected on the basis of academic achievement, leadership, community service, personal qualities, and completeness of application. This year’s program will award the following: • Padrino/Madrina Scholarship – Two (2) in the amount of $5,000 • Founders Scholarship – One (1) in the amount of $3,000 • Presidential Scholarship – One (1) in the amount of $3,000 • General Scholarship – Five (5) in the amount of $1,000 The MAES Scholarship Program is open to all MAES members. Apply today! For more information and to download the application: Application Deadline: October 20, 2018 For more information, please contact scholarships@mymaes.org. STEM Honors Program Be Recognized for Your Academic Excellence The STEM Honors Program celebrates academic excellence of MAES and SHPE student members. Your recognition as a STEM Honors student is an achievement you can capitalize on when applying for graduate school or internships, or even on your resume as you search for a job. Every student will receive a commemorative lapel pin indicating they are a STEM Honors student and provide a quick visual cue for recruiters to identify top Hispanic talent. The STEM Honors Program recognizes all MAES and SHPE students enrolled as a full time student for the fall semester with a minimum GPA of 3.5/4.0. Application Submission Deadline: Friday, November 2 Any questions, feel free to email us at questions@mymaes.orgOn his daily post for July 13th, 2015, Shigesato Itoi posted some words for his friend, Satoru Iwata (the original can be found here: http://www.1101.com/home.html). This is my translation: “No matter the farewell, I think the most appropriate thing to say is “we”ll meet again.” We are friends so we”ll see each other again. There is nothing strange about saying it. Yeah. We’ll meet again. Even if you didn’t have the chance to put into words how sudden it was going to be, how far you’d be traveling, or how you went much earlier than expected, I know you went wearing your best. You always put yourself second to others no matter what, helping anyone who needed it whenever they needed it. You were that kind of friend. Although you may have been a little selfish for the first time ever by taking this journey. The truth is though that I still don’t believe any of it. I feel like I am going to receive a message from you inviting me out to eat at any moment. I wouldn’t mind if you were to ask me like always if I had some free time. Even still, I’d ask you as well. Still, “we’ll meet again.” It would be great to hear from you whenever and wherever; I’ll being calling to you too. I’ll call if I have something to discuss or I want to tell you a great new idea I’ve had. We’ll meet again. Then again, you’re here with me now.” - Shigesato Itoi, Hobo Mainichi Itoi Shinbun Daily Darling July, 13th 2015Phylbert Angelie Ranollo Fagestrom (born October 17, 1987), better known by her screen name Bea Alonzo is a Filipino film and television actress, host and singer. She is currently part of ABS-CBN contract talents. In this Philippine name, the middle name or maternal family name isand the surname or paternal family name is Bea Alonzo was born on October 17, 1987 in the Philippines. [1] Her father is British, and her mother is a Filipina. Her parents are separated. She's the eldest of four siblings. [2] She graduated Grade 7 in 2001 at the Jose Abad Santos Memorial School Quezon City. She attended The Fisher Valley College in Taguig, Ususan Elementary School in Ususan and Colegio de Sta Ana in Taguig City. She later mainly roled in major soap operas Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay (2002-2003) her first soap like It Might Be You, Ikaw Ang Lahat Sa Akin, Maging Sino Ka Man and Maging Sino Ka Man: Ang Pagbabalik. In June 2008, Alonzo released her debut album The Real Me under Star Records. It was also in mid-2008 when it was announced that she would play the leading character Betty Pengson in the TV sitcom Yo Soy Betty La Fea, which originated from Colombia. The Philippines' version was entitled I Love Betty La Fea. The show premiered on September 2008 at the primetime slot; it ran for eight consecutive months. In December 2011, Alonzo renewed her contract with ABS-CBN, she is set to do two movies under Star Cinema and a reunion drama, The Mistress, with her on-screen partner, John Lloyd Cruz.[3] Alonzo starred in the 2014 hit TV drama Sana Bukas pa ang Kahapon, opposite Paulo Avelino and Albert Martinez.[4] August 19, 2014, Alonzo together with other 14 stars signed a two-year exclusive contract with ABS-CBN.[5] On February 1, 2017, she renewed another exclusive contract with ABS-CBN for two more years.[6] On October 14, 2018, Alonzo, along with actor Aga Muhlach, expressed their support for Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte and the Philippine Drug War, causing public outrage as the war has killed more than 20,000 Filipinos living in impoverished circumstances.[7][8]In what is beginning to become quite a tradition, the Krita team came together from May 20 to May 22 for the third Krita meeting. The first sprint had four attendees. Last year's, eight. This year, we had twelve people in attendance. If the trend continues, the Blender Institute, which hosted our sprint, will be too small for us next year! Friday Friday was mostly spent arriving, getting network access, doing preliminary hacking and so on. The real core of the sprint took place on Saturday. In the morning, we had an Artist's Demo and Gripe Session. The four artists present took turns demonstrating how they work with Krita. With a projector, everyone could follow along. We managed to record a screencast of all sessions and a video/audio recording with the Blender Institute's camera. The Krita webmaster, Kubuntiac (or Bugsbane) is busy editing the screencasts, video and audio together into a smooth recording. The results will be available on krita.org. The recording will be available as soon as it is done, together with the original.kra Krita files and brush presets as provided by the artists. Fortunately, none of the artists managed to crash Krita, and we took note of all the issues they mentioned, which Pentalis entered into bugs.kde.org. More than sixty new issues were logged. Quite a few of those issues were fixed during the weekend and over the next week. David Revoy's conclusion was that Krita is plenty okay for creating art, but not yet quite ready for the professional user. And that set the tone for the afternoon meeting, during which we discussed the direction for Krita for the next year. This can be summed up as: polish, polish, polish. Performance is ok. Stability is pretty good, though it can be improved. But all the little speedbumps we witnessed when watching the artists work with Krita (each in their completely individual and different way) need to be smoothed out! We also conceived of another plan... Something wickedly cool we want to ask the community to support... More about that in a few days... Saturday On Saturday, we met our benefactor, Silvio Grosso. After the runaway success of the 2009 community donation drive to enable Lukas Tvrdy to hack on Krita full-time for three months, Silvio made it possible to extend that period for several months more. He also sponsored Dmitry Kazakov to spend more hours on Krita after his Google Summer of Code project ended. It was great to meet him in Amsterdam at the sprint. We had a group photo, of course: Sprint attendees Sprint attendees Apart from the group photo, Timothee Giet also made quick sketches of all attendants. Meet the gang through the sketchbrush of Timothee! Sunday Sunday was a relatively quiet day. People were mostly hacking and doing small bof-like discussions. David Revoy tried once more to follow a proper CMYK-based workflow with Krita, this time producing a tiff file that imported perfectly in Photoshop. We originally added CMYK to Krita not from a strong belief in its usefulness, but to quiet vocal critics. We since have discovered that many artists work in CMYK in order to keep track of ink coverage and mixing during the creative process, instead of having to change their work afterwards to resolve out-of-gamut colors. There is still a ways to go here: extra single-color channels or layers would be useful, and the channel docker does not always do the right thing. Finally, we are grateful to our host Ton Roosendaal, who allowed us to meet in the Blender Institute in Amsterdam. For David Revoy, it was like coming home -- and for the rest of us a wonderful place to get together. One of the unexpected advantages is that the Blender Institute's doorbell never stops ringing. All weekend, game designers, Blender hackers, 2D and 3D artists visited, passed the time, and gave us the opportunity to show off Krita. Many thanks as well to KDE e.V. for making it possible to bring so many people to Amsterdam from all over Europe, Canada and Chile.Shaw Communications Inc. reported choppy first-quarter results Thursday despite its cable business faring better than analysts anticipated, posting a sharp profit loss mainly due to a charge from shutting down video-streaming service Shomi. The Calgary-based telecommunications company reported profit of $89 million or 18 cents per share in the three months ended No. 30, down 59.2 per cent from $218 million and 43 cents per share in the same period last year. It credited the drop to a $107 million charge from winding down Shomi, its joint venture with Rogers Communications Inc. The cable giants hoped to compete with the likes of Netflix, but closed the curtains on the two-year-old service in November, with Shaw narrowing its focus on wireless, Internet and a premium IPTV product using Comcast’s X1 set-top box. Shaw launched the product, called BlueSky TV, on Wednesday. The lower income also reflects $80 million from discontinued operations, as Shaw sold its media division to Corus Entertainment last year. Shaw’s top executives took 20 per cent voluntary salary reductions to reflect the sale of the media division, according to the company circular. Shaw also missed expectations when it came to its wireless business, which it rebranded to Freedom Mobile from Wind Mobile this quarter in an attempt to get away from Wind’s baggage around customer service issues and network problems. It added 9,400 subscribers, missing consensus expectations of 31,000 additions. But CEO Brad Shaw told reporters that Shaw intentionally backed off its marketing efforts as it rolled out its new LTE-advanced network so consumers didn’t sign up for the old network then needed to come back a month later to switch handsets and plans. “We purposely slowed down,” Shaw said after the annual general meeting in Calgary. “We feel we’ve got good momentum and we’re excited about the new network.” Shaw currently offers only two phones that operate on its LTE network, but expects to have eight to 10 choices in the next six months, Shaw said, adding he hopes to land Apple and Samsung devices this year. The company will further expand its wireless offering once it finished rolling out the LTE network, Shaw said in his speech at the AGM. “We cannot overstate the importance of our wireless acquisition and the spectrum and expertise it contributes to our ability to deliver better connectivity to Canadians,” Shaw said. In a call with analysts, Freedom CEO Alec Krstajic said subscriber additions picked up in December so investors should expect a good recovery. Shaw’s revenue and operating income were in line with Bay Street’s predictions and its cable, Internet and telephone subscription numbers were slightly better than expected. It lost approximately 16,000 cable subscribers and 12,000 phone subscribers, fewer than in this period last year and fewer than the 18,000 and 14,000 analysts expected. Its satellite business fared worse with about 16,000 subscriber losses compared to about 13,000 last year and analyst expectations of 11,000. Shaw reported stronger than expected gains in Internet subscribers, gaining 14,000 subscribers, topping the street’s expectations of 11,000 and nearly doubling the 8,000 additions last year. Shaw credited last summer’s launch of a high-speed Internet product for driving growth. The company stated it’s on track to complete upgrades to its entire footprint by fiscal year end, and expects improved subscriber numbers from Wednesday’s launch of its BlueSky TV product and improvements to Freedom’s LTE-advanced network. BlueSky TV will launch in Vancouver in a number of weeks and other markets by spring, a “relatively quick launch” the CEO believes will gain traction faster than Comcast did when it first launched the product in the U.S. He said the positively differentiated product will help in “dust ups” in a market with aggressive price competition between Shaw and its main competitor, Telus Corp. Analysts expect the launch of BlueSky TV will help quell cable subscriber losses in the coming quarters. RBC analyst Drew McReynolds, who described the quarter as “choppy” in a note to clients, chalked up low wireless subscriber growth to a combination of the transition to LTE and the Freedom brand, along with more competition. Desjardins analyst Maher Yaghi said in a note to clients that he believes it would be best for Shaw to sell non-core assets such as ViaWest and Corus holdings to invest in wireless. Financial PostA form of diabetes sometimes called “double diabetes,” in which an adult has aspects of both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. Over the past three decades, diabetes researchers have gradually fine-tuned the classification of different underlying diseases that comprise diabetes. In the early 1970’s, they spoke of “juvenile-onset” and “adult-onset” diabetes to distinguish between two seemingly different forms of the disease based on when they tended to appear; however, sometimes the “juvenile” form showed up in adults. They later coined the terms “insulin-dependent” and “non-insulin-dependent” diabetes to distinguish between the two basic forms of the disease based on how they were treated rather than the age of onset. But this, too, was confusing because some people with non-insulin-dependent diabetes also used insulin. So scientists had to come up with yet another classification system. In the late 1990’s, they began classifying the two major types of diabetes by their underlying metabolic problems and called them Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 diabetes is characterized by autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta cells (and the resulting production of little or no insulin), and the presence of certain autoantibodies against insulin or other components of the insulin-producing system such as glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD), tyrosine phosphatase, and/or islet cells. It often develops in children (although it can occur at any age) and requires insulin treatment for survival. Type 2 diabetes is characterized by insulin resistance and beta-cell dysfunction, usually develops in adults (although it is now occurring with alarming frequency in children), does not show signs of autoimmune disease, and usually does not require insulin to maintain survival (at least in its early stages). The medical professionals who study and treat diabetes noticed, however, that among the people who do not require insulin at diagnosis (most of whom were assumed to have Type 2 diabetes), a significant number showed autoantibodies, especially antibodies against islet cells and GAD. In other words, these people could be treated initially with diet therapy and oral medicines like people with Type 2 diabetes, but they also had an ongoing autoimmune process like people with Type 1 diabetes. The term “latent autoimmune diabetes of adults” (LADA) was originally applied to this subset of people with diabetes. It has also been dubbed “slow-progressing Type 1 diabetes,” and, in the late 1990’s, some researchers coined the term “Type 1.5 diabetes,” because it had features of both the major types. Further study of these people who at least initially do not require insulin yet have autoantibodies has revealed some distinct variations, leading some researchers to subdivide those placed under the umbrella term LADA into three groups: Type 1–LADA, Type 1.5 or “double” diabetes, and Type 2 diabetes with autoantibodies. Under this scheme, people with Type 1–LADA are thought to have a more slowly progressing form of Type 1 diabetes. Like people with Type 1 diabetes, people with Type 1–LADA have autoantibodies and are usually not obese. Although they may initially be able to get by with diet therapy and oral diabetes medicines, they usually need to use insulin within about five years of diagnosis because of the destruction of their beta cells. People with Type 1.5 diabetes are said to have “double” diabetes because they show both the autoimmune destruction of beta cells of Type 1 diabetes and the insulin resistance characteristic of Type 2 diabetes. People with Type 1.5 have autoantibodies and gradually lose their insulin-producing capability, requiring insulin within 5–10 years of diagnosis. As their insulin resistance suggests, many people with Type 1.5 diabetes are obese or overweight. People in the third group are obese or overweight with insulin resistance like most people with Type 2 diabetes, and they also have autoantibodies. However, they still manage to produce insulin for more than five years after diagnosis and can continue to manage their diabetes with diet, exercise, and oral medicines. It is suspected that the autoimmunity in these people is very mild. Some researchers suggest screening anyone newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes for GAD antibodies. In the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS), most study subjects with Type 2 diabetes between 35 and 45 years old who tested positive for antibodies against both GAD and islet cells progressed rapidly to insulin dependency. Some researchers have also suggested that anyone who tests positive for GAD antibodies be screened for autoantibodies to thyroid and adrenal cells, because like people with Type 1 diabetes, people with Type 1.5 diabetes seem to be at higher risk of having other autoimmune diseases. The jury is still out on the best way to treat Type 1.5 diabetes. Maintaining tight blood glucose control may help to slow the destruction of the beta cells (and delay insulin dependency) as well as reduce the risk of diabetic complications. A few small studies suggest that insulin therapy or insulin combined with rosiglitazone (brand name Avandia) may help to preserve beta-cell function, but these results need to be confirmed in larger trials. (Using insulin in combination with rosiglitazone may increase risks for people with heart failure.)BILL PLASCHKE There are no miracles for Dodgers on this night in crucial loss On the 25th anniversary of Kirk Gibson's home run in the World Series, the Dodgers can't find any magic against the Cardinals, leaving their championship hopes on edge. Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig walks back to the dugout after hitting… (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles…) In a year of the improbable, the impossible may have to wait. On the 25th anniversary of Kirk Gibson's home run Tuesday night, the only fists pumps belonged to the St. Louis Cardinals, and the only brake lights applied were to the Dodgers' journey to the World Series. In front of another rollicking Dodger Stadium crowd that didn't want to believe what it just saw, the silver anniversary celebration of the organization's most memorable postseason moment only mocked the memory. Where the Dodgers once won a World Series opener on this night, this time they lost a likely precursor to a season-ender by falling behind three games to one after a 4-2 defeat to the Cardinals in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. Tom Lasorda threw out the first pitch, Gibson's ninth-inning homer to beat the Oakland Athletics was the first scoreboard video, and for more than three hours, a full house waved their blue flags and partied like it was 1988. In many ways, the drama that surrounded the Dodgers' last World Series championship returned. But as Yasiel Puig's vacant stare into an empty field for many long minutes after hitting into a ninth-inning double play would indicate, Tuesday's ending was so very different. "You're going to be a little bit down," admitted Manager Don Mattingly afterward outside a silent Dodgers clubhouse. "Felt like we needed a win." He felt it, they all felt it, and now everyone in that solemn clubhouse is really going to feel it. There have been six times the Dodgers have trailed 3-1 in a seven-game series. Not once have they recovered to win the series. "It is was it is," said A.J. Ellis, matter-of-factly. "We know where we're at." Simple. Suffocating. Beginning on Wednesday afternoon here in Game 5, they must attempt to rewrite history less than 24 hours after losing a terrible duel with it. Twenty-five years ago on Tuesday, a pain-staggered Dodgers star became a hero, and something like that could have happened again. But Hanley Ramirez could only endure six innings with his broken rib before being mercifully removed from the game. It was agonizing to watch him swing, something he finally gave up completely when he struck out looking on three pitches in the fifth. "I couldn't take the pain anymore," Ramirez said simply. Twenty-five years ago, that injured hero's home run was set up with brilliant baserunning by a Dodgers sub named Mike Davis, and something like that could have happened again. But on this night, after reaching second base with one out in the seventh inning and the Dodgers trailing by two, Nick Punto was stunningly picked off. With the crowd sitting in shocked silence, he picked himself up, ran off the field, and disappeared into the dugout tunnel as if in shock. Afterward, his eyes were still glazed as he stood in front of his locker and faced the sort of questions the veteran has never faced during a season in which his savvy play help put the Dodgers in the playoffs. "It was just a bad baseball play, a little too aggressive there," he said. "It was a big play, it put us in a bad spot." He knew that kid pitcher Carlos Martinez had a tendency to bounce his curveballs. He saw neither the second baseman nor shortstop anywhere in the area. He took a giant lead with the idea that he was going to steal a base and be standing on third with one out, in perfect position to score on a fly ball by Carl Crawford. The Cardinals, however, out-thought him. Pete Kozma sneaked up behind him from deep in the shortstop position, and, amid 50,000 gasps, Martinez spun and nailed him. The Dodgers never advanced another runner as far as second base. "That was a lonely place to be, a lonely jog off the field," said Punto. "I don't wish that on anybody." Twenty-five years ago, the last runs of the games were scored on a home run, and in this case, it actually did happen again. Except the home run was hit in the seventh inning by a 5-foot-9, 165-pound Cardinals pinch-hitter named Shane Robinson, the first pinch homer of his career. And instead of going into the right-field pavilion, the ball bounced off the top of the left-field fence just beyond the reach of a surprised Crawford. And where Gibson's ball was never found, this one was shortly thrown by a fan on the field. "I thought I was going to catch it, but that ball kept going," said Crawford. "It just floated out of here." So, too, are the Dodgers' chances floating away despite holding the Cardinals to eight runs and a.148 average in four games. But during that time, the Dodgers have only scored seven runs and batted.223, including scoring just twice Tuesday against a very hittable Lance Lynn. They need Ramirez, and despite his best effort of the last two nights, they don't have him. They need Andre Ethier, but, also despite his best efforts, they barely have him because of the microfracture in his left ankle. He had two singles and scored after a walk on Tuesday, but he hobbled everywhere, and his night was epitomized when he could offer no resistance on a tag play by second baseman Matt Carpenter on the Puig grounder which started the ninth-inning double play. It would be nice to think these Dodgers were at least able to play Tuesday night without noticing the specter of Kirk Gibson and 1988. It would also be wrong. "We hear it every day from somewhere or another," said Clayton Kershaw earlier this month when asked about 1988. "We hear it every day." Barring history, the Dodgers will have to spend at least another year listening. bill.plaschke@latimes.com Twitter: @billplaschke MORE:Recently, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan has drawn heavy criticism from fans and sports media. Many are calling his 2016 MVP campaign just a fluke, claiming that he will return to his career average in 2017. Granted, his career average is still a very good franchise quarterback, but there are reasons to believe that he will continue to perform at this elite level for the foreseeable future, or at least for the coming season. #1: The Supporting Cast The 2016 Atlanta Falcons had one of the most talented offenses in the NFL. All-Pro Center Alex Mack anchored the offensive line, and tackles Jake Matthews and Ryan Schraeder were blocking machines, not afraid to make the extra play down the field. There was an explosive duo at runningback with Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman, and the wide receiver corps was thought to be the best in the NFL. Of course, any receiving corps that includes Julio Jones already has a strong argument, but Jones was also complemented by play-makers such as Mohammed Sanu, Taylor Gabriel, and Justin Hardy. All of the players mentioned above will still be with the Falcons in 2017. While Atlanta did lose major contributor Patrick DiMarco to free agency and elected to not re-sign tight end Jacob Tamme, they have compensated for DiMarco’s absence with former Seahawk fullback Derrick Coleman, and Falcons third round pick Austin Hooper looks ready to be a dominant receiving tight end. Matt Ryan couldn’t have won MVP without a great supporting cast, and he’ll still be surrounded with some of the best offensive talent in the NFL in 2017. #2. Steve Sarkisian Kyle Shanahan orchestrated one of the best offenses in NFL history in 2016. However, a major criticism of the Falcons’ former offensive coordinator was his “gimmicky” playbook. Many thought that Shanahan often over-thought the offense, creating plays that were unnecessarily complicated. Also, Shanahan was very strict, not giving Ryan the option to audible out of certain plays. Shanahan’s replacement, Steve Sarkisian, runs the same offensive style, but has a more grounded approach. His offenses at USC were known for well-developed running games, and hopefully he can help further improve the already great Falcons offense. Sarkisian has also indicated that the Falcons offense will be tailored to the best fit of Ryan: “I think we all know Matt likes to be aggressive in attacking defenses, there’s no doubt that the entire organization is that way. He just wanted me to reassure him that’s how I was. That we were going to be aggressive and do the things [we need to do] to throw it down the field to take advantage of the weapons that we have. And that we would have enough offense, that we would be able to break the huddle, shift to motion, run the ball, play pass, go to no huddle, get in empty and have a variety of offense that would make it tough for [someone] to defend.” #3. Ryan’s Drive for Success Matt Ryan has never been criticized for his work ethic. He’s always been a relentless competitor, never satisfied with defeat. There were several games throughout his career that seemed unwinnable. In 2008 for example, the Chicago Bears took a one point lead over the Falcons with just a few seconds left. Ryan could’ve easily halfheartedly lofted a Hail Mary towards the endzone, but he made the right play to set up Jason Elam’s game-winning field goal. After the Super Bowl loss, Ryan was transparent and constructive. He didn’t shy away from the media’s massive focus on the game, and he even starred in a Gatorade commercial about it. If you thought 2016 Matt Ryan was the most determined Ryan you ever saw, just wait until September. This man is a on a mission, and he won’t let Super Bowl LI be his legacy.In 2006, amid growing skepticism about the reliability of psychology studies, a group of researchers decided to figure out just how solidly grounded those studies were. They looked at 141 major psychology papers and emailed their authors to request the original data. Four hundred emails and six months later, they’d received the data for only a quarter of those studies. The rest were unavailable. And so, instead of the question they’d set out to answer, they wrote a different article—titled, pointedly, “The poor availability of psychological research data for reanalysis.” What went wrong? Given how important data is in scientific research, and how much of it is publicly funded, one might think research data is easily available for examination – for other researchers to kick the tires, so to speak. But actually, only a small minority of papers are published with the data available. Those psych researchers in 2006 aren’t the only team to encounter such frustration. In 2009, a group looking at studies related to modeling in cancer, malaria, and other diseases found only 20 percent of datasets could be accessed. Other researchers who looked specifically at high-impact studies— those published in the most prestigious journals—found that only 10 percent of publications contained the raw data on which their findings were based. This might come as a surprise. The entire scientific enterprise is, in theory, built on sharing data – it’s how researchers convince skeptics, how they pressure-test one another’s theories. Unlike the secretive world of private-sector invention, science is largely funded with federal or nonprofit money, adding a public-interest component to the basic scientific principle of transparency. The reasons for the lack of data sharing sometimes are quite simple: Providing data can be a nuisance, taking time and money from running experiments. And sometimes published datasets vanish over time, a function of non-standard archival mechanisms and poor enforcement of data sharing. (This was documented by a research group in 2013; as one author described it, some data sets are simply being "lost to science.") But secrecy is another problem. Data helps researchers publish, and publications are the currency of scientists, earning them grants and promotions. Thus, researchers often cling jealously to their most important data, treating it more like proprietary information than a public resource. Troubled by this secrecy – especially given the public funding of most research – a movement for open data and overall open science has arisen, calling for open-access publishing—that is, research to be published in non-paywalled forums—and data sharing. This movement builds upon the mandate by the Obama administration, implemented in 2013, that all federally funded research articles be made available to read for free within one year of publication. Such a movement is supported by the scientific community in principle, but not often followed in practice. Over 16,000 researchers have signed a pledge to not publish in Elsevier, the world’s largest publisher and one that is known for expensive paywalls, and other closed-door practices. But four 4 years after the pledge started to circulate, more than one-third of signers who’ve published have already broken it. (The movement has also triggered something of a data-sharing backlash: An op-ed in the New England Journal of Medicine last year coined the term “research parasite” to describe scientists who reuse and adapt others’ data without the explicit benefit of the collector of data.) Today, mandates from research funders, federal and private, are starting to change this process—whether researchers like it or not. The Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation, two of the biggest independent sources of medical research funding, require any researcher receiving funding to post data openly. For science to truly shift from a closed-door to an open-data mindset, however, it may be necessary to look deeper, and to create new kinds of incentives. One might be to turn data itself into a measurable product that can help advance scientists’ careers, bringing the same rewards as publishing results in a journal. Such routine publication of datasets might open the door to new kinds of research projects, with shared observations quickly stitched together into cohesive form by multiple groups, similar to how a computer program is written by collaborative teams using multiple open components today. This is happening already in classrooms utilizing open datasets, but this is not yet woven into mainstream academic science. Software development also contains an interesting model for a new reward system that prioritizes data sharing over hoarding: in job hiring success as a software developer can be judged by the number of times your code is reused, a process known as forking. The more forks your software has, and thus the most uses, the better rewarded you are as a software developer in terms of career prospects and salary. This might not be a bad approach for research: Ultimately the point of science is to share and advance knowledge, and it makes sense to reward researchers for providing widely used data, rather than for publishing a bold result based on data they keep secret. This change will require not just a shift in the professional reward system, but also in communications and technology: it needs to be easy for researchers to share the data, and to track its forking. This is one of my own personal missions: I left cancer research 3 years ago in part to help fix what I saw as flaws in the research enterprise overall, and started my own open publishing company, The Winnower, which later joined forces with Authorea, a startup I now run helping researchers write and publish data-driven research articles. Arguably, in some cases open data can be detrimental, and there are ways in which closed data can be beneficial. For example, publications on viruses or bacteria that can be weaponized could cause real public harm. Proprietary data can also be useful for researchers to start companies without their ideas being co-opted by larger organizations. Still, the benefits of open data are likely to far outweigh the current closed practices. And, as recent examples in astrophysics show, large-scale collaborations can produce breakthrough discoveries far beyond what individual scientists, hoarding their data, could produce alone. When the Higgs boson was discovered, the article had thousands of authors, each of whom had worked on a small piece of the whole. And the data, generated at CERN, is open to the public – which has already led to new ideas and discoveries. Josh Nicholson is Chief Executive Officer at Authorea, a Brooklyn-based startup developing collaborative publishing tools.Paul Mattick. 1935 The Lenin Legend Source: Kurasje Archive; Written: by Paul Mattick, published in International Council Correspondence Vol. 2, no. 1, December 1935 and reprinted in Western Socialist Vol. 13. no. iii. January 1946. In 1978 it was included in Paul Mattick Anti-Bolshevik Communism Merlin Press, London, 1978 ISBN: 0 850 36 222 7/9. The e-version of this text was made by Kavosh Kavoshgar for Kurasje; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden, for marxists.org 2003; Proofed and corrected: by Geoff Traugh, July 2005
the threats posed by “transnational” enemies of the United States continue to “mutate” and “morph.” Any attempt by Congress to limit the military’s ability to go anywhere in the world and fight anti-US Islamic groups for as long as necessary would be a mistake, they said. Senators Question Unlimited Power for Endless War Lawmakers called in President Trump’s top national security officials to discuss the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that has allowed the executive branch wide-ranging powers to wage war over the past 16 years. Congress passed the AUMF in 2001, in the emotional days following the 9/11 attacks. The authorization allowed the Bush administration to pursue Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and it continues to be the legal justification for a broad range of military operations in countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The operation which killed four elite US soldiers and several Niger troops was authorized not by the AUMF, but by the federal law outlining the basic role of the military. Today, US forces are deployed and equipped for combat in 19 different countries, according to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Every year, the US spends about $100 billion maintaining 800 military bases in 70 countries across the globe. Senators from both parties said members of Congress never expected that the AUMF would still be used to justify combat operations a decade and a half after its initial passage against groups like ISIS (also known as Daesh), which did not exist in 2001. There is a growing interest, at least in the Senate, to consider a new AUMF that would force debate over a seemingly endless war on terror that has expanded the US military footprint to the far reaches of the globe. There’s little doubt that senators in both parties are motivated by the fact that a former reality TV show star with a penchant for framing US foreign policy with explosive statements on Twitter is now the military’s commander in chief. The big question facing lawmakers is whether a new use of force authorization should include restrictions on how the so-called “forever war” is waged, including, for example, limits on the number of troops that can be deployed in foreign countries. Mattis and Tillerson pushed back against proposals for limitations, arguing that a renewed AUMF should not include restrictions on where US forces can operate geographically, what resources they can use and how long they can be there. The Trump administration asserts — as the Bush and Obama administrations did before it — that the president and Pentagon have broad authority to wage war against Islamic extremists around the world. “We cannot afford to have any gap in terms of our authorities,” Tillerson said. The military enjoys “authority” to operate overseas outside of the 2001 authorization, of course. Mattis revealed that the operation in early October in which militants killed four elite US soldiers and several Niger troops was authorized not by the AUMF, but by the federal law outlining the basic role of the military in defending the country. This section of US Code has been interpreted to authorize “train-and-advise” missions with local forces in Niger and many other countries. The Antiwar Movement and the Future of the Democratic Party Sen. Cory Booker, the Democratic Party’s rising star from New Jersey, pointed out that the US creates more terrorists when it partners with brutal regimes in countries like Nigeria and Saudi Arabia that have a record of killing civilians and other human rights atrocities. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) questioned whether the White House is seeking a “permanent transition of power” that takes Congress out of the picture. Could such criticism from leading Democrats after years of complicity with the international war machine be a sign that the party is ready to listen to its progressive base and take a more antiwar stance in the Trump era? Not so fast, says Norman Solomon, an antiwar activist and journalist who co-authored “Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis.” “We got to raise hell from the grassroots to turn the party around, and in turn, the whole country.” “One has to wonder how deep and wide within the Democratic Party the genuine opposition to perpetual war really is,” Solomon told Truthout. Solomon drew an analogy to another cause championed by progressives: single-payer health care. Democrats in the California legislature successfully passed single-payer legislation in 2006 and 2008, knowing full well that then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, would veto it. Progressives launched a renewed push for single-payer under a Democratic governor last year, but the bill famously never made it to the governor’s desk despite a Democratic majority. “I draw the analogy because we have not seen during the eight years of the Obama administration any substantial movement from the Democratic members of the House or Senate to stop perpetual war,” Solomon said. Barack Obama originally ran for president on an antiwar platform, and much of his base of support was passionately against the war in Iraq. However, he did not untangle the country from the quagmire created by his predecessor, despite attempts to replace troops on the ground with indigenous security forces and high-tech killer drones. (Of course, drone attacks are an act of war, not an end to war.) Despite this disappointment, much of Obama’s base remained loyal to the president. The antiwar movement dwindled, but never died. Now, Solomon says, the push to end the “forever war” must come from the progressive movement itself, and it’s time to rededicate energy toward challenging US militarism and imperialism overseas. While Democratic lawmakers may question the president’s authority to wage endless war, they are still part of a political system in which the military-industrial complex holds a considerable amount of wealth and political power. “We, as the US public overall, have been led by the nose to accept perpetual war,” Solomon said. “I think there is a notable lack of enthusiasm for perpetual war, but that is different than the active opposition that I think we really need.” In their “autopsy” report, Solomon and his co-authors argue that the base voters neglected by Clinton and the Democrats in 2016 are not only the people who can lead the charge to end the war on terror, they are also the future of the Democratic Party, if only the party could see it. People of color will make up the majority of the working class by 2032, and countless young people are energized by grassroots calls to reject environmental destruction, institutional racism, economic equality and endless war. “If the Democratic Party is to determine how to truly connect with this new universe of voters — and young people overall — the party must grasp that the high support for Sanders from those voters in the 2016 primaries and his enduring popularity are markers for a sustained progressive wave,” the authors of the report conclude. “The Democratic Party can learn to ride that wave or choose to duck under it.” What course leading Democrats in Washington will choose in the Trump era remains to be seen. In the meantime, Solomon said people who oppose endless war must get (or stay) active and fight for a Democratic Party that is built by the participation of its base instead of by insiders who lock the grassroots out. “We got to raise hell from the grassroots to turn the party around, and in turn, the whole country,” Solomon said.Who says women can't be funny? Enough of this nonsense. The powerhouse women from Raw Sugar are ready to set the world straight about one of the most tired tropes of comedy - that somehow gender has any bearing on a person's ability to tell a joke. "The Funny" is a cabaret performance where women and people not on the gender binary show off their comic muscles, proving once and for all that men aren't the only people that can be hilarious.The impetus for the show, in 2012, was when Rebekah Rentzel and Jenny Moeller, artistic directors of Raw Sugar, realized that they knew tons of funny women and weren't seeing their work highlighted, or they were playing minor roles in local productions. "We thought, what if we were to give them a space?" Moeller says.The mission of "The Funny" is "to create a show that talks about women's lives and issues they are experiencing right now, but in a funny way," Moeller says. "There are so many male comedians who get to talk about their lives, but when female comedians do it, it's suddenly a female issue piece. We want to talk about what's important to us."For this year's show, Moeller and Rentzel are bringing in pieces from a broad spectrum. "Feminism can easily be pigeon-holed into one specific type of feminism," Rentzel says. "We are making sure we represent all the different ways to be a feminist, showing that there are many different ways to exist in the world.""We believe that in 2016, it's a radical act to tell women's stories," Moeller says. "It shouldn't be, but it is." The organizers want to own that fact, by pushing boundaries of what feminism means, and how feminism relates to the world. "We want it to be a place where people can come together and laugh about stuff they don't get to laugh about in the mainstream," she says."The Funny" has grown since its inception. When they first started out, there were nine performers. Last year, there were 15. For this year's show, there will be around 24 performers participating. "We're expanding in numbers and in all kinds of backgrounds, including race, age, and gender," Moeller says. "It's a spectrum, and Raw Sugar gets to learn from all these performers. It's a mutual partnership and trade."Ifrah Mansour will be returning to "The Funny" after performing with the show last year.Mansour says she met with Rentzel, and their discussion turned to what the East African community thinks of feminism. That conversation led to Mansour being a part of the show and exploring this topic.When Rentzel asked what she would need to participate, Mansour replied, "I'll need cleaning towels and a volunteer." They found performance artist Garrett Vollmer. In her piece "How to Clean a Man," Mansour scrubbed him clean, while the audience heard a recording of Mansour reading a text for a misogynistic website."Comedy is something that I really enjoy," Mansour says. "It's my free therapy. For most of my work, I'm not invited to be a comedian."For this year's "The Funny," Mansour performance will be about brown bodies and public interaction.By Gabrielle. I like to keep a few last-minute decoration ideas on hand for any given holiday or event. Some years are busier than others, and I can’t always go all out with preparations. But if I have some easy ideas in my back pocket, then it’s much more likely that I’ll be able to add some instant magic to the house. My internet friend Amy, just came out with a book called Washi Tape Crafts. It has tons of ideas for cute ways you can use washi tape, and even offers technique guidance — like how to get a good precision tear, how to weave with washi, and how to create specific shapes. Most of the ideas are for anytime crafts, but some are centered on specific holidays, and when I saw the mummy lanterns, I thought they were a perfect last-minute Halloween idea! Happily, Amy sent over the instructions so I could share them here. Moonlit Mummy Lanterns Add an eerie but playful effect to your holiday decor with these easy mummy lanterns. If you dig the jars out of your recycling bin, you’ll spend next to nothing on this project. Drop an LED tea light inside for a haunted effect! Supplies: – Glass jars – Spray paint, in silver or mirror finish – Spray bottle with a solution of 1 part vinegar, 1 part water – Paper towels – Washi tape, in white – Hot glue gun – Googly eyes, in various sizes – LED tea lights Directions: 1) Apply a light coat of silver spray paint to the outside of the glass jars. Immediately spray with the vinegar solution. Let dry for one minute. 2) Apply spray paint again, then let dry for 3 to 5 minutes. Dab the wet areas gently with dry paper towels to create a mercury glass effect. 3) Repeat Steps 1 and 2 until the jars are covered. Multiple coats may be added until the desired finish is achieved. Let dry completely. 4) Wrap the white washi tape randomly around the jar, leaving silver paint exposed, to resemble mummy wrapping. 5) Hot-glue two googly eyes next to each other, about 1 1/2”–2” from the top of the jar, and drop in an LED tea light. —— Easy and cute, right? If you’re doing this last-minute, and you’re short on time, I think they would still be adorable even if you skipped painting the jars and went right to wrapping the jars up in washi tape. Do you have any last-minute Halloween decorations in your arsenal? I’m always on the lookout for quick (and good-looking!) ideas. Apple votives are another one I love. You?Here is my midrange esper deck. Its not just control, but has big dudes to beat down. I am proud to call this deck MY deck as it is very different to other esper lists since it contains creatures other than AEtherling. I am very happy with the mainboard, I do not plan on changing anything with it, but taking suggestions if you have any. update: ive taken out jace aot due to it having a control feel. and i felt elspeth did a better job on the offense. The thing I am working on is my sideboard. My sideboard is not very confident. I am taking suggestions and asking help very much here. due to the high rising of monoblue devotion, i brought in gainsays and more spot removal for master of waves. ** should I have thoughtseize in this deck? if so, should it be in the main or in the side? i have a great matchup against: monoblue devotion, monogreen devotion, rg midrange, gw midrange, and bwr midrange. the tough but fun matchups are against: esper/uw control and rdw/boros aggro this deck made top 8 five times and made top 4 3 timesThe House on Monday rejected a GOP bill that would have set up a process for firing federal workers who have "seriously delinquent tax debts" and prevented people in that situation from being hired by the government. Members voted 250-159 in favor of the Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act, which was sponsored by Rep. Jason Chaffetz Jason ChaffetzTop Utah paper knocks Chaffetz as he mulls run for governor: ‘His political career should be over’ Boehner working on memoir: report Former GOP lawmaker on death of 7-year-old migrant girl: Message should be ‘don't make this journey, it will kill you' MORE (R-Utah). While that's a clear majority in favor of the bill, it was called up under a suspension of House rules, which required a two-thirds majority vote. ADVERTISEMENT The bill's failure on the suspension calendar means Republicans could try to bring it up again under regular order, which would only require a simple majority for passage. The bill was supported by 35 Democrats, and seven Republicans voted against it. Last year, the House passed a similar suspension bill in a 263-114 vote, with the help of 59 Democrats. Republicans said the bill is needed to ensure federal workers are held to a higher standard of trust, in light of the $1 billion or so in delinquent taxes by employees covered by the bill. "We want to hold ourselves to the standard that the taxpayers believe we should," House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said. More from The Hill: ♦ IRS denies searching emails without warrant ♦ Begich: Exempting rural gun owners won't'seal the deal' ♦ Rep. Steve King: Caution on immigration reform after Boston ♦ White House struggles to rally Dems behind chained CPI ♦ Ryan signals no budget conference in sight ♦ Abortion doctor's trial unlikely to bring new push for regulation ♦ Dems warn sequester undermines fight against terror Chaffetz said that while most federal workers are not delinquent on their taxes, about 107,000 workers owe about $1 billion, and their failure to pay means they are "thumb[ing] their nose at the rest of us." Democrats said the bill would be counterproductive by potentially firing federal workers and making it harder to ever collect money from them. They also said it's not needed given that the delinquency rate for federal employees is about 3.6 percent, less than half of the national rate of 8.2 percent. Still others argued that federal workers are already taking it on the chin in light of the sequester, the ongoing federal pay freeze, and other factors. "You've already docked the federal workforce with up to 14 unpaid furlough days," Rep. Jim Moran James (Jim) Patrick MoranJoe Lieberman says Northam shouldn't resign: Rush to judgment 'is unfair' Former Virginia congressman says Northam shouldn't resign: 'Redemption is a very powerful factor' States are stepping up to end animal testing in cosmetics while federal legislation stalls MORE (D-Va.) said. "You've cut more than $100 billion from their pension and pay. You just sequestered $600 million from the IRS." Under the bill, H.R. 249, federal workers facing a notice of lien from the IRS would be subject to a six-month process that would allow them to start addressing their debts, or face being fired. It applies to civilian federal employees, not defense-related workers. Despite the failure of this bill, the House did approve separate legislation that would prevent the government from hiring companies in contracts worth more than $150,000 if they have seriously delinquent tax debts. While Democrats opposed the idea of firing federal workers, they endorsed this second idea from Chaffetz, and said companies should not be able to win federal contracts if they don't pay employee withholding taxes or other taxes. That bill was passed 407-0. Two other bills were passed Monday evening: — H.R. 1162, the GAO Improvement Act, which would boost the ability of the Government Accountability Office to seek information from the government, and increase the authority of the Comptroller General to collect agency records as part of an audit or investigation. Passed 408-0. — H.R. 1246, the District of Columbia CFO Vacancy Act, to allow the District to install an acting CFO if that position is vacant. Passed by voice vote.MILAN - The first third of the Tour of Italy is now behind us, and it's time for the riders to have their first rest day. It has been well earned. The past nine days of racing since we started May 9 have been action packed and full of drama, and the effects are starting to show on a weary field. Today's stage was the first that was truly stress free - both on the mind and the body. The course was a 10-mile circuit around the city of Milan that resembled a really big criterium. We were to do 10 laps around the course, which would make for a 100-mile day. As we did our first lap it was clear that the riders were tired of the crazy, stressful and dangerous finishing circuits that have defined many of the first week's stages. This course was more of the same, with railroad tracks scattered throughout - even in some of the turns. Immediately, the riders decided together to protest the stage. After seeing one of our own - Spanish rider Pedro Horrillo of the Rabobank team - seriously injured in a crash on Saturday that briefly left him in a coma, we weren't messing around. So we decided to come to a complete stop at the finish line after completing one of the circuits. Race leader Danilo Di Luca was elected to speak for the field, and he announced to the crowd of thousands that we felt that the course was too dangerous to race for the overall classification. We came to a compromise with the Giro's organizers: Riders still interested in racing could contest the stage for the win but no time from today's stage would count toward the overall classification. Team Astana benefited greatly from the decision, since we no longer had to risk our top riders in an attempt to remain in contention for the overall win. As a result, with the exception of Daniel Navarro, the Astana team stayed out of trouble and away from crashes. And with Danny suffering only a small amount of road rash, we felt like it was a successful day. Most of the team dropped back from the main field with six miles to go and finished together with the other race favorites, several minutes back from the stage winner, Mark Cavendish of Team Columbia. Immediately after crossing the finish line, we headed back to the team bus. We had to prepare for a 150-mile transfer to the hotel for the night, so we got straight to work showering and preparing for the trip. Everyone was motivated to get on the road quickly, since the sooner we got going the sooner we would be at the next destination. Once again, our bus had a huge crowd all around it as fans clamored for Lance Armstrong's autograph or picture. As with every other stage, Lance didn't disappoint. He jumped out of the bus as soon as he had showered and took a few minutes to make the crowd's day. The guy is a machine when it comes to everything he does, going non-stop to try to fulfill everyone's expectations. He signs hundreds of autographs every day, even when the rest of us are so tired we couldn't even think about leaving our comfy seats. In the bus our spirits were high. I settled into my spot on the couch, to talk about the stage with the boys and take in some more calories. After that, it was time to go. I focused on winding down and relaxing, passing the time with my beloved portable DVD player. Technology is my best friend on the road! So far Team Astana has stuck to the plan, to save as much energy as we can for the next two crucial weeks of racing. With only some minor time loss for Levi and myself on the second stage, and Danny's small crash today, we feel pretty good about how we have survived the crazy first block of racing here at the Giro. The team is looking great for the coming weeks, where we will hopefully have a chance to show how strong the team really is by getting the leader's jersey and/or some stage wins. Monday is a day off from racing. This will be the only chance to rest up and recover before the next six days of hard racing begin, where the stages are going to become more and more epic. That is where the real battle to become the winner of the 100th anniversary of the Giro will begin to build. Any physical problems one has been having until now will have to be solved in the next 36 hours since the next stages are sure to reveal any weaknesses a rider has been hiding from the group. Tuesday's Stage 10 is the first of the Grand Tour stages. At 160 miles with three huge climbs, it will test everyone's fitness and push all us to the limit for the first time in this year's Giro. Anyone who makes it through this stage with the leaders will stand a chance of winning the Giro. Thursday's Stage 12 is the race against the clock, but once again organizers of the Giro have put a new twist on an old classic. At 36 miles with climbs and twisty descents, it will be an hour and half of pure suffering, and potentially a make-or-break stage for the overall contenders. After Stage 12 the pressure will build on those who can win the Giro. Media, friends, family, and those who think they are friends will begin to swarm in, adding more stress and taking up more of the precious recovery time. Soon, it will get to the point where the only time you have to yourself will be when you are asleep in your bed. So for all the fans watching the race, I know Monday may be a let down without your daily fix of racing. But don't worry, because come Tuesday the race is on. Thanks for reading! Until tomorrow...Baku, Azerbaijan, July 7 By Leman Zeynalova – Trend: In order to achieve the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenia should have a more open position which we haven’t seen in recent times, Senator Andre Reichardt, Chairman of the France-Caucasus Friendship Group in the French Senate told Trend July 7. Andre Reichardt is among the French parliamentarians, who have signed the appeal to France’s president over the July 4 shelling of the Alkhanly village in Azerbaijan’s Fuzuli district by the Armenian armed forces. In this appeal, they urged the French president to exert pressure on Armenia. Reichardt noted that Armenia should fulfill the UN Security Council’s resolutions demanding the withdrawal of its forces from Azerbaijan’s occupied territories. “The relations between Russia and Armenia are especially strong. Moreover, the direct collaboration of presidents of the two sides of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin would undoubtedly bring very important results for the conflict’s settlement,” said the senator. He pointed out that Russia and other co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group can contribute to achieving a progress in the settlement of this conflict. It should be noted that on July 4 at about 20:40 (GMT+4 hours), the Armenian armed forces, using 82-mm and 120-mm mortars and grenade launchers, shelled the Alkhanly village of Azerbaijan’s Fuzuli district. As a result of this provocation, the residents of the village Sahiba Allahverdiyeva, 50, and Zahra Guliyeva, 2, were killed. Salminaz Guliyeva, 52, who got wounded, was taken to the hospital and was operated on. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Follow Trend on Telegram. Only most interesting and important newsSean Bignami was taking his usual Sunday-afternoon jog through Virginia Key when his jaw dropped at what he saw: Covering the usually pristine island was a sea of garbage, swirling over protected dunes and floating away into Bear Cut. Bignami quickly realized that revelers at the Nine Mile Music Festival had trashed the place the night before. And more than 12 hours later, organizers still hadn't begun collecting the waste. "Trash was piling up the sides of this ecologically sensitive area," Bignami tells Riptide. Bignami, a PhD candidate at the nearby Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, eventually organized a group of students to bag the garbage. Now he's asking why the city won't levy a big fine against the festival organizers or even ban them from returning. Continue Reading "City officials should be taking care of this," he says. Guy Forchion, executive director of the Virginia Key Beach Park Trust, admits trash was a problem after the festival. But he says a combination of factors, including an unusually windy weekend, were mostly to blame rather than city planners or festival organizers. "I was hopeful the entire event would be cleaned up by the end of Sunday, and that didn't happen," Forchion says. "That part was a disappointment." The Nine Mile Music Festival is an annual reggae concert started 20 years ago by Cedella Marley Booker; its location has bounced around over the years, but the past two editions have been staged on Virginia Key. Last Saturday's fest drew more than 10,000 concertgoers to see headliners Stephen, Damian, and Julian Marley. (Festival organizers didn't return a phone call or an email from Riptide for comment; we'll update the post if we hear back.) Update: A spokesman for the festival forwarded Riptide a statement that points out the festival collects canned food to support needy families, and lays the blame for the trash pileup on the company hired to take care of the cleanup. We've included the full letter at the end of the post. After the concert ended at 2 a.m. Sunday, those fans left thousands of pieces of garbage in the park. The vast majority of the trash was still there when Bignami jogged through at 5:30 p.m. and was still covering the protected dunes nearby on Monday morning, when Bignami took a group of Rosenstiel students out to clean up. "I realized I shouldn't be complaining about this without being willing to go out and help clean it up," says Bignami, who also shot off emails to Forchion, city officials, and local TV stations. In two hours, his crew collected two dozen 39-gallon bags of garbage off the dunes: Although cleaning crews from the festival were at the site Sunday and Monday, Bigmani says they told him it was too windy to effectively clean up. But as the wind blew, pounds of garbage ended up in Biscayne Bay. "We have people here who study the effects of marine trash and the impact it has on local ecosystems," Bignami says. Bignami has asked Forchion to fine Nine Mile's organizers and to consider banning them from the park next year. Forchion tells Riptide that, while no fine is planned, a portion of the festival's security deposit will be withheld over the late trash pickup. He says there are no plans to ban the festival from the park, but he's already considering how to avoid a similar situation next year. "Right off the bat, we're going to have more garbage cans, and we're going to push forward the theme that you need to put your trash into the cans and not on the ground," he says. Bignami sees another, larger problem, though. Until he sent his complaint to Riptide, no one else in Miami would give him the time of day for what he sees as a serious attack on Miami's greatest resource: it's natural marine ecosystems. "Why is there this apathy in Miami toward these problems?" he asks. "We're surrounded by these great environments, yet no one gets outraged when someone blatantly damages them like this." Update: A spokesman for Nine Mile Music Festival sent Riptide a copy of a letter they also addressed to Bignami explaining what happened this weekend. Here's the full letter: Dear Mr. Bignami: First let us state that we share your concerns regarding the trash situation on Virginia Key Beach. The Festival is a humanitarian as well as entertainment event and we have raised millions of cans of food over the years to feed those less fortunate than ourselves throughout South Florida and the Caribbean. It is not our intent to create other problems while we work on solutions to address our mission. We have always been caring members of our community. It is also our concern in planning the Festival to look at all aspects of the event and that includes clean-up. An event like ours is a large gathering and has an effect on its location. We made sure there were large numbers of trash receptacles spread around the event and worked closely with the Beach Administration to hire the proper companies to take care of trash pick-up and the clean-up of the grounds. What you are telling me is that the Company that we paid thousands of dollars to for handling this facet of the event did not do their job properly. This is unacceptable to us as well. We followed all the rules and the guidelines that were mandated to us and even hired a Company that was approved by Virginia Beach to handle the job. We obviously paid good money for a job that was not handled correctly. We thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and would like to join you in bringing a solution to this problem. We need to hold the Company charged with this duty responsible to complete their job properly, especially since they were an approved company and well paid to handle this assignment. When they do a bad job, it not only reflects on them, but on those that hire them and this is something we cannot accept. Please feel free to contact us so we can discuss how we can help to address this situation in the future. We look forward to hearing from you. Regards, Nine Mile Music FestivalA Dutch research team says transplanting human feces from a healthy person to a sick person can cure a common and severe intestinal infection that antibiotics cannot control. The human gut is filled with billions of useful and protective bacteria. But those bacteria can be wiped out when people with infections are treated with a long course of antibiotics. That can leave them vulnerable to new and potentially more dangerous infections. Many hospital patients in this condition become infected with a potent bacterium called Clostridium difficile. Symptoms of diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting frequently return after treatment with more medicine. In the first controlled trial using donor stool to restore the gut's normal balance of bacteria, gastroenterologist Josbert Keller, in The Hague, was able to cure 13 of the 16 study participants infected with C. difficile, with just one infusion of the fecal mixture. Two others were cured with a follow-up treatment. Use of antibiotics alone cured only seven of the 26 infected patients in two comparison groups. The healthy donor stool, mixed into a saline solution that Keller says resembles chocolate milk, can be introduced to the sick person's intestinal tract through a colonoscopy, through a nasal tube into the lower stomach, or by enema. Fecal therapy is often used to treat livestock, and there are references to it in ancient Chinese medical texts. Keller calls it "the most powerful probiotic you can imagine." His study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine. VOA News SubscribeMercedes launches limited six-wheeler toy for Sheiks to groove in the dunes.There are only so many possible permutations of a metal box on fourwheels designed to go fast over any terrain, and from the Jeep Wranglerto the Range Rover, all of them have been explored in some degree withvarying levels of ability and luxury. It was only a matter of timebefore a group of mad engineers gathered together and said "Screw it,let's go six-wheel-drive."Those engineers work forMercedes-Benz, and this creation, the G63 AMG 6x6, isn't a concept, but aluxury SUV that the German automaker will build for a handful ofwealthy customers.Six-wheel-drive trucks have been in military and commercial use fordecades;Mercedes made a few for use before World War II, and itscommercial division has supplied a 6x6 version of the old Gelandewagen (ATV)to Austrian forces since 2011.But that truck features a baremetal cabin and power from a 185-hp diesel. The AMG engineers swappedthe drivetrain from the G63 AMG, featuring a 5.5-liter, twin-turbo V-8good for 536 hp, mated to a seven-speed transmission, good enough tohustle the 8,300-lb. juggernaut to 60 mph in about six seconds. Inside,there's room for four passengers to ride in a tableau of luxury, fromthe quilted white leather seats and carbon-fiber accented dash to thebamboo-lined cargo area.As for the six wheels, they're not justfor show. AMG splits the torque 30/40/30 among the axles from front torear for maximum traction, with locking differentials for all 37-inchwheels; the 6x6 can ford water more than three feet deep and its52-degree approach angle means it will climb most anything short of asheer cliff face. For desert travels, the tires can be inflated anddeflated from a panel in the cabin.Arsenal star Alexis Sanchez cut a dejected figure as he walked through Heathrow airport after his side's crushing 5-1 Champions League defeat at the hands of Bayern Munich. The Chilean international, passport in hand and dressed all in black, looked tired as he walked through the terminal, reportedly to board a flight to Venice, with the clubs permission. The player is expected to report to training on Friday morning after being granted a break following the nightmare in Munich. Sanchez pulled Arsenal back into the tie on Wednesday evening as he converted the rebound from his own penalty miss to level at 1-1 at the Allianz Arena. Arsenal's Alexis Sanchez was at Heathrow airport on Thursday morning to catch a flight The Arsenal striker looked dejected as he walked through the terminal after Wednesday's loss WHERE THE GUNNERS COULD HAVE FLOWN... Sanchez travelled to Venice, and while Arsenal may be heading out of Europe, that doesn't mean their stars have to go without a little culture... Selected Heathrow Departures: 8.40am - Amsterdam 10.45am - Stockholm 10.50am - Zagreb 10.55am - Pisa One flight they may want to have avoided: the 8.45am to Munich... But Arsene Wenger's side capitulated in the second half following the loss of captain Laurent Koscielny as they conceded four without reply to effectively end the tie before the second leg at The Emirates. Sanchez's frustration was clear on the pitch from early on in Munich, as he berated his fellow forwards for failing to close down the Bundesliga champions at the back quickly enough. The South American could be seen throwing his hands around in frustration in the second half as the crisis deepened, hugging the left touchline and gesturing to where he felt the ball should have been played. The actions of their star player will raise further questions as to whether Sanchez sees his future at the north London club. The former Barcelona forward has less than 18 months left on his contract and with the player visibly frustrated yet again - as he was after last year's 3-3 draw with Bournemouth. Sanchez is likely to miss the FA Cup fifth round clash with Sutton United as he takes a break The Chile international's future at Arsenal is uncertain, with no sign of him signing a new deal With no sign of a new deal being signed, it is increasingly likely that Sanchez may be seeking pastures new come the end of the season. Arsenal's miserable night was compounded on Thursday morning with reports suggesting that Arsene Wenger's future would be considered by the board at the end of the season. Sanchez is expected to be back training ahead of the FA Cup trip to Gander Green Lane, and the 28-year-old will be looking to return to form ahead of the vital trip to Liverpool in the Premier League on March 4 as Wenger's side look to keep their top four ambitions and faint title hopes alive. Sanchez and his friend stop to change their currency as they prepare
any legal action will take place in family court, and because of the student's age, child services are likely. As for Weddles, she's thankful a scary situation ended peacefully. “I just need to talk to my daughter, because if you see or hear anything, it can happen just here, like it can anywhere else,” she said. “I'm very thankful that I'm not living a different nightmare.” Police are still investigating where the child got the gun from, and it's unclear if the student will be allowed back at the school.Carlsson and Aigner joined their forces again and proudly present the third model that emerged from their collaboration. The Carlsson Aigner CK55 Rascape is based on the Mercedes GL 500 and it’s an exclusive limited edition of 20 cars which will be revealed at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show. The car has a striking two tone paintwork and several coats of smooth, wine-red mettalic paint have been applied on the car’s body kit. Carlsson and Aigner designed a special body kit that has wider wheel arches which are visually linked by new side skirts. The front wings of this GL500 have illuminated Aiger logos and the door rubbing strips are color coded in black. The car’s front side looks more aggressive with a new bonnet carrying larger power domes. Under the hood the car has a large front grille and sub grilles with chromed wire mesh. The front bumper has additional driving fog lights and LED daytime lights into the lower edge of the deeper front apron extention. The rear part of the car has cut-outs for the four chromed exit pipes of the new exhaust system. The new side skirts were designed reduce aerodynamic drag and lift and they also give the car a muscle look. All body kit elements were made from PU-RIM, a flexible material used by OE manufacturers. The Carlsson Aigner CK55 RS Mercedes GL500 is equipped with a V8 engine that has 388 HP and 530Nm of torque in standard form but after Carlsson tweaked this engine using metal catalytic converters, gas-flowed cylinder heads, high lift camshafts and a remapped engine cooling unit this stock engine reached 456HP and a maximum torque of 640Nm. After these modifications the CK55RS Rascasse is the most powerful GL in the world and could accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in just 5.9 seconds.Chloe Moretz is set to replace Dakota Fanning as the star of the indie movie “Brain on Fire,” which is being produced by Charlize Theron, an individual familiar with the project has told TheWrap. Thomas Mann (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”) and Will Poulter (“We’re the Millers”) are attached to play the male leads. Fanning was forced to exit the project due to scheduling issues, according to an insider. Gerard Barrett is set to direct the adaptation of Susannah Cahalan’s bestselling memoir, which chronicles a young woman’s sudden descent into madness following a mystery illness. Also Read: Charlize Theron Thriller 'Dark Places' Debuts on DirecTV 7 Weeks Ahead of Theaters (Video) Foundation Features is financing and producing “Brain on Fire,” which is also being produced by Theron’s company Denver and Delilah Productions. Moretz and Theron recently worked together on the thriller “Dark Places,” which is now available on DirecTV in advance of its Aug. 7 release via A24. Moretz recently co-starred opposite Denzel Washington in “The Equalizer” and she’ll soon be seen in Sony’s YA movie “The 5th Wave.” She’s represented by WME, 3 Arts Entertainment and Jackoway Tyerman.If you would like to see more articles like this please support our coverage of the space program by becoming a Spaceflight Now Member. If everyone who enjoys our website helps fund it, we can expand and improve our coverage further. SpaceX is more than a week into a company-led probe of a launch pad explosion Sept. 1 that destroyed a Falcon 9 booster and an Israeli communications satellite, but the investigation so far has turned up no smoking gun on the cause of the mishap, Elon Musk said Friday. In a series of tweets posted Friday, Musk said SpaceX is “still working on the Falcon fireball investigation,” and the inquiry is “turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.” The 23-story Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage suddenly blew apart at Cape Canaveral during fueling for a preflight “static fire” test Sept. 1. The explosion occurred about eight minutes before the first stage’s nine Merlin 1D engines were supposed to ignite for a few seconds while the booster remained firmly restrained to the ground. At that point in the countdown, the Falcon 9 rocket’s propellant tanks are typically not yet pressurized for ignition, based on standard practice on previous SpaceX missions. Updates released by SpaceX on Sept. 2, the day after the accident, indicated the problem first appeared near the liquid oxygen tank on the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage. Both stages of the Falcon 9 burn the same mix of RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants. A video of the explosion recorded a few miles away from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad by USLaunchReport.com showed the light from the fireball first appearing near the upper stage, just below the rocket’s nose cone, which contained the Amos 6 communications satellite owned by Israel’s Spacecom Ltd. Musk referred to the video on Twitter, writing that investigators are “particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off. May come from rocket or something else.” The audio in the video is delayed due to the distance of the camera from the launch pad, which is believed to be less than 3 miles. A few seconds before the violent sound of the blast arrives at the camera, the microphone picks up a squeak sound and a quieter bang. Responding to a comment on Twitter that the audio sounded like a metal joint popping under stress — perhaps a weld failure — Musk wrote that conclusion is most likely true, but an analysis of data gathered by sensors aboard the Falcon 9 has so far revealed no such problem. Another Twitter referenced unsubstantiated speculation that a foreign object struck the booster: “There are some videos on YouTube claiming something hit the rocket. Any reality there?” Musk replied: “We have not ruled that out.” He added that it was “important to note that this happened during a routine filling operation. Engines were not on and there was no apparent heat source.” SpaceX was preparing to launch the Amos 6 satellite Sept. 3 into a “sub-GTO” transfer orbit arcing as high as 18,000 miles (29,000 kilometers), en route to a final operating station in an equatorial geostationary orbit. Musk wrote that SpaceX has received “support and advice” from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency which has oversight authority for commercial space operations. SpaceX has asked that any other recordings of the explosion be emailed to report@spacex.com. The company has not released details on the damage the fireball caused at the Complex 40 launch pad, SpaceX’s primary launch facility at Cape Canaveral. Construction crews hope to complete modifications to launch pad 39A, a a former space shuttle pad a few miles north of Complex 40, by November to allow Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy flights there. But SpaceX has not set a timetable for the Falcon 9’s return-to-flight as the company wrangles with its second rocket failure in less than 15 months. The top of the strongback structure at Complex 40, which positions the booster upright after rollout, feeds propellant into the Falcon 9 rocket and routes electrical and purge air to payloads, is badly mangled and will need repair or replacement. Clean-up activities initially required hazardous material experts because of the toxic propellants loaded aboard the Amos 6 satellite. The rocket integration hangar, located about 600 feet (200 meters) from the launch mount at Complex 40, appeared to have escaped visible damage. Soot covered one of the launch pad’s four lightning towers, and burn marks covered ground equipment near the site where the Falcon 9 stood, including a support building at the base of the pad housing avionics and other gear, and trailers containing high-pressure gas tanks. SpaceX leased Complex 40 from the U.S. Air Force in 2007 after the pad’s service to the Titan rocket program ended in 2005. Email the author. Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.In October, Governor Cuomo announced a competition to modernize four of New York's (ruthlessly plagued) airports. Out of that contest with a $500,000 bounty came ReThinkNYC, a plan to extend LaGuardia Airport from East Elmhurst to the Bronx, while paving over Rikers Island and a substantial amount of the surrounding waterways (h/t W2tB). Sound like a bonkers idea? Well, it is, and it's about as realistic as riding a griffin with Manti Te'o's girlfriend through the Land of Oz, but here's how master-planner Jim Venturi sees it: ReThinkNYC would connect a ton of major transportation networks, including Amtrak, MetroNorth, NJ Transit and Long Island Rail Road, and major highways with an airport of exponentially increased capacity. The airport's new layout would have travelers enter the transportation hub in the Bronxwhere whence Port Morris stoodand take an underground Air Tran to the new concourses, built out on the infill land mass that formerly included Rikers Island. The new airport would expand LGA's gate count from 76 to 165, and include longer runways that would allow the airport to run more efficiently when busy and in inclement weather. ReThinkNYC also brings a massive convention centerlarger than the Javits Centerand a hotel to Port Morris, next to the new 22-track rail station. The plan also includes the extension of the A line through the magically-funded and expanded Second Avenue subway. Under the plan, Rikers Island's prison facilities would get split up and divided throughout the boroughs, which is just one of the nails in the coffin of this bonkers ideathe Times points out that other than its fiscal impracticality, the plan to pepper the boroughs with prisons would never get the okay in a public review process. ReThinkNYC is interesting as a thought experiment in city planning, and despite its status in consideration for an Architizer A+ award, it'll likely never be more than a lofty idea. Heck, the city can't even get it together to fund the critical infrastructure it already has. Check out the ReThinkNYC proposal in its entirety here. · ReThinkNYC's Ambitious Regional Plan Seeks to Expand La Guardia Airport Into The Bronx—Well Sort Of [W2tB] · ReThinkNYC [official] · An Idea to Restructure and Expand LaGuardia Airport [NYT] · All LaGuardia Airport coverage [Curbed]O meia Moisés, do Palmeiras, rompeu dois ligamentos do joelho esquerdo: o cruzado anterior e o colateral medial. O prazo estipulado para retorno é de pelo menos seis meses. Ele está fora do Paulista e abre vaga para o atacante Borja ser inscrito. + Moisés faz desabafo em rede social Moisés se machucou aos 9 minutos do jogo contra o Linense, no último domingo, em Araraquara, pela quarta rodada do Paulistão. Ele recebeu uma entrada forte do volante Zé Antônio, da equipe de Lins, torceu o joelho e, imediatamente, caiu no gramado chorando e pedindo substituição. Ainda no intervalo da partida, foi levado para São Paulo, onde foi submetido ao exame que detectou a lesão. O afastamento de Moisés abre a possibilidade para o Verdão inscrever Borja no Paulista. Para isso, o clube precisa encaminhar um laudo médico à Federação Paulista de Futebol atestando que o meia não poderá mais atuar no estadual, cuja final está marcada para o dia 30 de abril. A FPF, nesse caso, permitiria a troca. No momento, Borja ainda não está sequer regularizado. Seu contrato será registrado ainda nesta semana. Moisés deixou o gramado chorando muito (Foto: César Greco / Ag. Palmeiras / Divulgação)Within seconds, eight scruffy Somali men hoisted themselves aboard, their assault rifles and rocket-propelled-grenade launchers clanging against the hull. Paul activated an emergency beacon, which immediately started emitting an S.O.S., and then went up on deck. The men stank of the sea and nervous musk, and they jabbed their guns at the Chandlers. “Stop engine!” they shouted. “Crew, crew! How many crew number?” One pirate was particularly concerned about anything flashing, and Paul’s heart sank when the pirate stomped below deck and discovered the emergency beacon, blinking like a strobe, and promptly switched it off. The pirates ordered the Chandlers not to touch anything else, and then they demanded a shower. This was Oct. 23, 2009. The Chandlers would be held for the next 388 days. In the past few years, loosely organized gangs of Somali pirates, kitted out with Fiberglas skiffs, rusty Kalashnikovs and flip-flops, have waylaid hundreds of ships — yachts, fishing boats, freighters, gigantic oil tankers, creaky old Indian dhows, essentially anything that floats — and then extracted ransom in exchange for their return. As a result, the worldwide shipping industry now spends billions of dollars on higher insurance premiums, armed guards and extra fuel to detour thousands of miles away from the Gulf of Aden, a congested shipping lane just off Somalia’s coast leading to the Red Sea. Navies from more than two dozen countries patrol Somalia’s coast, burning around a million dollars of fuel per day. And yet 2011 is on track to be another banner year for piracy, with more than 20 ships already seized, hundreds of seamen in captivity and the average ransom now fetching upward of $5 million, a fortune anywhere but especially in a country with no government and an economy that has been decimated by decades of war. Of all the thousands of people who have been held for ransom, though, few, if any, would endure as long — and as intimate — an experience behind pirate lines as Paul and Rachel Chandler. “I fell in love with her voice,” Paul says of his wife. And Rachel does have a beautiful voice, precise and soft. It was London, 1979. He was an engineer for a Brazilian company; she was working for a supplier of windows. They talked on the phone about some construction project, and Paul was hooked. When they met, Paul discovered that Rachel was tall, actually a couple of inches taller than he was, and thin, with pale skin and a shock of red hair. They dated for a year and a half, married and soon moved to Doha, Qatar, where Paul found some work and where a Palestinian guy named Sammy taught Rachel how to sail. (Paul had been sailing since he was a kid.) When they returned to England a few years later, they started out by buying a share in the Lynn Rival, a modest yacht, if there is such a thing, just big enough for oceanic trips. They never had children, and when they retired a few years ago, they began sailing full time, exploring the Adriatic, the Red Sea, Egypt, India, Sudan, Oman and Eritrea, blogging about their adventures all the way. It was a dreamy but hardly luxurious life. Paul would catch snapper in the hours before dawn and Rachel would fry them up for lunch. They’d bake their own bread in the yacht’s shoebox-size oven and sleep onboard even when in port, to save on hotel costs. The Lynn Rival is a pretty, teak-trimmed boat, but she’s 30 years old, and life aboard was filled with oiling, cleaning, tightening, rewiring and constantly fixing the cranky toilet. They were fully aware that the Indian Ocean was a hunting ground for Somali pirates, but Paul is a Cambridge-trained engineer with a hyper-rational way of looking at the world, and he considered the risks of being hijacked to be equivalent to slamming into a partly submerged shipping container in the middle of the ocean — meaning theoretically possible but very remote. Technically, he’s right. A few dozen ships are hijacked each year, out of the tens of thousands that sail past Somalia, putting the odds of being captured at about 0.1 percent. And the Seychelles, a sumptuous vacation spot, were pretty safe at that time, though pirates have since discovered it. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “The idea of getting kidnapped and held for a long time was not in my mind,” Paul said. “It was very hard to believe anybody would be interested in us. And while we were aware of the broader dangers — ” “It wasn’t deemed high-risk,” Rachel said, finishing his sentence, as each often does. “It was a fluke of the wind that put us where we were,” Paul said. Once the pirates were in control of the Lynn Rival, they ransacked it, flinging open cupboards, eating all of the Chandlers’ cookies and stealing their money, watches, rings, electronics, their satellite phone and clothes. There were now 10 men; two more pirates had scampered onboard to join the others. After showering and draining the Chandlers’ entire supply of fresh water, they started trying on outfits. A broad-shouldered buccaneer named Buggas, who appeared to be the boss, was especially fond of their waterproof trousers, parading up and down the deck wearing them, while some of the other pirates strutted around in Rachel’s brightly colored pants and blouses. The pirates lashed their skiffs to the Lynn Rival and reset the course for Somalia. But with the winds so limp, it could take two weeks. Buggas needed a faster getaway, so he made contact with another group of pirates on the Kota Wajar, a Singaporean freighter that was recently hijacked. “Speak this man!” he shouted at Paul, thrusting the satellite phone into his hand. “They rescue us.” It was Paul’s introduction to the loose fraternity of Somali pirates and to one of the pirates’ newest strategic advances: the mother ship. Mother ships are larger vessels — also usually hijacked — that serve as floating bases, with weeks of food and fuel aboard. The mother ships prowl the ocean with the faster attack skiffs tied alongside, allowing pirates to commandeer vessels 1,000 miles offshore. Their strike zone is now more than two million square miles of water, which is virtually impossible to patrol. Jay Bahadur, author of a new book, “The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World,” likens the international naval efforts to “a losing game of Whac-a-Mole.” Paul spoke to the freighter’s Pakistani captain, who had a gun to his head, and arranged a rendezvous. Right as the Chandlers’ boat was about to tie up to the hijacked freighter, a British Navy ship that had been trailing from a distance started to close in. Buggas jammed his Kalashnikov in Paul’s face, telling him in broken English that he had better radio the ship to back off. “Please turn away or we will be killed,” Paul told the navy, and moments later the British ship slid away. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The Kota Wajar — which already had more than a dozen captured crewmen on board — lumbered 150 miles or so to the Somali coast, where it soon joined several other hijacked ships anchored near the beach, a floating community of hostages. Being around fellow captives gave Rachel a trace of comfort, knowing she and Paul were not totally alone. Almost all hostages are kept on their boats, but Buggas deviated from the standard pirate script and grunted that it was time to go ashore. Rachel remembers stepping into a skiff, petrified, seeing some white faces looking down from a nearby hijacked Spanish fishing trawler and then slamming into a desolate beach. “I remember it almost being like a shipyard,” Paul said. “It was like a little base.” Dozens of men — all of them carrying guns — were working on the beach with disc cutters, welders and other power tools, preparing a fleet of boats for future hijacking missions. Right behind the little base were two freshly washed Toyota trucks parked in the sand. As they stepped in, Rachel saw Buggas wearing Paul’s Rolex and commented, “Oh, look, he’s wearing your watch.” One of the men sitting in the front seat overheard her and confronted Buggas, who then sheepishly handed the Rolex back to Paul. The man, who spoke English, was better-dressed than Buggas and wasn’t armed. He had an educated air about him, the Chandlers said, and they recalled this moment as the first of their endless attempts to decipher in whose hands their fate really rested. “We didn’t know who these guys were,” Mohamed Aden said of the pirates who took the Chandlers. “They were nobodies, people we call cockroaches, gangsters, new to the system. It was the first time they had brought anybody to land, the first time they had ever captured anybody. It took us six months to establish who they were.” Aden, who is better known by his childhood nickname, Tiiceey, is the president of the Himan and Heeb administration, a small, clan-based government recently established in central Somalia. Two decades of unabated chaos has resulted in these tiny statelets popping up across the country. By latest count, there are more than 20, formed by members of the same clan — the one fundamental element of Somali society that has not been totally eviscerated by civil war. There is the internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu, Somalia’s bullet-pocked capital, which has received millions of dollars in support from the United States and the United Nations. But the T.F.G. was assembled outside the country and doesn’t have much grass-roots support. It barely controls Mogadishu and is completely irrelevant in central Somalia. Aden works from a shell of a house in Adado, a trading town about 200 miles from the coast. He dresses and talks like a rapper, with Kangol caps and baggy pants and an iPhone clipped to his hip. He is a naturalized American and spent years in Minneapolis running a small health-care company before being drafted by elders in his clan, the Saleban, to spearhead the Himan and Heeb administration. In 2009, I spent two weeks observing his efforts to build a government from scratch, complete with a functioning police force, environmental laws and schools. But Aden had, and still has, a pirate problem. Technically, Himan and Heeb’s jurisdiction extends to the coast, but Aden has no authority there; the area is controlled instead by pirate gangs, most of them fellow Saleban. “I don’t have the firepower to take these guys on,” Aden said. “I’d like to, but I can’t.” Instead, Aden has become chummy with some of Somalia’s more notorious pirates, many of whom take nicknames like Son of a Liar, Red Butt, Red Teeth and Big Mouth. Big Mouth is considered one of the founding fathers of Somali piracy and recently branched into the business of distributing khat, the leaf millions of Somalis chew for a pleasant, mild high that provides a temporary reprieve from their bleak reality. Together, Aden and Big Mouth rebuilt Adado’s airstrip to bring in more khat, which has become a major source of income for Aden’s small administration (Aden taxes each flight) and Big Mouth’s growing enterprise. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “What am I going to do?” Aden said, with a smile. “I’m trying to develop my area.” After the Chandlers were taken, Aden went straight to Big Mouth to find out who the abductors were, but even Big Mouth didn’t know. In recent years, as ransoms have climbed, thousands of destitute, uneducated Somali youth have jumped into the hijacking business, and all anyone in Adado knew was that a young upstart named Buggas had taken the Chandlers to a desiccated smudge of a town called Amara, near the coast, and that Amara locals were backing him up. Local support is crucial, because holding hostages — especially for a long period — can become expensive. You need to keep them fed and most important, heavily guarded — so a rival pirate gang or Islamist militia doesn’t rekidnap them. Paul figures it was costing Buggas nearly $20,000 a month to hold them hostage: with around $300 per day spent on khat; $100 a day on goats; maybe a couple hundred more for tea, sugar, powdered milk, fuel, ammunition and other supplies. Then there’s payroll— in the Chandlers’ case, cash for the pirate raiding party and their 30 henchmen who rotated as guards on shore. On top of this come the translators, who charge a hefty fee to interact with the hostages and negotiate a ransom. Pirates tend to operate on credit — borrowing all these resources from community members or other pirates, who will then get a cut, or in Somali, a sami, once a ransom is delivered. In Amara, rumors quickly began to fly that the Chandlers were rich — possibly even British M.P.’s — and were therefore the ideal sami opportunity. “People were saying it would take just two months for a ransom and then they would get double,” Aden remembered. “They invest $5,000, they get $10,000 back. That’s a good return, right?” Amara lies on a wind-raked plain, surrounded by sand dunes and scrub brush bristling with bone-white thorns. I passed through there in 2009 and remember hundreds of squat, little huts packed together, an incongruously tall cellphone tower and sandy roads littered with donkey dung. Buggas moved the couple around a lot, sometimes locking them in houses inside Amara, where they could hear goats bleating or children playing just outside the gates, other times setting up crude camps in the bush with plastic tarps stretched between the trees. For Rachel, the days all blur together. She would get up around dawn, when the desert was just bearably cool. Paul would sleep a little later. They would try their best to ingest a breakfast of goat liver and then wash up with a jerrycan of well water. They would read the few books they were allowed to grab from the yacht and write in their diaries. Paul tended to focus on the here and now: “Overcast, a little wind,” reads one entry in neat blue ink. “Another sleepless night” was another. Rachel tended to be more introspective with longer entries in perfectly formed script. The smells they remember are sweat, the stinky perfume the pirates would douse themselves with and the scent of the charcoal, which had been soaked in diesel. Sometimes, in the morning, if they felt motivated, they did yoga together; once Paul turned around to see half a dozen gunmen earnestly following along. It seemed everyone was horribly bored. “I was struggling,” Rachel told me in May, as she sat in her carpeted living room in a small home in Dartmouth, England, where the Chandlers have been living since being freed. “I’d get through the early part of the morning, and then the heat and humidity would build up, and I’d be lying there thinking, I don’t want to read, I don’t want to do anything, how am I going to get through the next 10 minutes, let alone 10 hours, let alone 10 days?” Lunch was a mound of plain spaghetti, typically served in nauseatingly large portions. Then nap time and maybe laundry. Sweetened boiled beans and rice for dinner. They didn’t interact much with the pirates, who would occasionally bark at them to borrow their scissors or listen to their radio. Then sleep. Buggas appeared to be calling all the shots, which dismayed the Chandlers because he seemed uneducated, temperamental and crass. They kept hoping some wiser, more experienced pirates would show up and realize they were not rich and strike a deal for a more modest ransom. But that never happened. Buggas was supremely confident that he was on the verge of making millions — he had two white people in his hands, after all. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “British government pay big money, no problem,” he kept saying. “He wasn’t an intelligent thug,” Rachel said. “He was just a thug.” She closed her eyes and drew a composite sketch of him in her mind: around 33 years old, fairly thickset, round, chunky face, low forehead, small eyes, fleshy lips that he tended to leave open. He was constantly threatening them: “No money, you dead, kill you.” The problem was that the Chandlers didn’t have much money. They had spent around $75,000 to buy and fix up the Lynn Rival, and they owned a two-bedroom apartment in Tunbridge Wells, a London suburb, worth around $250,000, and some retirement accounts, which brought the total to $500,000. The pirates scoffed at such petty cash and demanded $7 million and told Paul to find a negotiator. “Negotiator?” Paul said. “I don’t have a negotiator.” He suggested the pirates call Rachel’s older brother, Stephen Collett, a retired farmer back in England. Stephen, who is writing a book about the kidnapping, politely declined to discuss details about the 200 or so calls he made to the pirates. He still seems shaken up. “How would you feel if you got a phone call from a guy who says, ‘I got your sister and her husband at gunpoint so you better send us everything you got and more and you’ll be lucky if you get them back’?” The Chandlers soon deduced that escape or rescue was unlikely. The pirates operated with total impunity in their patch of Somalia. People were always coming by the camp — young men, young women and, as Rachel put it, “elderlylike characters” who would sit for hours with the gang, talking, laughing, leisurely sipping little cups of tea, making it abundantly clear that the whole community was complicit and that no one would help them. For Paul, who is unfailingly polite and gentle, a man whose voice rarely clears a whisper, this is what brings out the bitterness. “Everybody was in on it,” he said. “I’m angry at Somali society. I’m angry at a community.” In a rough, industrial part of northeast London, next to an auto-body shop and behind an unmarked door, is Universal TV. It includes a suite of offices and a bare-bones TV studio with a black velvet curtain and a giant map of Africa. Veiled Somali women drift in and out, and prayer-capped Somali men make the run to the gas station up the street to get Fanta and potato chips. If there is any nucleus of the Somali diaspora, any glue holding together a people who have been scattered by war and settled everywhere from Sydney to Minneapolis, it is Universal TV, which broadcasts news and other shows worldwide in Somali and is seen as keeping a sense of nationhood intact while Somalia sorts out its mess. Ridwaan Haji Abdiwali is one of Universal’s on-air news anchors, a 28-year-old refugee who was hit by a stray bullet during Somalia’s civil war before fleeing to England seven years ago. He has thoughtful, hooded eyes and his own weekly television show called “Have Your Say.” More than anything, he is deeply embarrassed about his homeland, which has lurched from crisis to crisis since 1991, when clan warlords tore down the central government and then fought among themselves. “It’s a constant source of sorrow,” Abdiwali said. “I feel guilty when I see my country. No education, no peace, no international relationships, no economy.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story But the hijacking of the Chandlers was especially shameful. It was all over the news, perfect tabloid fodder, one of the biggest-running stories of the time — two pensioner Brits “on the trip of a lifetime” now in the hands of Somali gunmen. Abdiwali remembers sitting with other students in the canteen at the University of Westminster when yet another Chandler update came on TV. “Oh, my God,” his friends groaned about the pirates. “They’re morons, they’re criminals.” Abdiwali started focusing his hourly show on the Chandlers and even called up Buggas and his fellow pirates and berated them on the air. “They’re not rich ship owners,” Abdiwali told the pirates. “These people are innocent and you should release them.” His initial strategy, he told me, was to heap shame on the pirates for kidnapping two elderly people and to show England that not all Somalis were criminals and morons. Abdiwali and some others at Universal TV then turned to Abdi Shire Jama, who was a freelance interpreter in London and a talented songwriter. Jama thought a music video would help spread the word, so he produced a song called “Release the Couple,” soon broadcast on Universal and YouTube. It begins with a Somali kid with a British accent saying, “I hope this message gets to the people who are responsible for holding Rachel and Paul Chandler.” Then, after a burst of synthetic drums and some squeaky Somali music, five Somali singers break into song. “Our people fled their homes.... The host countries did not look at the color of our skins.... We need to show our debt to them, for it is the donkey who does not acknowledge the debt.” But Jama’s song also captures an ambivalence many ex-pat Somalis feel about piracy. While it implores the pirates to release “Rachel and her husband, Paul, and his wife,” it also says: “This song is to remind you to fight those foreign vessels which come to illegally fish from our seas and to dump poisonous wastes in our seas. This is national defense.” After Somalia’s central government collapsed 20 years ago, the 1,900-mile coastline became an unpatrolled free-for-all, with foreign fishing trawlers descending to scoop up Somalia’s rich stocks of tuna, shark, whitefish, lobster and deep-water shrimp. With no authorities to fear, the fishing boats were especially unscrupulous and used heavy steel drag nets that wiped out the marine habitat for years. Somali piracy was born when disgruntled fishermen armed themselves and started attacking the foreign trawlers. They soon realized they could attack any ship and get a ransom for holding the crew hostage. “In the beginning, the pirates had a lot of support,” explained Kayse Maxamed, a Somali who works in mental health in Bristol and who organized a “Save the Chandlers” rally in front of a mosque in early 2010. “Everybody liked them. They represented the Somali Navy.” The pirate gangs played on this sentiment, taking names like “Somali Marines,” “Defenders of Somali Territorial Waters,” “Central Somali Coast Guard” and “Ocean Salvation Corps.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story But the kidnapping of the Chandlers made many otherwise sympathetic Somalis realize the pirates were, at their most elemental level, simply seafaring extortionists who were giving all Somalis a bad name. Maxamed, Abdiwali and Jama said they had absolutely no trouble getting hundreds of other British Somalis to join their cause. At one big Save the Chandlers meeting in Camden in early 2010, someone suggested that every member of Britain’s Somali community, estimated to number anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000, contribute 10 pounds toward the ransom. But before this could get off the ground, the British Foreign Office contacted several community leaders, including Maxamed, and reminded them that British government policy was never to pay ransom. Maxamed and others said they were forced to drop the idea, which meant that the situation in Amara would drag on. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. By this point, Buggas and his gang were becoming extremely agitated. A small airplane had been buzzing over their camp — possibly British secret service — and the Chandlers’ family in England, now three months into this, was refusing to negotiate with the pirates. “Family no speak,” Buggas kept grumbling. “Family no speak.” One day he marched to the entrance of the lean-to where the Chandlers were sleeping, a messy bush camp with mattresses lying in the dirt, ammunition tins carelessly baking in the heat and plastic sheeting stretched overhead. “You go, one, one,” Buggas ordered. “Paul, bags, go.” Buggas’s plan was to separate the Chandlers to make them as miserable as possible so they would urge their relatives to cough up the cash. But the Chandlers refused and roped their arms around each other. It was more than just the fear of being lonely, Rachel explained. “We didn’t want to die alone,” she said. “At the time, we couldn’t see how we were going to get out of this place.” Buggas snatched up his gun and blasted three shots in the air. “Come out!” he yelled. “Come out!” The Chandlers clutched each other even tighter. “You crazy,” said one of the guards, whom the Chandlers had nicknamed Mr. Fastidious for the exacting way he always folded up his ratty little bed roll. Paul snapped back, “You crazy.” Buggas raced over to a tree and yanked out a root. With a big knife he stripped it smooth. He started ferociously whipping the Chandlers, aiming for Rachel’s head. They crumpled to the ground, and the other pirates pulled them apart. Until this point, though they had been threatened many times with loaded assault
future, so details are not available at this time. In the meantime, Officer Yanez will not return to active duty.” Earl Gray, an attorney for Yanez, praised the jury’s decision. “The verdict was a correct verdict,” he said, speaking to reporters after he left the courthouse. “In my opinion, the case should’ve never been charged.” Federal officials were assessing the verdict Friday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota. That office had dispatched a career prosecutor to assist with the state’s case. “We determined that this course of action was the strongest available avenue for a prosecution, given the higher level of intent required under the applicable federal criminal civil rights law,” the office said in a statement. “In the wake of today’s verdict, we are assessing whether any additional federal review is justified.” During the trial, jurors heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, including Yanez, who cried on the stand while saying he did not want to shoot Castile. Yanez testified that he thought his life was in danger at the time, and attorneys for Yanez have argued that Castile caused his own death because of his actions during the traffic stop. [Thousands dead, few prosecuted: Officers are rarely charged] Castile was one of 963 people who police officers fatally shot last year, according to a Washington Post database tracking such shootings. The fatal encounter in Minnesota was among the most high-profile last year because Diamond Reynolds, Castile’s girlfriend, broadcast the moments after Castile’s shooting online, graphic footage that quickly circulated and drew international attention to the Twin Cities suburbs. [For Diamond Reynolds, trying to move past 10 tragic minutes of video] The shooting, on July 6, 2016, became part of an ongoing debate about how law enforcement officers use deadly force, particularly toward black men and boys, and it occurred during a particularly frenzied period that also saw a controversial police shooting in Baton Rouge and an ambush that killed five police officers in Dallas. In Minnesota, Reynolds calmly documented what happened after Yanez shot Castile, 32, a popular cafeteria worker at a local school. She explained into her phone that Castile was licensed to carry a firearm, and that he had told the officer that before reaching for his wallet. According to a complaint filed in Minnesota state court, police car audio and video recordings show that the gunfire erupted just a minute after Castile stopped his car. [Minnesota officer charged with manslaughter for shooting Philando Castile during incident streamed on Facebook] Yanez approached the car window and asked Castile for his license and proof of insurance, which the driver handed over, the complaint states. Castile also told Yanez he had a firearm on him, and seconds later, the officer told the driver not to pull out the gun. Castile said he was not taking out the gun, which Reynolds echoed. Yanez screamed, “Don’t pull it out!” and pulled his own gun out, firing seven shots at Castile, the complaint states. The complaint then shifts to quoting from Reynolds’s Facebook video, saying that the footage “begins immediately after the shooting and while Yanez had his gun drawn and pointed toward the mortally wounded Castile.” Reynolds says in the footage that Castile was trying to get his ID out before the officer opened fire. “Stay with me,” she said. She added: “They just killed my boyfriend.” When Yanez spoke to state investigators a day after the shooting, he told them he was “in fear for my life and my partner’s life.” Yanez told them that he thought Castile was reaching for the gun. “I thought I was gonna die,” he told investigators, according to the complaint. Diamond Reynolds, the girlfriend of Philando Castile, arriving in court last week. (David Joles/Star Tribune via AP) Yanez and his partner, Officer Joseph Kauser, worked for the police force in St. Anthony, another city in the area. They were both considered model students before receiving their degrees in law enforcement in 2010. Both officers were put on leave after the shooting. Authorities did not charge Kauser, saying that he did not touch or remove his gun during the shooting. During the trial, Kauser defended Yanez, his former partner. “I think he followed protocol,” testified Kauser, who has since switched departments, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “I trust him as a partner, and he did what he’s supposed to do in that situation.” Prosecutors also charged Yanez with endangering the lives of Reynolds and her 4-year-old daughter, who was also riding in the car. On Friday, Reynolds said she was “incredibly disappointed” with the verdict, saying that Castile cooperated and was stopped only because “he had a wide nose and looked like a suspect” to Yanez. “It is a sad state of affairs when this type of criminal conduct is condoned simply because Yanez is a policeman,” she said in a statement released by her attorneys. “God help America.” Jason Sole, president of the Minneapolis NAACP, called the outcome “more of the same.” “How are you going to kill this guy and still say we have a fair system? How? Man, this behavior has gotta stop, and they can’t stop so they are going to continue to kill us,” Sole said outside the courthouse. “We haven’t progressed. … If you can kill me, with a baby in the back seat of a car, and get away with it, not guilty of any wrong doing? I can’t honor that system, and I won’t.” John J. Choi, the Ramsey County attorney who brought the charges last year, said he is disappointed with the outcome, but he called on people who protest to do so peacefully. “I can’t even imagine what this must feel like for the family of Philando Castile, his friends and all those that loved him,” Choi said. “And also for Diamond Reynolds. I’m just really sad for them.” When he announced the charges last year, Choi said that “no reasonable officer … would have used deadly force under these circumstances.” Speaking on Friday after the verdict was announced, Choi said he believes Yanez is a good person who made a mistake. But he maintained that nothing Castile did justified his death. “The toughest part for me … is that he was so respectful in how he disclosed that he had that firearm,” Choi said. “He said sir, I have to tell you, I do have a firearm on me. He went beyond what the law requires. He was compliant. He wasn’t resisting.” According to the complaint, one of Yanez’s bullets went through the driver’s seat and hit the back seat. Reynolds’s daughter was sitting in a car seat on the other side of the car. Another bullet hit the armrest between Castile and Reynolds, the complaint stated. [Police group: Minn. governor ‘exploited what was already a horrible and tragic situation’] Yanez pulled over Castile after seeing him driving and saying he looked like a suspect in a convenience store robbery that had occurred days earlier. Authorities later said Castile was not a suspect in that robbery. In a statement Friday, the St. Paul Public Schools system said they continued “to remember and mourn the loss of ‘Mr. Phil,’ ” calling him a beloved employee. Castile was killed during an intense three-day eruption of violence last summer. A day earlier, an officer in Baton Rouge shot and killed Alton Sterling, another encounter captured on a video that quickly went viral. Castile’s death, like Sterling’s, set off protests across the country. At one of these protests taking place a day after Castile was shot, a lone attacker in Dallas opened fire on police officers, killing five and wounding several others in the deadliest single day for law enforcement since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The attacker in Dallas told police he was angered by the shootings of Castile and Sterling, authorities said. [Minn. police officer who shot Philando Castile was model student, educator says] Yanez was the first officer in Minnesota charged for an on-duty shooting since at least 2005, according to Philip M. Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, who studies arrests of officers and has kept data since that year. The Star Tribune newspaper reported that Yanez is believed to be the first officer charged with killing a civilian in the state’s modern history. After the Castile verdict came out, Stinson said that of the 82 nonfederal law enforcement officers charged with murder or manslaughter for a fatal on-duty shooting, about a third — 29 officers — were convicted of a crime. Most of those 29 officers who were found guilty on any count were convicted of a lesser offense, he said. Five of the 29 officers found guilty on at least one count were convicted of murder. Including Yanez, 33 officers were not convicted; Yanez is the 17th officer acquitted after a jury trial. Another 20 criminal cases are still pending, Stinson said. Earlier this week, one of those cases — the trial of former Milwaukee police officer charged with homicide for a fatal shooting last year that set off violent unrest there — began unfolding in court. Convictions in such cases are even rarer than prosecutions. In Baltimore, six police officers were charged in the 2015 death of Freddie Gray, but after three officers were found not guilty in separate trials, prosecutors last summer dropped charges against the remaining officers still facing trial. Mistrials were declared last year in two other trials centered on high-profile police shootings that, like Castile’s death, followed traffic stops and included recordings that were widely shared. In South Carolina, jurors deadlocked in the case of Michael Slager, a former police officer who fatally shot Walter Scott, a fleeing driver in North Charleston. State prosecutors had vowed to try him again, but Slager pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights charge this year, resolving both cases. Jurors in Ohio also deadlocked during the first prosecution of Raymond Tensing, a former University of Cincinnati officer who shot Samuel DuBose during an off-campus stop. Prosecutors sought another trial, which began earlier this month. Jared Goyette in St. Paul contributed to this story, which was first published June 16 and has been updated with new information. Further reading: The Washington Post’s database of fatal police shootings in 2017 Philando Castile was an adored school cafeteria manager The NRA’s internal split over Philando CastileSeptember 27, 2010 12:00 PM \| Michael Rose Since this is only the second IndieGames podcast, we're still experimenting quite a bit - hence you'll find that this week's is rather different to podcast #1, as we cut the news out and simply throw our guest indie developer many, many questions. This week's guest developer is Markus Persson aka Notch, creator of the insanely popular Minecraft. We spend the first half of the podcast grilling him with our own questions on Minecraft, the Universe and Everything, then throw a bunch of readers' questions his way. There are three ways to listen - you can find it here, or you can download it from iTunes, and finally if you jump below the cut, you'll find it down there too. Also below the cut, you'll find a bunch of links to everything we discussed, so you can find out what the heck we're actually going on about! Next week's podcast will most likely be completely different again, as we try to work out what is the best form to take. If you have any suggestions for topics, features or indie developers you'd like to see on the show, let us know in the comments! Podcast Links Official Minecraft site Mojang Specifications Dwarf Fortress Infiniminer Hayden Scott-Baron (Dock) Tumbledrop Hilarious Minecraft Fire The Riksdagshuset (Swedish Houses of Parliament) Christmas gift Portal in Minecraft Minecraft Free Weekend Paypal Issues 2D Boy's World of Goo Birthday Sales Paul Eres: Minecraft is outselling Starcraft 2 Markus Visits Valve SeaNanners Talks About Minecraft C418's website Thanks again to Souleye for the most awesome intro/outro music.“No Flyyyyyyy,” screamed a large group of elementary to high school kids while posing for a photo with three of their favorite Broncos. It was a sunny morning full of football at Regis Jesuit High School. Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib recruited his fellow no-fly zone teammates, Chris Harris, Darian Stewart and T.J. Ward, to co-host a youth camp. A lot of players do youth camps in their hometown or city of employment, but not many have put four Pro Bowl players on the field at once. “We’re trying to give the kids an experience we never had,” said Talib while playing with his son Jabril before the camp began. “I hope there’s a future Denver legend in here who can say the no-fly zone camp helped it come true.” Talib, Stewart and Ward all split their time between motivating the group and showing them a few technique tricks. Harris was unable to attend day one of the two-day camp, but he’s expected to be out there Sunday. The majority of the camp were middle and high school students hoping to pick up a few tips from some of the best in the game. Footwork drills and an exhibition scrimmage took center stage for the on-field portion then attendees had a photo session and chat with the defensive backs. “Hopefully we can teach them some life lessons first, and then lessons on the field,” Ward said. .@AqibTalib21 leads the pep talk before hitting the field. Talib brought the DB camp idea to the group. @ChrisHarrisJr will be there tmrw. pic.twitter.com/kPWBNCFqw8 — Cameron Wolfe (@CameronWolfe) May 6, 2017 The camp, which cost $225 per kid, also provided each attendee with no-fly zone tights and a signed item. Talib, Ward and Stewart got a chance to be a coach before returning to the practice field Monday as a player for another week of phase two workouts. It’s the last week before the rookies arrive and two weeks away from hitting the field for more intense organized team activities. Related Articles February 26, 2019 O’Halloran: Broncos’ priority at the NFL combine? Looking for free agents. February 26, 2019 Broncos Mailbag: Is it worth pursuing Antonio Brown and Josh Rosen? February 24, 2019 NFL Combine 2019 Primer: Road to draft takes league to Indianapolis February 23, 2019 Why Evan Worthington’s 40-yard dash time could propel him up NFL draft boards February 22, 2019 O’Halloran: Road to the NFL for Northern Colorado’s Alex Wesley started vs. CU Buffs in 2017 Stewart has been paying close attention to the team’s offseason moves in preparation for 2017. He has lofty team and personal goals as he enters his eighth season. “We’re built to win. We’re built to get back to (Super Bowl) 52,” Stewart said with a wide smile before shifting to his personal goals. “All-pro is what I want. I need to be recognized as top tier in the league. I’m eyeing a special year. I’m trying to push for defensive player of the year.” Stewart attended his first Pro Bowl as an alternate last year. He’s chasing his fellow no-fly zone teammates who have 10 combined between them: Talib (4), Harris (3), Ward (3). Harris and Talib were also named first-team all-pro last year.Hollywood Loses Its Big Copyright Lawsuit Against ISP iiNet Down Under from the secondary-liability dept They send us a list of IP addresses and say 'this IP address was involved in a breach on this date'. We look at that say 'well what do you want us to do with this? We can't release the person's details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can't go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else'. So we say 'you are alleging the person has broken the law; we're passing it to the police. Let them deal with it'. Regardless of the actual quality of the evidence gathering of DtecNet, copyright infringement is not a straight 'yes' or 'no' question. The Court has had to examine a very significant quantity of technical and legal detail over dozens of pages in this judgment in order to determine whether iiNet users, and how often iiNet users, infringe copyright by use of the BitTorrent system. The respondent had no such guidance before these proceedings came to be heard. The respondent apparently did not properly understand how the evidence of infringements underlying the AFACT Notices was gathered. The respondent was understandably reluctant to allege copyright infringement and terminate based on that allegation. However, the reasonableness of terminating subscribers on the basis of non-payment of fees does not dictate that warning and termination on the basis of AFACT Notices was equally reasonable. Unlike an allegation of copyright infringement, the respondent did not need a third party to provide evidence that its subscribers had not paid their fees before taking action to terminate an account for such reason. Termination of an iiNet account with a customer who has infringed will assuredly prevent the continuation of a specific act of communicating a film online using a particular.torrent file on a particular computer. Regrettably, however, on receiving a threat of such termination, it is possible for a customer to engage another ISP for access to the internet on that computer or access the internet on another computer using a different ISP. Whilst any new infringement would be just as serious as the specific primary infringements about which the appellants complain, this circumstance shows the limitations on iiNet's power to command a response from its customers, or to prevent continuing infringements by them. Updating the investigative exercise in the AFACT notices would require iiNet to understand and apply DtecNet's methodology – which, among other things, involved a permission to DtecNet from AFACT to use the BitTorrent system to download the appellants' films. Before the filing of experts' reports in the proceedings, the information in the AFACT notices did not approximate the evidence which would be expected to be filed in civil proceedings in which interlocutory relief was sought by a copyright owner in respect of an allegation of copyright infringement. Also, any wrongful termination of a customer's account could expose iiNet to risk of liability. These considerations highlight the danger to an ISP, which is neither a copyright owner nor a licensee, which terminates (or threatens to terminate) a customer's internet service in the absence of any industry protocol binding on all ISPs, or any, even interim, curial assessment of relevant matters. iiNet's inactivity after receipt of the AFACT notices was described by the appellants as demonstrating a sufficient degree of indifference to their rights to give rise to authorisation. However, the evidence showed that the inactivity was not the indifference of a company unconcerned with infringements of the appellants' rights. Rather, the true inference to be drawn is that iiNet was unwilling to act because of its assessment of the risks of taking steps based only on the information in the AFACT notices. Moreover, iiNet's customers could not possibly infer from iiNet's inactivity (if they knew about it), and the subsequent media releases (if they saw them), that iiNet was in a position to grant those customers rights to make the appellants' films available online. The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) is ramping up the pressure on the government to act. It said today's judgment exposed the failure of copyright law to keep pace with the online environment and the need for the government to act. "It would seem apparent that the current Australian Copyright Act isn't capable of protecting content once it hits the internet and peer-to-peer networks...," AFACT managing director Neil Gane said. Well, here's some good news on the copyright front down under in Australia. You may recall that, back in 2008, a bunch of Hollywood studios (along with two Australian movie studios, just to make it seem "local") sued Australian ISP iiNet for failing to "do enough" to stop infringement. As far as we can tell, Hollywood basically wanted iiNet to wave a magic wand. We later learned, thanks to a US State Department cable leaked via Wikileaks that, not only was the MPAA really behind the lawsuit (though it tried to keep its involvement secret), but that it chose iiNet (the third largest Australian ISP) on purpose: they were "big enough to be important" but not big enough to have the resources to fight back (in the tangled mind of the MPAA). This, like so many MPAA actions these days, turned out to be a serious miscalculation.iiNet fought back, and fought back hard -- and won at every single level in the court system, including today's High Court ruling that effectively ends the case. Oh yeah, the High Court also says that Hollywood has to pay iiNet's legal expenses -- approximately $9 million.From the beginning, contrary to the MPAA's assumption, iiNet fought back hard. Beyond the obvious, which was pointing out that as a service provider it was not responsible for its users' actions, iiNet also protested that the notices the MPAA's anti-piracy front group AFACt, was sending were deficient:The original district court ruling was fantastic, and did such a great job illustratingit makes no sense to blame third party service providers for infringement -- because infringement is not an absolute, but requires a court to decide what really is infringement. As the original ruling stated:In other words, just because someone accuses someone else of infringement, it's ridiculous for the ISP to automatically assume infringement has taken place. That turns the basic concepts of due process on their head. AFACT/MPAA appealed and lost again, with the court once again pointing out that general knowledge that someone on your site infringes is not nearly enough to terminate or suspend users.This latest (and final) ruling basically takes the same stance. The full ruling is a bit dry, but makes some salient points. It notes, for example, that as a mere ISP, iiNet has absolutely nothing to do with BitTorrent and can't control the fact that some of its subscribers used BitTorrent. It also notes that iiNet was not hosting any of the material, nor doing anything with the infringing material. On top of that, it notes the pointlessness of AFACT/MPAA insisting that iiNet has to kick people off the internet:And, once again, the court finds that mere notice of infringement certainly is not proof of infringement, and requiring iiNet to investigate further is too big a burden:All in all, this is a good ruling concerning copyright and secondary liability -- and a bunch of money down the drain for the MPAA, whohave spent this time helping its studios to innovate, but has instead focused on this quixotic legal strategy.Of course, it doesn't sound like this ruling will have the MPAA come to its senses either. The AFACT front group is already claiming that the ruling means Australia must change its laws to turn ISPs into copyright cops:No, Neil, it's not Australian law that's the problem. It's, and the fact that the movie studios refuse to bother to understand how the internet works and how they can adapt. No law will fix this. It will only make things worse. And Gane and the MPAA should be careful, lest they think they can try to pass another SOPA down under. I get the feeling that won't go over well. Filed Under: australia, bittorrent, hollywood, liability Companies: afact, iinet, mpaa, wikileaksPublished: Sunday, August 28, 2016 @ 12:00 AM For Subscribers: Look for our Election Extra, “The Road to the White House,” in Sunday’s electronic edition of your newspaper. Online: For more political stories, log onto DaytonDailyNews.com, join the more than 68,500 followers who like our Ohio Politics Facebook page and follow us on Twitter at @Ohio_Politics During a tour of a Miamisburg training center Aug. 16, Republican Sen. Portman talked at length about the prospect of Ohioans splitting their votes in November, voting one way in the presidential race and another way in the Senate race. “Voters get that,” he said. “They can make that distinction between the presidential campaign and my campaign. That shows up in the polls.” But decades of political history in Ohio shows the party that wins the presidency normally prevails in the Senate race as well. Since 1948, Ohio voters have backed one party for president and the other for the U.S. Senate only three times — each time choosing a Republican for president and a Democrat for the Senate. Portman in recent polls is running well ahead of the GOP presidential nominee, Donald Trump, in terms of voter support, and he appears to have a healthy lead in his race against Democrat Ted Strickland. A Real Clear Politics compilation of recent polls in the race gives Portman a 6.4 percent advantage over Strickland. But as Hillary Clinton opens up a lead in the presidential race — Clinton had a 10-point lead in a Reuters/Ipsos poll last week — analysts say Republicans in down-ballot races could be vulnerable, particularly if the presidential race results in a landslide. A split ticket “is pretty unusual in recent history of Ohio,” said Mark Caleb Smith, director for the Center of Political Studies at Cedarville University. Ohio ranks in the bottom half of states for the number of times voters have split between the presidency and the Senate, according to a study of voting patterns over the last 100 years by the University of Minnesota’s Smart Politics. But it doesn’t happen very often anywhere. Just three states — Montana, North Dakota and Rhode Island — had split results in at least half of the races during that time span. Polarized electorate Ticket splitting has become increasingly rare as the electorate becomes more polarized. In 1984, for example, roughly half of the states holding U.S. Senate races chose a Senate candidate from one party and a president from another. Even Minnesota, the lone state won by the Democratic nominee, Walter Mondale, went for a Republican, Rudy Boschwitz, for Senate. But by 2012, only one in five states holding Senate races split tickets, said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. The difference, analysts say, is polarization: Voters increasingly vote a straight-party ticket. While research indicates more voters than ever identify themselves as independent, their votes tell another story. Richard Born, a political science professor at Vassar College, said Senate candidates bucking a presidential trend can break through, but it takes a concerted effort to pick an issue that stands out in voters’ minds. Portman’s first few TV ads focused on his work on opioids, highlighting parents who had lost children to the state’s drug epidemic. Those ads don’t even mention Strickland’s name. Money also helps. As of June 30, the last reporting period, Portman had $13.2 million to Strickland’s $3.7 million. Portman has been airing ads since June, while Strickland began airing his first TV ad in August. ‘Perilous times’ The last time Ohio voters backed a Senate candidate from one party and a presidential candidate from another was 1988, when Democrat Howard Metzenbaum won the Senate race while George H.W. Bush took Ohio on his romp to the presidency. Peter Harris, a retired Democratic consultant who managed Metzenbaum’s 1988 campaign, said the candidate focused his initial ads on positive messages aimed at defining Metzenbaum to voters. The focus, he said, was getting “to the voter with the most credible message first.” Portman appears to be following a similar script, although some of his ads have taken shots at Strickland for presiding over an economic downturn during his governorship. Polls show Portman has relatively low name identification with voters, despite a lengthy career in politics. As a result, he has worked to reach beyond his usual base of support by touting union endorsements and reaching out to traditionally liberal college students with SnapChat geofilters that advertise his work in the Senate. He just finished a two-week RV tour of the state. Born said of all the endangered Republicans this cycle, Portman has performed the best. “Portman is kind of an exemplar of how to survive the perilous times in 2016,” he said. ‘No one can survive a giant margin’ Strickland spokesman David Bergstein doesn’t buy the Portman survival theory, saying he has a “fantasy strategy” that ignores his support for Trump. That support, said Bergstein, puts Portman “out of step with Ohio voters of every political persuasion.” Strickland has worked persistently to link Portman to Trump, whose campaign has attracted some voters with his “Make America Great Again” theme and stance against political correctness while turning off others with incendiary statements about Muslims, Hispanics and women. Whether Portman gets hurt by the party’s presidential nominee may depend on if Trump can mount a comeback during the next three months. “No one can survive a giant margin,” said Larry Sabato, director for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “You don’t have that big a disparity between the top of the ticket and the very next line.”If getting you primed for one experience only to left-turn hard into another is a very Norm Macdonald thing to do, than deepening the expectation with a quasi-philosophical consideration of the nature of memory, and then immediately suggesting that the impresario of Saturday Night Live has a growling addiction to government-grade morphine is the kind of thing that only Norm Macdonald would do. “It turns out your memory isn’t the precise court stenographer you think it is, getting every word down just so,” Macdonald explains in the preface to his memoir, Based on a True Story. “It’s more like the sketch artist way at the back of the courtroom who is doing his level best to capture images that no longer are. “So it won’t be a true story,” he continues. “It’ll be based on a true story, like every story I’ve ever told. But I promise you this: it’ll be the truth, every word of it, to the best of my memory.” The story that follows certainly has something in common with Macdonald’s story. It’s about a man who has been on Saturday Night Live, who wrote and starred in a film called Dirty Work and on a sitcom called Norm – which we know because he wears a branded jacket, hat and t-shirt, respectively, with all those milestones, so people always know who he is. This is the Norm Macdonald who gets his job on Saturday Night Live because Lorne Michaels shared his monumental morphine habit, who helps a Make-a-Wish kid fulfill his final dream of beating a seal to death on the ice floes of Newfoundland, who has a ghostwriter driven to suicidal ideation by the idea of turning Norm’s rambling thoughts into yet another celebrity tell-all. “I thought that’s the only way the book would sell; it would be a memoir,” explains Norm Macdonald, over the phone, his voice somehow even more subdued than his usual deliberate cadence. “I didn’t really want to write a book that was explicitly meant to be funny. I didn’t want an Erma Bombeck, this-is-a-funny-book kind of thing. “No one wants to read a comic novel,” he continues, pausing after each statement. “Because they’re all awful. So I wanted to write a comic novel and trick people into reading it.” Though its central narrative is a Las Vegas-to-Atlantic-City bender that features plenty of morphine-dipped cigarettes, a sidekick who used to be a rent-boy providing “services” for cash under Brooklyn bridge and a run from a high-stakes loan shark, there is some true story to base this on. Macdonald does at least frame it around his actual biography. He grew up in the Ottawa Valley, and started doing stand-up at clubs like Yuk-Yuk’s, eventually touring with the likes of Sam Kinison. His esteem among his fellow stand-ups lead to a slot on SNL in the spotty but legendary Sandler-Farley years, Macdonald being the rare pure stand-up who does more than write for the show. He settled in as host of Weekend Update, probably the most avant-garde take on the slot the show has had, and was rather famously dumped by NBC head Don Ohlmeyer, allegedly because he was too harsh on O.J. Simpson (though here Macdonald suggests it was because he had lightened up too much on the man he repeatedly called a murderer on national television). Post-SNL, Macdonald has strung together some movies and TV shows, but he has chiefly been a professional comedian, one who is frequently cited as being under-used. He is a favourite late night guest, with some particularly memorable spots on Conan and Letterman, and he has recently used his high esteem to put together his first stand-up specials — his first, Me Doing Stand-up, was in 2011, and another is on the way with Netflix — and more recently launch a video podcast, that, true to style, is essentially a collection of discursive jokes, with famous people. Still, Based on a True Story is studded with plenty of outright BS, from the horribly dark to the gleefully silly. Every moment of potential insight, like getting the SNL gig, is immediately turned into something far more bizarre. At its most basic level, comedy is exactly this kind of left hook of expectation. You thought that man was going to keep walking down the road, but he falls into a manhole cover. You thought Henny Youngman was going to use his wife as an example, but he just literally wants you to take her. You think a comic is going to get nastily personal at a roast of one of his friends, and instead he hits him with a pillowy soft selection of material from a 1950s insult joke book, as Macdonald did during a legendary set during the roast of Bob Saget. If Norm Macdonald is one of the funniest comics of his generation – and there are plenty of other funny people, from David Letterman, who booked him as the comedian on his final show, to Louis C.K., who provides the foreword to Based on a True Story (not to mention the a network of former collaborators and distant well-wishers who will debate just where Norm is in their personal top fives) – it is because he knows how to set off this juxtaposition so well. He knows how to build your expectation so deep, that even the slightest hitch can be hilarious – and the wild, ridiculous swings he often employs, in that pointedly dry tone of his, can be something else entirely. Stand-up might always be the purest expression of that sensibility, but in a twist that fits one of his drier jokes, it also might be the least visible aspect of his public persona. Because of its place in our consciousness, Macdonald’s run on Saturday Night Live – specifically, his time behind the Weekend Update desk – will always define him. It is both an ideal and an imperfect showcase. On the one hand, Macdonald, more than most stand-ups of his calibre, never really worked all that well as an actor. He certainly doesn’t have what you would consider range: the biggest stretch he ever took with a role was probably Burt Reynolds on Celebrity Jeopardy, and even that is just a sort of sillier and more oblivious puff-up of his general presence. Something like Dirty Work – a potential SNL launch pad that was funnier than its box office fizzle suggested – is basically just pure Norm, right down to its hyper-literalism and jokes about prison rape. That presence doesn’t translate particularly well to the demands of filmed comedy of any description. Macdonald likes to play with the audience, whether it’s a full crowd or just another comedian: he reels them in and jerks them around, but he always makes them come to him. Films and sitcoms – at least the relatively straight-ahead ones that Macdonald has made – tend to work the opposite way: they force themselves on the audience, overwhelming them. “I’ve never liked television for the reason that everyone laughs all the time,” Macdonald admits. “I don’t even like watching television, because every joke destroys. You feel like you’re going mad just watching. I feel alienated by it, because it’s like — well, why am I not laughing? But a sitcom audience is complicit with the whole affair. They’re participants, they know what their job is.” The Weekend Update desk is much closer to Macdonald’s natural home, screwing around with a crowd – sometimes, fairly quickly, a mildly hostile one. The segment’s well-established format, the fake news, as he called it, limits some of his rambling absurdity, which is a shame, but Macdonald and his collaborators, specifically long-time SNL writer Jim Downey, found a way to reduce jokes down to their essence. Their often-stated goal was to craft jokes where the punchline was the same as the set-up. The expectation of Weekend Update was that they’d have some snide remark about something in the news (the Seth Meyers style); the turn, often as not, was that the news itself was plenty ridiculous, and all Macdonald needed to do was lay it out for you. An often cited example of this is the Lyle Lovett/Julia Roberts divorce: “Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts were divorced today. The reason: he’s Lyle Lovett and she’s Julia Roberts.” Macdonald has another favourite though. “We did one when Marlon Brando said something about the Jews controlling Hollywood,” he explains. “He got in trouble, so he went and apologized to the Jewish leaders, and they said, ‘Okay, you can work again.’ Which is exactly what happened. It was just so funny to say what actually happened, and they couldn’t go after me or anything.” The Brando joke points to something often overlooked in Macdonald’s comedy: the extent to which abject absurdity is dealing with the inherent absurdity of the world, the ways in which we gloss over or even just refuse to admit how complex and connected comedy and tragedy, silliness and seriousness, really are. In the right light, it can look something like moral clarity. For instance, Macdonald’s tenure on Weekend Update coincided with the O.J. Simpson trial. At a time when punchlines were not in short supply, Macdonald’s were devastating in their simplicity: all he did was point out O.J. was a murderer. Almost every joke, again and again. (He did something similar with Michael Jackson, who he relentlessly called a “homosexual pedophile.”) The bluntness is not just working against the usual chirpy sarcasm of a topical joke; it
:05:37,920 But, isn't it fresh, this feeling... 117 00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:38,950 Yes. 118 00:05:38,950 --> 00:05:40,720 Well actually today is important. 119 00:05:40,720 --> 00:05:44,400 If you can appear in this program starting from April depends on this 120 00:05:44,400 --> 00:05:46,820 Yes, we must give our best. 121 00:05:46,820 --> 00:05:49,550 Even Okada, if you don't really start talking that's no good. 122 00:05:49,550 --> 00:05:52,220 Yamaide will immediately aim at that position. 123 00:05:52,220 --> 00:05:54,220 Right now she is probably watching us. 124 00:05:54,220 --> 00:05:55,850 Aaah! Scary, scary! That's terrible. 125 00:05:55,850 --> 00:05:57,720 Don't you have any message for Yamaide? 126 00:05:57,720 --> 00:06:00,800 Yes, I won't absolutely lose to Aiko, really. 127 00:06:01,650 --> 00:06:04,020 That's nice, it's a bit one-sided though 128 00:06:04,020 --> 00:06:07,420 Now, please write comments like'scary, scary' 129 00:06:07,420 --> 00:06:12,570 Please send them here, Yamaide too, at #LoGiRL. 130 00:06:13,920 --> 00:06:19,550 Then, this is the first class, it's a new segment, 'Manande Time' 131 00:06:21,350 --> 00:06:25,750 Well, there's a decline in scholastic performance, in Sakura Gakuin. 132 00:06:26,350 --> 00:06:27,750 No, no, no! 133 00:06:27,750 --> 00:06:33,300 In several things, like studying the Japanese language, there's too many words you don't know. 134 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:38,320 Recently, I saw Kurashima studying backstage, 135 00:06:38,320 --> 00:06:42,020 And she wrote 'lunch' in romaji as 'lanchi'. 136 00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:43,770 Ah. Megu knows that! 137 00:06:43,770 --> 00:06:45,550 Knows? Megu knows? 138 00:06:45,550 --> 00:06:47,150 We studied together that day. 139 00:06:47,700 --> 00:06:50,520 Really, that's terrific. 140 00:06:50,520 --> 00:06:52,470 Elementary school members are smart. 141 00:06:52,470 --> 00:06:53,300 Really? 142 00:06:53,300 --> 00:06:55,050 Eh? Megu isn't so smart. 143 00:06:55,050 --> 00:06:57,800 Aiko has the English proficiency test level 3. 144 00:06:57,800 --> 00:06:58,750 Really? 145 00:06:58,750 --> 00:06:59,900 Yes, she has. 146 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:02,900 She doesn't make use of that skill at all. 147 00:07:03,170 --> 00:07:05,870 OK, today's topic is Japanese language. 148 00:07:05,870 --> 00:07:10,420 So from now I'd like to challenge you all to some Japanese language questions. 149 00:07:10,570 --> 00:07:13,070 Well, it's something like a surprise test. 150 00:07:13,520 --> 00:07:17,150 Let's do our best so that your stupidity doesn't show. 151 00:07:17,350 --> 00:07:20,920 Then, first of all, let's show an example. Here. 152 00:07:21,450 --> 00:07:25,220 1st question. [proverb] "For cute children..." Who knows the answer? 153 00:07:25,220 --> 00:07:26,920 You don't need to write your answer 154 00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:31,250 Except Okada, the other three don't know instead? Then, Kurashima. 155 00:07:31,250 --> 00:07:34,550 Send them on a journey. Journey is correct. 156 00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:37,870 Eh? Why, why? Why do you know it? 157 00:07:37,870 --> 00:07:41,700 On the contrary, why you DON'T know? What did you think, Isono. 158 00:07:41,700 --> 00:07:46,070 Something like clothes... like, if you put on them cute clothes they become cute, don't they. 159 00:07:46,070 --> 00:07:48,800 And on what occasion would you say that? 160 00:07:48,870 --> 00:07:51,400 The words are linked. They don't match at all! 161 00:07:51,400 --> 00:07:53,900 '...put on them cute clothes!' I don't really get that. 162 00:07:53,900 --> 00:07:57,170 OK then, this way... you fill the gaps. 163 00:07:57,170 --> 00:08:02,870 Everyone, when the question comes out, please write down your answer on your whiteboard. 164 00:08:02,870 --> 00:08:05,420 The meaning of that 'Journey' was, 165 00:08:05,420 --> 00:08:09,100 Without spoiling your cute child, you send them 166 00:08:09,100 --> 00:08:12,920 out into the difficulties and hardships of the world, so they can get experience. 167 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:14,920 Did you understand that? Yes. 168 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:16,100 I'm sorry. Megu knows. 169 00:08:16,170 --> 00:08:21,050 'Megu knows'... please stop randomly saying that as an excuse when you forgot, 'Megu knows' 170 00:08:21,050 --> 00:08:23,920 It's you trademark gag 171 00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:28,150 OK, without delay, let's show a question for you all to think about. Here it is! 172 00:08:29,370 --> 00:08:30,220 Can you see it? 173 00:08:30,220 --> 00:08:30,970 Gourd. 174 00:08:30,970 --> 00:08:35,870 From a gourd, something something comes out. Write what it is. Ready... 175 00:08:36,470 --> 00:08:40,450 Start! From the gourd, something something comes out. 176 00:08:40,450 --> 00:08:43,170 Who knows it, raise your hand. 177 00:08:43,370 --> 00:08:44,600 Now, write it impromptu. 178 00:08:44,700 --> 00:08:45,820 I'm a bit worried. 179 00:08:46,050 --> 00:08:47,700 You're seriously worried. 180 00:08:47,700 --> 00:08:49,170 I'm not really sure about 'gourd'... 181 00:08:49,170 --> 00:08:52,900 Er... the viewers......you say you don't know what gourd means? 182 00:08:53,370 --> 00:08:56,850 Today you really put your elbow like that a lot! 183 00:08:57,120 --> 00:09:02,820 What is a gourd, you say? It's a thing with this shape, where you put, like, sake... 184 00:09:02,820 --> 00:09:05,370 Aah! Like in Joumon era? 185 00:09:05,370 --> 00:09:07,370 It's not Joumon period. 186 00:09:07,370 --> 00:09:11,070 That's wrong. That thing hanging from Nobunaga's waist. 187 00:09:11,070 --> 00:09:13,700 Nobunaga wasn't such a drunkard, you know. 188 00:09:14,150 --> 00:09:17,350 Gourds are more often associated with Hideyoshi. 189 00:09:17,350 --> 00:09:19,350 Also things like gourd festival, right? 190 00:09:19,350 --> 00:09:23,770 Not knowing what a gourd is... 191 00:09:25,050 --> 00:09:26,200 Ooga, are you done? 192 00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:27,820 Please wait a second. 193 00:09:27,820 --> 00:09:29,820 Stil not ready? - Not yet. Then, everyone. 194 00:09:29,820 --> 00:09:32,100 What could it be? 195 00:09:32,100 --> 00:09:34,100 If you have the confidence, then let's go. 196 00:09:34,100 --> 00:09:34,900 I don't. 197 00:09:34,900 --> 00:09:36,900 OK, everyone, there's no time left. 198 00:09:37,220 --> 00:09:38,520 Please write. Oh... 199 00:09:38,900 --> 00:09:40,520 Then... first... Ooga are you ready? 200 00:09:40,520 --> 00:09:41,500 I am. 201 00:09:41,500 --> 00:09:43,200 Then, let's go from Ooga. 202 00:09:44,200 --> 00:09:45,200 Yes. 203 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:48,200 From a gourd, something something comes out. What could it be? 204 00:09:49,250 --> 00:09:52,850 From a gourd... now, please show it better in the monitor. 205 00:09:52,850 --> 00:09:55,070 From the gourd the ground comes out? 206 00:09:55,920 --> 00:09:57,070 Excuse me, 207 00:09:57,070 --> 00:09:59,070 Could you kindly explain that? 208 00:09:59,070 --> 00:10:01,370 To begin with, do you know what a gourd is? 209 00:10:01,370 --> 00:10:03,850 How much are you appealing for 'ground' 210 00:10:03,850 --> 00:10:06,320 From a gourd, ground... what kind of meaning does it have? 211 00:10:06,320 --> 00:10:08,770 Sprouts are growing... from the gourd. 212 00:10:08,770 --> 00:10:09,900 Ah, a plant... 213 00:10:09,900 --> 00:10:13,020 Rather, don't sprouts come out? Why do you answer ground, instead. 214 00:10:13,020 --> 00:10:15,920 Ground doesn't ever come out. 215 00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:18,200 Eh? Doesn't it change according to the seasons? 216 00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:20,200 Depends on the seasons? The proverb? 217 00:10:20,200 --> 00:10:20,500 Yes. 218 00:10:20,500 --> 00:10:22,100 So that is from which season? 219 00:10:22,950 --> 00:10:23,770 'Ground'? 220 00:10:24,150 --> 00:10:24,670 Winter. 221 00:10:24,670 --> 00:10:28,470 Winter? It makes you feel the arrival of Spring, soon. 222 00:10:29,170 --> 00:10:31,500 OK, next, let's go from Kurashima? 223 00:10:31,950 --> 00:10:33,500 OK Kurashima's answer, please. 224 00:10:34,250 --> 00:10:35,000 Alcohol. 225 00:10:35,150 --> 00:10:37,920 Sake from the gourd? Isn't that what I have just said? 226 00:10:38,070 --> 00:10:40,770 Isn't it because of what I said before? Things like sake? 227 00:10:40,770 --> 00:10:42,950 What kind of proverb is this? What's the meaning? 228 00:10:42,950 --> 00:10:44,950 Like... I spilled something 229 00:10:45,220 --> 00:10:49,420 Are there proverbs with the meaning 'I spilled something'? In Japan? 230 00:10:49,720 --> 00:10:51,850 Ah... I spilled it! 231 00:10:51,850 --> 00:10:52,870 Spilled? 232 00:10:52,870 --> 00:10:56,200 So when you spill something you say Ah! Sake came out from the gourd? 233 00:10:56,200 --> 00:10:59,000 Such a bother! You'd just say I spilled something. 234 00:10:59,000 --> 00:10:59,950 Isono did you write? 235 00:11:00,020 --> 00:11:00,420 Yes. 236 00:11:00,420 --> 00:11:01,520 Then please, Isono's answer. 237 00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:02,570 (Person) 238 00:11:02,570 --> 00:11:05,350 Yes, this kind of thing exists, really, really, really. 239 00:11:05,350 --> 00:11:06,570 Ah! I know! 240 00:11:06,570 --> 00:11:09,170 I DON'T! In which world? 241 00:11:09,170 --> 00:11:11,900 Er... they come out together with smoke, don't they? 242 00:11:11,900 --> 00:11:13,000 Yes they do. 243 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:15,650 In some fairy tale maybe. Like "Journey to the West" 244 00:11:15,650 --> 00:11:17,650 I don't know, though. They come with a swish... 245 00:11:18,370 --> 00:11:19,920 There are such cases, right? 246 00:11:20,050 --> 00:11:23,150 Then please tell me the meaning of this. 247 00:11:23,150 --> 00:11:26,250 Er... so, that gourd... you know, something like Joumon 248 00:11:26,250 --> 00:11:27,400 Yes, yes. 249 00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:30,120 Quit saying Joumon. How long are you going to say that 250 00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:32,470 And then... together with smoke things like people... 251 00:11:32,470 --> 00:11:36,970 Come out? And when would you use this kind of proverb? 252 00:11:37,170 --> 00:11:38,670 The moment they come out. 253 00:11:38,670 --> 00:11:40,800 The moment they come out? There isn't such a thing. 254 00:11:40,800 --> 00:11:42,800 Isn't it maybe when you're surprised? 255 00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:43,920 Ah, aah! 256 00:11:43,920 --> 00:11:44,450 What? 257 00:11:44,770 --> 00:11:46,450 You use this when you're surprised. 258 00:11:46,450 --> 00:11:49,320 This? So you just got the meaning? 259 00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:52,020 Then last, Okada. Please show us your answer. 260 00:11:52,150 --> 00:11:52,770 Jan 261 00:11:52,770 --> 00:11:53,720 aaAAh! 262 00:11:53,720 --> 00:11:56,700 How many times are you guys going to drop stuff today. 263 00:11:56,700 --> 00:11:57,720 Wait a minute! 264 00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:01,320 It got erased the moment you dropped it! 265 00:12:01,500 --> 00:12:03,020 Please wait, I'm writing. 266 00:12:03,020 --> 00:12:06,100 Please rewrite it and show us your answer. 267 00:12:06,100 --> 00:12:06,920 I'm not sure. 268 00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:08,370 Today is drop things day... 269 00:12:10,450 --> 00:12:11,770 Please read it. 270 00:12:11,770 --> 00:12:12,220 Horse. 271 00:12:12,220 --> 00:12:13,550 From the gourd... 272 00:12:13,550 --> 00:12:14,800 A horse comes out. 273 00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:15,620 This is... 274 00:12:15,620 --> 00:12:17,620 Correct! 275 00:12:18,170 --> 00:12:19,620 Why? I don't get it. 276 00:12:19,620 --> 00:12:21,220 Do you know the meaning, Okada? 277 00:12:22,300 --> 00:12:24,300 How did you know it was horse? 278 00:12:24,300 --> 00:12:25,350 I knew the phrase. 279 00:12:25,470 --> 00:12:29,300 You knew? It means, unexpected, impossible things can happen. 280 00:12:29,300 --> 00:12:31,050 I knew, it was when you're surprised! 281 00:12:31,570 --> 00:12:32,320 Yes! 282 00:12:32,320 --> 00:12:34,320 Don't say yes, it's not the right answer. 283 00:12:34,320 --> 00:12:35,270 It wasn't people. 284 00:12:35,270 --> 00:12:37,200 Koma is another word for horse. 285 00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:40,120 Yes, therefore, a horse coming out of the gourd. 286 00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:41,050 Impossible things... 287 00:12:41,050 --> 00:12:43,420 So if people were horses it would be correct? 288 00:12:43,420 --> 00:12:45,620 Why you find faults in what the ancients said. 289 00:12:45,620 --> 00:12:47,950 Who wrote it thought horse was a better choice. 290 00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:51,520 You're really trying to twist it for your advantage. 291 00:12:52,750 --> 00:12:54,220 Then, only Okada is correct. 292 00:12:54,220 --> 00:12:54,870 Hooray! 293 00:12:54,870 --> 00:12:55,900 Amazing. 294 00:12:58,100 --> 00:13:00,920 Then, let's proceed with another question, here it is. 295 00:13:02,050 --> 00:13:02,920 Here it is. 296 00:13:03,100 --> 00:13:06,100 Either a demon or (something something) appears. 297 00:13:06,100 --> 00:13:08,500 I heard about it, but I'm not sure. 298 00:13:08,500 --> 00:13:11,320 Then, everyone please write. Ready, start! 299 00:13:12,070 --> 00:13:14,300 Just write by inspiration. 300 00:13:14,300 --> 00:13:16,300 Isono, do you know what a demon is, right. 301 00:13:16,370 --> 00:13:17,250 I do. 302 00:13:17,970 --> 00:13:19,420 Red demon. 303 00:13:19,420 --> 00:13:21,420 Red demon, you say? 304 00:13:21,770 --> 00:13:23,420 I learned it at school. 305 00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:27,300 That won't definitely appear at the exams, red demon. 306 00:13:27,300 --> 00:13:30,150 You get only that useless kind of information. 307 00:13:30,950 --> 00:13:33,250 Then, everyone, please write. 308 00:13:34,600 --> 00:13:36,500 Oh... Okada, did you find out? 309 00:13:36,500 --> 00:13:37,370 I'm not sure. 310 00:13:38,770 --> 00:13:39,700 Then... 311 00:13:39,870 --> 00:13:42,400 Who wrote it, from Okada, let's show it at once. 312 00:13:42,400 --> 00:13:43,300 Ooga, not yet? 313 00:13:43,300 --> 00:13:43,850 Not yet. 314 00:13:43,850 --> 00:13:44,420 OK. 315 00:13:44,420 --> 00:13:47,400 Then Okada, please show your answer clearly. 316 00:13:47,400 --> 00:13:49,400 Read it yourself, demon or? 317 00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:52,600 Either a demon comes out... or Momotarou 318 00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:54,220 Are you in elementary school? 319 00:13:54,220 --> 00:13:55,070 I actually am. 320 00:13:55,070 --> 00:13:57,270 You are, but... is this a fairy tale world? 321 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:01,020 Because when it comes to demons, Megu only knows about Momotarou 322 00:14:01,020 --> 00:14:05,150 If that was the case, what's the meaning of "Either a demon or Momotarou appear" 323 00:14:05,370 --> 00:14:08,870 Er... something like, "Either the demon wins or Momotarou does" 324 00:14:08,870 --> 00:14:12,900 I see, like which one will win the battle? 325 00:14:12,900 --> 00:14:14,900 Like Megu and Aiko. 326 00:14:14,900 --> 00:14:17,620 I see... by the way, which one is Okada? 327 00:14:17,620 --> 00:14:19,270 Megu is Momotarou 328 00:14:19,270 --> 00:14:20,920 I knew you would say so. 329 00:14:20,920 --> 00:14:23,500 That is, Yamaide gets the demon deal. 330 00:14:23,620 --> 00:14:24,700 Aiko, I'm sorry. 331 00:14:24,700 --> 00:14:26,250 It's too late now! 332 00:14:26,250 --> 00:14:28,970 You're already trying to pick enough quarrels, seriously. 333 00:14:28,970 --> 00:14:30,820 Then, next. Kurashima did you write? 334 00:14:30,820 --> 00:14:31,170 Yes. 335 00:14:31,170 --> 00:14:32,350 Then, Kurashima, please. 336 00:14:32,470 --> 00:14:34,170 Either a demon appears... 337 00:14:34,170 --> 00:14:35,200 or good fortune. 338 00:14:35,470 --> 00:14:37,800 That sounds like the bean-scattering ceremony 339 00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:38,570 Amazing! 340 00:14:38,800 --> 00:14:40,310 It's incorrect! 341 00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:42,770 Why do you say amazing. 342 00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:44,510 Is it wrong? 343 00:14:44,510 --> 00:14:45,850 Try to give an explanation 344 00:14:45,850 --> 00:14:48,470 Either a demon comes, or... 345 00:14:48,470 --> 00:14:50,570 Good fortune, something like that. 346 00:14:50,570 --> 00:14:53,320 Isn't that literally what you said before? 347 00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:56,700 Like that 'put clothes on cute children', seriously. 348 00:14:56,700 --> 00:14:59,470 Good fortune, you said. It's incorrect 349 00:14:59,770 --> 00:15:00,870 Then, someone else... 350 00:15:00,870 --> 00:15:02,870 Isono, you said 'amazing' 351 00:15:02,870 --> 00:15:04,570 I said it had a Setsubun feeling 352 00:15:04,720 --> 00:15:07,700 Well, for this time of the year it's not inappropriate 353 00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:09,470 Let's go then, Isono. Read it 354 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:11,470 Either a demon or a bean comes 355 00:15:11,470 --> 00:15:14,320 There it is, that Setsubun feeling is amazing 356 00:15:14,320 --> 00:15:16,850 Doesn't it have an image of Setsubun? 357 00:15:17,070 --> 00:15:20,070 You can't think anything else but Setsubun and red demon 358 00:15:20,070 --> 00:15:23,170 Actually I thought it was either red demon or blue demon 359 00:15:23,170 --> 00:15:26,150 Either a demon or a blue demon comes? 360 00:15:26,150 --> 00:15:28,520 Suddenly you talk like a witch 361 00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:31,050 It's incorrect. Then Ooga, have you decided 362 00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:32,470 It's perfect. 363 00:15:32,470 --> 00:15:33,550 Perfect? 364 00:15:34,050 --> 00:15:35,900 Then read it all 365 00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:41,400 A demon or my mom appears 366 00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:42,570 Wait a minute... 367 00:15:42,570 --> 00:15:45,370 This one really needs an explanation. 368 00:15:45,370 --> 00:15:46,620 What's the meaning? 369 00:15:47,170 --> 00:15:49,320 When I get scolded 370 00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:51,720 Either a demon comes to scold 371 00:15:51,720 --> 00:15:52,900 not my dad, 372 00:15:52,900 --> 00:15:56,300 Why you mention your dad all of a sudden 373 00:15:56,300 --> 00:15:59,670...or if my mom comes to scold me, which one I choose? 374 00:15:59,670 --> 00:16:03,250 Please wait a minute. Do you have such bad impressions about your home 375 00:16:03,250 --> 00:16:04,720 Is your mother that scary? 376 00:16:04,720 --> 00:16:05,470 She is. 377 00:16:05,470 --> 00:16:08,870 Scary? For real, hey mom are you watching? 378 00:16:08,870 --> 00:16:10,870 Your daughter is saying such things now. 379 00:16:11,150 --> 00:16:15,300 Your mother appears... and on which occasion would you use such a proverb? 380 00:16:15,300 --> 00:16:16,420 Because... 381 00:16:16,420 --> 00:16:18,420 Haven't I just said it? 382 00:16:18,750 --> 00:16:19,800 Did you? 383 00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:22,150 Ah, you mean which one you choose? 384 00:16:22,150 --> 00:16:23,400 When I get scolded. 385 00:16:23,400 --> 00:16:25,400 When you get scolded? 386 00:16:25,400 --> 00:16:28,870 Actually, mother appearing isn't too far. 387 00:16:28,870 --> 00:16:30,870 Let's see the answer. Here it is. 388 00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:32,910 How do you read that? 389 00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:33,600 Hebi (Snake) 390 00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:35,670 Hebi. There's other readings of that. 391 00:16:35,670 --> 00:16:36,070 Ja 392 00:16:36,070 --> 00:16:37,550 'Ja'. Yes, then either a demon... 393 00:16:37,550 --> 00:16:38,650 Eh? How did you know it? 394 00:16:38,650 --> 00:16:40,650 Why don't YOU know? 395 00:16:40,650 --> 00:16:43,270 You don't know even one of them, Isono. 396 00:16:43,270 --> 00:16:45,270 Either a demon or a snake appears. 397 00:16:45,270 --> 00:16:49,350 You use it to mean you can never know what's going to happen to you. 398 00:16:49,350 --> 00:16:50,950 Something like Mori Sensei 399 00:16:51,120 --> 00:16:52,300 What do you mean? 400 00:16:52,300 --> 00:16:54,300 Either a demon or a snake appears 401 00:16:54,300 --> 00:16:58,050 Today it's you the ones who are like a demon or a snake, honestly. 402 00:16:58,750 --> 00:17:03,500 Now I got hurt by Ooga. Are you all right? 403 00:17:05,150 --> 00:17:09,320 So, this is the end of the Studying Time segment. 404 00:17:11,270 --> 00:17:16,070 It was a really low level conflict, for now Okada is the winner. 405 00:17:16,070 --> 00:17:18,200 Hooray! 406 00:17:19,170 --> 00:17:23,770 If none of you got a right answer, Sakura Gakuin's future would be terrible. 407 00:17:23,770 --> 00:17:25,650 That's true. 408 00:17:25,650 --> 00:17:28,720 But I can live without this kind of knowledge. 409 00:17:28,720
Patton, the author of the report, said the GOP plan eliminates the flexible, eligibility-based financing structure of Medicaid and replaces it with a less flexible “per-capita cap” in which each state will receive a share of federal funding for Medicaid based on 2016 costs. "This is bad news for Ohio, where the population is aging rapidly," she said. "Health care is most costly among the elderly, so as the population ages, costs rise. But the federal share will not. This could lead to reduced Medicaid coverage for all Ohioans, but especially for growing and costly segments of the population, like seniors."Last Updated: 4/12/2018 through Wave 13 X-wing is a game that has been around for a few years now. The number of ships, pilots and upgrades can become a little overwhelming for those that are new or infrequent players. So today we’re going to continue going through all the different upgrade types and giving some quick points on how best to use them. For each we’re going to give the following information: Ranking – We’re going to rank each card within an upgrade slot. This is an imperfect ranking as the usefulness of any card is mostly determined by how and where you use it. But it’s an easy number to grasp and can serve as a starting point when trying to pick your upgrades. – We’re going to rank each card within an upgrade slot. This is an imperfect ranking as the usefulness of any card is mostly determined by how and where you use it. But it’s an easy number to grasp and can serve as a starting point when trying to pick your upgrades. Combos– What are the best pilots, ships or upgrades to pair with this card. When we look at upgrades that can only be equipped to with a limited number of ships, we may skip this section. Other Guides Filling a very similar niche as the System slot we examined last time, the Tech slot can significantly impact how you fly a particular ship based on what’s equipped. Only available to those ships that originate in the new movies (Episodes 7-9) this means only a minority of total ships will be able to bring one of these upgrades. But that also means there are a smaller set of ships the developers have to consider when designing these which gives them more freedom. *Note- As this article was being written the Episode VIII ships were announced but little detail has been revealed about them. Ships with a Tech Slot Rebel B/SF-17 T-70 X-wing Imperial TIE/fo TIE/sf TIE Silencer Upsilon Shuttle Scum Quadjumper Ranked List Pattern Analyzer Primed Thrusters Advanced Optics Comm Relay Threat Tracker Sensor Cluster Targeting Synchronizer Hyperwave Comm Scanner Weapons Guidance Advanced Optics (TIE Silencer/Resistance Bomber Expansions) Cost: 2 points You cannot have more than 1 focus token. During the End phase, do not remove an unused focus token from your ship. Ranking – 3 Cheaper than Comm Relay and useful to every ship (since every ship can focus) this upgrade has much more value. Though, you’re far more likely to use your focus token than your evade token. – 3 Combos Poe Dameron (T-70 Pilot) Poe’s ability jives perfectly with this upgrade. He doesn’t need to spend his focus to use it and with advanced optics gets to keep it round to round. Ordnance If you focus early, when you make your move into target lock range you can then fire off your ordnance with focus and target lock. Comm Relay (TIE/fo Expansion) Cost: 3 points You cannot have more than 1 evade token. During the End phase, do not remove an unused evade token from your ship. Ranking – 4 This one is hard to rate. For Omega Leader, this is a tier 1 upgrade. For everyone else with the evade action, it’s not bad, just pretty expensive. – 4 Combos Omega Leader (TIE/fo Pilot) + Juke (EPT) These all come in the same box and are almost never flown without each other. Omega Leader is a solid ship in almost any list. Red Ace (T-70 X-wing pilot) + R2-D2 (Astromech) Able to get an evade after losing a shield, Comm Relay allows Red Ace to keep that evade until he needs it. R2 lets him keep regenerating shields to keep getting the evade token. Functions like two shields recovered each round. Jan Ors (Crew) Jan Ors allows you to change a Focus into an Evade. With her on a nearby ship, your T-70’s equipped with Comm relay charge up an Evade early in the game to use when shot at. Essentially turns your tech slot into a bonus shield. Hyperwave Comm Scanner (Quadjumper/Upsilon Shuttle Expansions) Cost: 1 points At the start of the “Place Forces” step, you may choose to treat your pilot skill value as “0,” “6,” or “12” until the end of the step. During setup, after another friendly ship is placed at Range 1-2, you may assign 1 focus or evade token to it. Ranking – 8 This upgrade is only useful during deployment so it’s fittingly costed at one point. This makes it mostly a gimmick but could be used effectively just to help you deploy last. – 8 Combos Comm Relay (Tech) With the HCS on one ship and Comm Relay on another (or yourself if you’re an Upsilon), you can give out Evade tokens round one without needing to take that action. Lieutenant Dormitz (Upsilon Shuttle Pilot) With HCS, Dormitz can allow you to forward place your other ships and give each of them a token to start the game with, which is very handy as you probably can engage round one. Hyperwave Comm Scanner (Tech) Interestingly, multiple ships with HCS pair very nicely together. You can place all your ships at PS 12 and all but the first gains tokens. In fact, the final ship gains a lot of tokens. Moldy Crow (Title) If you place a Moldy Crow HWK near several ships with HCS, you can start out with a large pool of focus you get to keep. Pattern Analyzer (Heroes of the Resistance Expansion) Cost: 2 points When executing a maneuver, you may resolve the “Check Pilot Stress” step after the “Perform Action” step (instead of before that step). Ranking – 1 This is a great action economy upgrade. Almost every ship has red maneuvers (and all that can take a tech do) and still getting to take an action after a red is very powerful in and of itself. – 1 Combos Push the Limits (EPT) If you dial in a green maneuver you can perform your action, Push for a second, get a stress and then trigger the effect that clears a stress from taking a green. Similar to Advanced Sensors put actions come after you move instead of before. Add an R2 Astromech if you’re in a T-70 for lots of green maneuver options. Nien Nunb (T-70 Pilot) Nien Nunb especially likes this upgrade due to his ability. If he performs a red maneuver he can boost after the maneuver and if he ends up with an enemy in range one and in arc he never has to take the stress. Space Tug Tractor Array (Modification) Quadjumpers are great for causing trouble with their tractor array. But because it’s an action, and they have a lot of red maneuvers, especially their fancy reverse, PA can allow them to get far more use out of the tractor array. Primed Thrusters (Heroes of the Resistance/TIE Silencer Expansions) Cost: 1 points Stress tokens do not prevent you from performing boost or barrel roll actions unless you have 3 or more stress tokens. Ranking – 2 Primed Thrusters is often overshadowed by the other tech upgrades. But at only one point, for a ship that wants to get a lot of use out of its repositioning abilities, it’s a worthwhile upgrade. – 2 Combos BB-8 (Astromech) BB-8 gives you a free barrel roll if you take a green maneuver. You are often taking a green maneuver because you are stressed which prevents you from taking that free barrel roll. With Primed Thrusters you can still get your free barrel roll and then clear the stress for a regular action. TIE Silencer With native boost and barrel roll, you get the most mileage out of Primed Thrusters. If you have PTL and ever get double stressed, you can keep doing both as long as you don’t get a third. Engine Upgrade(Modification)/Vectored Thrusters (Modification) When you’re spending points to give your ship more repositioning abilities it wouldn’t hurt to ensure you can keep using them even when stressed. Black One (Title) With Black One you get to clear target locks from yourself of a nearby ally. Primed Thrusters ensures that stress doesn’t lock you out from getting that ability. Flight Assist Astromech (Astromech) It Primed Thrusters you can always get use out of your free boost/barrel roll from FAA. Sensor Cluster (TIE/sf Expansion) Cost: 2 points When defending, you may spend a focus token to change 1 of your blank results to an Evade result. Ranking – 6 This isn’t the greatest of upgrades but it does have its place as an insurance policy against blanking out on defense rolls. – 6 Combos Poe Dameron (T-70 Pilot) With Poe you can get maximum utility out of your Focus token with Sensor Cluster. Change one focus result to an Evade with his ability and then spend the token to turn a blank into another evade. Quickdraw (TIE/sf Pilot) With Quickdraw you really want to try and ensure you only lose one shield at a time to get maximum use out of your ability. Sensor Cluster can help give you the most options for you getting the right number of evades on your defense dice. Sometimes that correct number is not zero. Roll two focus and a blank (thanks to Lightweight Frame) against two damage. Spending Focus normally would result in no damage and no ability trigger. Using Sensor Cluster gives you the desired one damage. Targeting Synchronizer (Upsilon Shuttle/ B/SF-17 Expansions) Cost: 3 points When a friendly ship at Range 1-2 is attacking a ship you have locked, the friendly ship treats the “Attack (target lock): header as “Attack:.” If a game effect instructs that ship to spend a target lock, it may spend your target lock instead. Ranking – 7 Three points is a hefty price to pay for this upgrade. But, if you are geared up for a missile swarm it can be a good way to ensure your low PS ships get a target lock on that first pass. If your Targeting Synchronizer ship can survive. – 7 Combos Homing Missile/Advanced Homing Missile/Cruise Missile/Harpoon Missile/Ion Pulse Missile All of these missiles do not require you to spend your target lock to fire them. Combined with Targeting Synchronizer, this would allow you to gain a TL with only a single ship (of high PS) and allow the rest of the squadron to fire off their missiles. Norra Wexley (ARC-170 pilot) Norra needs to spend a lot of target locks for her ability. With friendly ships nearby equipped with Targeting Synchronizer she can get maximum utility out of her ability. Though, this hasn’t been officially ruled on and might not work. Fire Control System (System) If you put FCS on a high level ship with Targeting Synchronizer you can ensure a missile lock for your lower level pilots. Bonus in that the carrier ship can still use their TL and then get it back for the lower PS ship to use. Threat Tracker (TIE Silencer Expansion) Cost: 3 points Small ship only. When an enemy ship inside your firing arc at Range 1-2 becomes the active ship during the Combat phase, you may spend your target lock on that ship to perform a free boost or barrel roll action if that action is on your action bar. Ranking – 5 This one has a lot of pre-conditions in order to trigger. It would be hard to use effectively but would have a lot of pay off when used well. – 5 Combos Fire Control System If you are a higher pilot skill, you can fire and then acquire a target lock. When it’s your opponents turn to shoot, spend the target lock to escape their arc. Hyperwave Comm Scanner (Tech) Another ship using HCS can allow you to use their target lock to escape someone. Weapons Guidance (TFA Core/T-70 Expansion) Cost: 2 points When attacking, you may spend a focus token to change 1 of your blank results to a Hit result. Ranking – 9 At two points this is just a worthless upgrade. If it were zero points, then we might have something worth taking. You still have to spend your Focus token. The only time it’s useful is if you have zero focus results and no target lock. – 9 Combos Low Pilot Skill Low PS ships have an advantage with their Focus tokens in that no one is likely to be shooting at them after their turn to shoot. So if they still have their Focus and Weapon Guidance they can spend it in whatever way gets the most hits. Comments commentsHomebrew Satellite Antenna (created 16 September 2003) The Arrow Antenna is a design classic: it combines light weight, compact design and functionality in a single package for operating FM dual band satellites such as AO-27, UO-14, SO-41 and SO-50 (and I've had lots of success on the linear transponder birds too with this antenna). I've tried reproducing the exact design out of aluminium stock a couple of times and have failed. So I decided to try building an Arrow look-alike from two WA5VJB Cheap Yagis on the same boom. Take a look at the WA5VJB Cheap Yagi antennas at http://www.clarc.org/Articles/uhf.htm. These antennas are special because (a) they can be made from parts from your local hardware store and (b) they are reproducible. This second criteria is most important! I've built many antennas over the years, and I have a huge pile of twisted metal as testament where my failure rate was very high. I now believe that at least part of this was because the designs I was building weren't easily reproducible. I used a spare 2m/70cm duplexer so I could connect right into my dual band HT. The aluminium stock is 1m lengths of 4mm ali rod and 6mm ali tube from B&Q. the 4mm rod fits inside the 6mm tube, and by crimping the 6mm tube over the 4mm rod you can extend the lengths as required for the 2m part of the antenna. I used the inside bits of choc block to make an electrical connection - it's much easier to solder to choc block terminals than to aluminium! Be aware that for permanent outside installation, the electrolytic effect between the terminals and the ali rod is not good news, so you might need to rethink that one. Mail Howard, G6LVB HomeDonald Trump touches down in Saudi Arabia as trouble swirls at home Updated Dogged by controversy at home, US President Donald Trump has opened a nine-day foreign trip in Saudi Arabia, looking to shift attention from a spiralling political firestorm over his dismissal of former FBI director James Comey last week. Key points: US President Donald Trump has arrived in Saudi Arabia — it is his first foreign trip since taking office The trip has been overshadowed by a week of controversies Mr Trump and the Saudi King are expected to sign a $US100b deal for Saudi Arabia to buy American arms With delicate diplomatic meetings facing him, including three summits, Mr Trump faces a challenge of advancing his "America First" agenda without alienating key allies during his first trip abroad. Stepping off Air Force One in 38 degrees Celsius heat with his wife Melania, Mr Trump and his entourage received a red-carpet welcome from Saudi King Salman. The trip has been billed by the White House as a chance to visit places sacred to three of the world's major religions while giving Mr Trump time to meet with Arab, Israeli and European leaders. But uproar in Washington threatened to cast a long shadow over the trip. His firing of Mr Comey and the appointment of a special counsel to investigate his campaign's ties to Russia last year has triggered a stream of bad headlines. The New York Times reported Mr Trump had called Mr Comey a "nut job" in a private meeting last week in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak. The White House did not deny the report, but said the "the real story is that our national security has been undermined by the leaking of private and highly classified conversations". 'Do you spend a lot of time in New York?' Mr Trump and the King seemed at ease with each other, chatting through an interpreter. The two leaders sat side by side in the VIP section of the airport terminal and drank coffee served in the traditional Arab style. "Do you spend a lot of time in New York?" Mr Trump was overheard asking the King. The President was later honoured with Saudi Arabia's highest civilian honour — The Collar of Abdulaziz Al Saud. The medal, given to Mr Trump for his efforts to strengthen ties in the region, has also been bestowed upon Russian Presdient Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Theresa May and former US president Barack Obama. Mr Trump's decision to make his first official trip abroad to Saudi Arabia, followed by Israel, countries which both share his antagonism towards Iran, marks a contrast with his predecessor's approach. Mr Trump's criticism of the nuclear deal Iran reached with the US and five other world powers in 2015 pleases both Saudi Arabia and Israel, who accused Mr Obama of "going soft" on Tehran. Poll results showed on Saturday that Iranians had emphatically re-elected President Hassan Rouhani, architect of Iran's still-fragile detente with the West. Billions in US-Saudi deals to be signed After a royal banquet, Mr Trump and the King were to have private talks and participate in a signing ceremony for a number of US-Saudi agreements, including a $US100-billion deal for Saudi Arabia to buy American arms. National oil giant Saudi Aramco expected to sign $US50 billion of deals with US companies, part of a drive to diversify the kingdom's economy beyond oil exports, Aramco's chief executive Amin Nasser said. Mr Trump is to deliver a speech on Sunday aimed at rallying Muslims in the fight against Islamic militants in Riyadh on Sunday. A senior official also revealed the kingdom will unveil a digital centre with the purpose of monitoring the activities of Islamic State and other Islamist militant groups. The centre will open on Sunday, coinciding with Mr Trump's visit. Mr Trump will also attend a summit with Gulf leaders as part of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council. Travel a welcome distraction from Comey controversy The uproar over Mr Comey's firing was unlikely to go away. "It's almost always true that when a president goes on a big foreign trip, especially one that has some important summits … that that dominates the news and knocks most other stuff out," Republican strategist Charlie Black said. Mr Trump, who has expressed a desire for friendlier relations with Moscow, drew a storm of criticism this week when it emerged that he had shared sensitive national security information with Russia's Mr Lavrov during a meeting last week in the White House. The President was already under attack for firing Mr Comey in the midst of an FBI probe into Russia's role in the 2016 election and possible collusion with Trump campaign members. "He clearly did have a bad two weeks. And clearly it's my hope that he does … right the ship, that he improves so that we can just get going," Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show on Friday. Reuters Topics: donald-trump, world-politics, government-and-politics, saudi-arabia, united-states First postedMonday, January 11th, 2016 will forever be equated with the day that our Aliyah ended. After ten years of building a life for ourselves, ingraining our family into a community and integrating into Israeli life, one miserable eye-opening day made us question our decision to live out our lives in Zion and take stock as to why we are really here. Whether we move back is inconsequential, what matters here is that the belief we held in the State of Israel was demolished with the reality that the land we live in is not free nor just and without major reforms it never will be for the millions of people who call this place home. What happened to us, as I found out is not uncommon in this country. While the circumstances and specific details are different, the fact that the Israel Police overstepped their bounds and turned our lives upside down is not. At six o’clock in the morning on that day the police barged into our home, woke our children and proceeded to tear our home apart. With little explanation and a presumption of guilt they meticulously went through our home in search of illicit drugs. They flashed a warrant which gave them the legal right to do so, however were not particularly interested in respecting our property or us for that matter as they executed their duty. During the search they sequestered me and my fourteen year old daughter, strip searched me when I had asked if I could put on some pants and proceeded to ask where our stash was. We were accused of growing a forest of marijuana and distributing it to kids in Modi’in, the city in which we have lived for the past 9 plus years. One look at our large garden and it should have been obvious right then and there that there was no growing operation, however this did not deter them. Assuming harvest season was over they poked their noses into every corner of our home, every box, every cabinet without care for the valuables which we cherished. Upon realizing that there was not even a crumb of anything illicit, no paraphernalia even for recreational use and no evidence to substantiate their theory, they proceeded to detain me and my young daughter and brought us to the station for interrogation – or what they call investigation. There is no distinction between the two when it comes to the methods they employed. Upon entering the car they told me not to speak to my daughter and slapped me when I ignored those instructions. As stoic as she was she is still fourteen and will forever be my baby, I will always ignore those orders especially when I see her teary eyed and scared. What occurred over the course of the next twelve hours was something out of a movie, even today it is all quite surreal. My daughter was sequestered from me and interrogated without representation. I was put in leg and arm shackles and shuffled from place to place, outside and in the station for several hours without telling me why. I was demanding that I see my daughter, where I come from you cannot simply interrogate a minor without a parent or attorney, however the more I persisted in my demands the more harsh their treatment towards me became. I was as cooperative as I could be. Our phones and computers were confiscated and I offered them the lock codes without even being asked for them – we were not running a drug operation from our home and I had nothing to hide. However even still they acted as if there was evidence to the contrary throughout the day in an attempt to get me to confess to something that was simply not close to being true. I had asked that I be interrogated in English as my Hebrew is fair, not great – I was not. When presented with a document to sign and said I have poor Hebrew reading skills my head was smashed onto the papers with the hard table underneath and asked if that helped me in my ability to read them. When I asked for an attorney after several hours of some physical and a lot of verbal abuse I was denied this request, told that I will have time later to speak with him. I did not even know what was going on with my daughter, had no idea where my family was or what was transpiring outside and did not know I even had a lawyer I could talk to. My wife was at the station with our oldest daughter trying to get the lead investigator to speak with the attorney she had hired that morning. The arresting officer shoved my daughter to the ground, grabbed her phone and hung up on the attorney. To say that every member of my family experienced some abuse that day is to minimize the event, no one was safe that day. What I realized during my time in chains was that the police are either above the law or do not have any to follow. By mid-afternoon I was finally allowed to speak with my attorney, as much as his words were meant to be soothing my ordeal was ongoing and I did not take it as such. I was told that if they take me to prison that day I will have to see a judge within 24 hours and when that happens this issue would be resolved as there was no evidence of any wrongdoing. So when the investigator offered me a choice of being sequestered out of Modi’in for five days or going to prison that night, I chose the latter thinking it would be a quicker way for me to get home and back to work and back to some sense of normalcy. I did not expect him to rescind the offer of prison and remand me to house arrest at a family member for five days, and he did so because realizing the over-zealousness of their actions that day, knew it would compromise his own position. By keeping me outside of the courts it allowed them to continue with their investigation and the passage of time would perhaps minimize the impact on his career. I was now relegated to my wife’s cousin’s house with strict penalties for communicating with anyone via telephone or email. I was not about to question whether they could actually monitor this as my wife’s cousin had signed a surety bond and risked losing a lot of money if I was found to have been talking to anyone outside her home. I was not allowed to go to work, not allowed to discuss this with anyone aside from my attorney and not allowed to see how my wife and four children were doing. As it turns out my fifteen year old son was brought in for questioning the next day and as with his sister, was interrogated without representation. My wife, myself, and two of my four kids were booked and processed without ever seeing a judge. Our DNA, fingerprints and pictures were taken and entered into the Israel Police database. Meet Family Engelmayer, the Corleone’s of Israel. I wish I could laugh at this stage but there is nothing funny about what happened to us that day. The criminal files they opened for us will eventually be closed, I hope our data is expunged but doubt even under court order it really will be. Our electronic devices will be returned to us, eventually and this entire episode will cost us tens of thousands of shekels that not only do we not have, we should not have to spend. I still don’t know all the details as to what led them to our home and target our family, I do know it had something to do with a random teenager arrested for selling drugs who was never in our home who threw out our name in his interrogation. Where I come from the word of a scared fifteen year old is not evidence enough to disrupt the lives of six people. I come from New York City where the police motto is C.P.R., Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect — the physical, verbal and mental abuse endured by my family at the hands of some overzealous officers looking to make a name in relatively boring bedroom community lacked all three. In the close to ten years we have lived in Israel we have been good citizens. Our house has always been open to our kids’ friends, literally and figuratively. We are a tad loud and perhaps eccentric, but we are good people and damned great parents. During the investigation I was told repeatedly that my wife and I raised a whore and two drug dealers and would have our youngest taken away from us so we could not damage him as we had the older three. Had the officers done even a little police work before barging into our home and destroying our lives they would have realized the ridiculousness of their accusations. In trying to understand this I realized something about the Israel Police and many of their officers, it is not a prestigious job meant for the educated. It is not as if they didn’t do good police work, they were actually incapable of understanding what that means in a Western society. We live in a country where security is first and foremost and most of the laws governing police conduct revolve around that. Our trust in those who are supposed to protect and serve has been shattered, and when that happens everything changes. Everything has changed. My lawyer summed it up in the saddest statement I have heard since moving here. In a conversation earlier this week he had said we have a good case against the police and I responded that I am not looking for money, I want justice. He dryly replied that I am in the wrong country for that, “in Israel there is no such thing as justice.” There is so much wrong with this country and yet throughout the past ten years we believed we were here to help change those things and contribute to the building of a great nation — without justice though it doesn’t matter — without a system meant to protect its citizens from abuse by authorities there is no foundation on which to build a great nation. My family might still be here physically, but our aliyah has ended – our hearts, minds and spirits are no longer with Israel. Perhaps one day soon our bodies will join them. — Editor’s note: Police have responded to Jay Engelmayer’s allegations. See American-Israeli accuses cops of abuse during weed probe.Senate Republicans silenced Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on the Senate floor late Tuesday night as she read a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King criticizing the record of attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). But just hours later, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley returned to the Senate floor to pick up where Warren had left off, reading portions of the same letter. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had found Warren in violation of the Senate’s Rule 19, which prevents senators from using “any form of words [to] impute to another Senator … any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator,” for attempting to read the letter criticizing Sessions. The full Senate body then voted on party lines, 49-43, to prevent Warren from speaking further on the Sessions confirmation debate. Merkley, noting he’d consulted with the Senate parliamentarian, announced he would read the same letter — but “in a way that’s appropriate under our rules.” It was a gambit designed to call further attention to the letter Republicans didn’t want broadcast, which had already taken off on social media and in the press. Merkley’s speech omitted portions of the letter that Warren had read, including the line that Sessions had used his office as a prosecutor “to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.” But Merkley concluded his speech with the following quote, which at the very least appears to violate the spirit of Rule 19: I do not believe Jefferson Sessions possesses the requisite judgment, competence and sensitivity to the rights guaranteed by the federal civil rights laws to qualify for appointment to the federal district court. Republicans did not censure Merkley for reading that portion of the letter, perhaps because it came at the end of his speech and he had already finished. (By contrast, Warren was cut off in the middle of her talk about Sessions.) Either way, Merkley’s speech represented how McConnell’s decision to cut off Warren may have backfired. Until well past 2 am, Senate Democrats held the floor talking about their outrage about the decision. Democratic Sens. Cory Booker (NJ), Pat Leahy (VT), and Chris Murphy (CT) all took turns criticizing McConnell for doing so. Here’s a portion of a speech from Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI): Sen. @brianschatz, D-HI, with an early am lesson in Senate privilege: pic.twitter.com/5V5tnH9obw — Staci D Kramer (@sdkstl) February 8, 2017 After she was excluded from the Senate debate, Warren recorded a video on Facebook Live outside the Capitol expressing her frustration. Her video got more than 3 million views. The C-SPAN feed of the Senate floor was being watched by a few hundred people late Tuesday night. Watch: Warren silenced on Senate floor by GOPA tipster has sent a photo to The Verge showing LG’s rumored Nexus device listed in the Carphone Warehouse’s inventory system. The device is labeled as the "LG Nexus 4," with color options including black or white. It isn’t definitive proof that this is the final naming for the device, but LG’s handset would be the fourth entry into the Nexus smartphone family. It could also indicate a shift in the Nexus naming convention, pointing towards the general size of the device like the Nexus 7. There’s no indication as to when the LG Nexus will be released, however. Recently leaked pictures suggest that the LG Nexus will be based on the Optimus G. The handset is said to feature a 4.7-inch screen with a 1280 x 768 resolution and 1.5Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor along with Jelly Bean. We’re fast approaching the one-year anniversary of the Galaxy Nexus announcement, so whatever Google has in store is expected to be revealed shortly.- As a result of a Fox 9 Investigation, a candidate for St. Paul Mayor and current City Council member Dai Thao, has fired his campaign manager for allegedly soliciting a bribe from a lobbyist in exchange for a vote. The Fox 9 Investigators were independently tipped off to a text message exchange between the lobbyist and the campaign manager. Fox 9 is not naming the lobbyist, the clients represented, or the issue involved in the text messages. Thao and his now former campaign manager, Angela Marlow, spent Saturday morning at caucuses in St. Paul. When approached by the Fox 9 Investigators about the allegation of public corruption, Thao responded, "We would never do that." READ IT: Full text exchange between lobbyist and campaign manager APRIL 30: Campaign contribution request referred for criminal probe MAY 1: Lobbyist involved in campaign contribution investigation: 'I did the right thing' MAY 2: Ramsey County Attorney won't be involved in Dai Thao case COFFEE SHOP MEETING This story really begins at a coffee shop, Golden Thyme, last February. Thao agreed to meet with a lobbyist and two of the lobbyist’s clients. The lobbyist said Thao asked them not to take notes and kept repeating "he needed resources," so he could "spread his message." The lobbyist told the FOX 9 Investigators they were all stunned, and they all knew it was a solicitation for a bribe. They tried to re-direct the conversation. When Thao kept saying he needed resources, the client even said, "Well, we can send you all the information on this issue that you need." But they knew he wasn't asking for reports or studies, he wanted a campaign contribution, the lobbyist said. Three hours later, Thao's campaign manager, Angela Marlow, sent a text message to the lobbyist. Marlow: "hi_____, it's Marlow, Dai's campaign manager. Dai asked me to see if I could get a donation from your clients or yourself for his mayor campaign? My understanding is that they (the clients) are leaving tomorrow. We will certainly rethink this issue." The lobbyist responded: "Thank you for the note and thank you (sic) for setting up the meeting. Because this is an issue that is coming before the Council, want to make sure we are not in violation of campaign finance laws. Let me check on that and get back to you." Marlow: "No problem.! Thanks for the quick response. Life of the campaign manager (sic). I get the icky work!" Less than 48 hours later, the lobbyist replied back, with a not so subtle message: "Following on your contribution request, I think that the timing of the issue coming before the council along with a campaign contribution could be misperceived as a bribe under Minnesota statute 609.42. I believe this is neither your intent, nor cm (council member) Thao's intent. To keep everything above board, both my client and I will refrain from making a contribution at this time." Marlow replied: "Thanks for the info!" The lobbyist responded: "Thanks for understanding!" One last text message was sent 17 days after the other texts. Marlow said there were rumors swirling around the DFL Convention that Thao's campaign had offered a lobbyist a bribe. They assumed it was the lobbyist in this story and Marlow sent this message: "Sorry about any confusion. There obviously no link intended. Dai was happy to meet with you. To avoid any confusion in the future, please direct any meeting about policy matters to Dai's city council office. I am not abreast of that information." The lobbyist replied: "I understand, I reached out to him on this as a campaign issue because it's also something he will vote on. I just wanted to be clear we were on the same page." The lobbyist told the FOX 9 Investigators she interpreted it as Marlow and the campaign trying to cover up their tracks. If not, why wasn't such a clarifying statement offered earlier? MARLOW'S EXPLANATION OF EVENTS After interviewing Thao Saturday morning, The Fox 9 Investigators found Marlow leaving a caucus across town. She said the lobbyist contacted her to set up the meeting. "I'm playing the same game she is. She's playing a game with her clients. You took up three hours of his time, you can give a donation," she said. "There is no ill intent, I feel you want me to be guilty. That is a rookie mistake one can make," Marlow continued. "If you want to hold me to the fire, go ahead but it's not about Dai Thao." Ninety minutes after she talked with Fox 9, she was fired. Thao put out a press release reading: "Today, I learned that two months ago my campaign manager solicited an illegal contribution from lobbyists. I had no knowledge of this, did not sanction it, and do not condone these actions." As a City Council Member and Candidate, I have always expected my staff be pursuant to law. I am appalled by this information and have taken action to remedy this breach of trust. Effective immediately, Angela Marlow is relieved as my campaign manager." Professor David Schultz is an expert in government ethics. "Looks like a quick solicitation of a campaign contribution in return for a specific vote or action on the council," he told Fox 9. "It's illegal under federal law and illegal under state law." And
in Kapa‘au, which specializes in the care and protection of native Hawaiian birds and the Hawaiian hoary bat. The Ho‘opūlama Science and Discovery Center was blessed before the opening by Kahu Kealoha Sugiyama and included a performance by Halau Na Kupuna O Kohala. Crafts and art projects were on display afterwards. The Ho‘opūlama Project began in 2013. A master plan to display public exhibits at HWC was funded by grants from the Hawai‛i Tourism Authority, the Atherton Family Foundation, and the State of Hawai‘i. “We’re excited to have more opportunities to connect students, community members, and visitors to our islands to the amazing diversity of native wildlife we have in Hawai‘i,” said Linda Elliott, President and Center Director of the Hawai‘i Wildlife Center, in a media release. “The celebration is also a extremely exciting for us because, in addition to opening this great educational resource to the community, we will also be celebrating the 5th anniversary of the Hawai‘i Wildlife Center wildlife hospital.” Mid-Pacific Institute graduate and HWC Development Coordinator Rae Okawa led the development of the Ho‘opūlama Master Plan for the exhibits alongside Ms. Elliott. “It’s amazing to finally see this first phase of the plan we’ve worked so hard on come to life,” Ms. Okawa said. “Interactive and engaging learning experiences had a huge role in my decision to pursue a career in science and conservation. It is my hope that these exhibits inspire and encourage other local students to pursue environmental and conservation sciences and see it as a challenging, fascinating, and rewarding professional path, like I do.” According to HWC, fabrication of the fist phase of exhibits began in mid-2016. Included in phase one is a exhibit wall that shares the story of the Hawai‘i Wildlife Center and takes visitors through the complex process of wildlife rehabilitation – including intake exams, stabilization, diet preparation, physical therapy, and decontamination. The exhibit wall also features an interactive touchscreen monitor that takes the user through a virtual tour of the Hawai‘i Wildlife Center wildlife hospital and allows visitors to watch the live feeds from the wildlife cameras in the HWC hospital facility as well as videos of past patients and releases. Also opening are exhibits on native Hawaiian honeycreeper evolution and adaptation, Native or Non-native bird discovery, Wildlife Patient Discovery, and ‘Aumakua. Also featured in the new exhibits are bird sculptures by master craftsman Haruo Uchiyama. Mr. Uchiyama is world-renowned for his extremely detailed and realistic bird carvings and HWC staff members in charge of the project are thrilled to be able to incorporate his work. Nicknamed “teaching birds”, These bird sculptures are not only works of art, they are ambassadors for native species as well as teachers of evolution and adaptation in our islands. Generous teaching bird sponsors, who have contributed to the production and installation of individual bird models, have made many of the teaching birds in the new exhibits possible. Teaching bird sponsors include generous individuals, as well as the Hawai‘i Electric Light Company and Clean Islands Council. Hawai‘i Wildlife Center Students from Kim Manuel’s 7th grade class from West Hawai‘i Explorations Academy helped test out the new exhibits before the grand opening. The Ho‘opūlama Science and Discovery Center will be opened to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 9am to 3pm. Admission is free.Photo For more than a year, an activist hedge fund and a prominent real estate developer have pressed for change at a real estate investment trust. And for more than a year, the father-and-son team that controlled CommonWealth REIT fended off these dissidents. But on Tuesday, the hedge fund, Corvex Management, and the developer, Related Fund Management, which together own 9.6 percent of CommonWealth’s shares, announced a hard-fought victory. Shareholders representing more than 81 percent of the company’s outstanding stock voted to replace the entire board as part of a consent solicitation process. The vote sets in motion a process that will almost certainly result in the ouster of Barry M. Portnoy and his son, Adam D. Portnoy, who control CommonWealth, with a management company that receives lucrative fees to operate the properties CommonWealth owns. The Portnoys were paid $77.3 million in 2012, up from $59.7 million in 2007. CommonWealth’s stock, meanwhile, declined 68 percent in the five years before Corvex and Related arrived. Those seemingly excessive fees, and other concerns about poor corporate governance, are what inspired Corvex and Related to begin their campaign, pledging to “maximize value” for all shareholders, not just the Portnoys. “The shareholders have exercised their rights, and we look forward to working with the trustees in the coming days to arrange for an orderly transition process that best protects the interests of all shareholders,” Keith A.Meister, the founder of Corvex and a former protégé of Carl C. Icahn, and Jeff T. Blau, chief executive of Related, said in a joint statement. “We will immediately reach out to the trustees to begin these discussions.” Results of the consent solicitation process were announced two days before a deadline Thursday by which Corvex and Related needed to persuade at least two-thirds of shareholders to oust the current board. Shareholders have reason to believe change is coming. In previous comments, the Portnoys suggested they would not block the process. “CommonWealth will comply with the requirements of the declaration of trust and the panel order,” the company said last month, indicating it would allow for the replacement of its board. The company will call a special meeting in the coming months, the current board will step down, and shareholders will presumably vote in the directors nominated by Corvex and Related. That slate was updated last month to include the billionaire real estate mogul Sam Zell, a move intended to give shareholders confidence in the team taking over CommonWealth. It also includes David Helfand, a co-president of Mr. Zell’s private investment firm, who is the presumptive chief executive of CommonWealth under the new board. Though the Portnoys indicated they would comply with the wishes of shareholders, they have mounted a fierce defense over the last year, advised by lawyers at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Among other tactics, they have invoked an obscure Maryland statute that prevents board members from being removed for cause and issued new shares to buy back debt in a move that Corvex and Related said was intentionally diluting their positions. When Corvex and Related called for a vote on directors last year, 70 percent of shareholders voted to oust the board. But the Portnoys invalidated that vote on technicalities. Last November, however, a judge said a binding vote could proceed, paving the way for Tuesday’s results. Corvex and Related declined to comment beyond their statement. CommonWealth and Skadden did not immediately respond to requests for comment.PARIS, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - March 20, 2017) - NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES. Emblem Corp. (TSX VENTURE:EMC) ("Emblem" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company has successfully ramped up its patient acquisition program resulting in a total of 2,091 active and pending patients (net of expired and disabled registrations) having registered since the opening of its patient fulfillment website in late November, 2016. Patient acquisition has been progressively accelerating with 49 patients registered in November, 157 in December, 437 in January, 691 in February and 553 in March to date with a further 246 registrations pending verification. "We are extremely pleased with the progress made since the launch of our website to attract and register patients at such an accelerated rate," noted Gordon Fox, CEO of Emblem Corp. "We believe that our patient growth is a favorable reflection on the quality of our cannabis products, our customer service and our physician and patient communication strategies." Emblem is also pleased to report that GrowWise Health, Emblem's cannabis healthcare vertical, is continuing to expand its clinic network. "GrowWise clinics and cannabis education centres promise to become an important source of patients for Emblem," says Fox. With physicians becoming more comfortable referring patients and embracing cannabis as an alternative treatment, GrowWise is quickly expanding its presence across Canada. Thus far in 2017, four new GrowWise locations have opened their doors to patients across Ontario and in British Columbia, bringing the total to 11 clinics, with more locations scheduled to open across the country in the coming months. About Emblem Emblem is licensed under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (the "ACMPR") through its wholly owned subsidiary, Emblem Cannabis Corporation, to cultivate and sell medical cannabis. Emblem carries out its principal activities producing cannabis from its facilities in Paris, Ontario pursuant to the provisions of the ACMPR and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada) and its regulations. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release contains forward-looking information, which involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual events to differ materially from current expectation. Emblem cautions that all forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond Emblem's control. Such factors include those described in the Company's Filing Statement dated November 30, 2016 filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available on www.sedar.com. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, Emblem undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.Jamie Benn did everything he could last season to will the Dallas Stars to stay in the Stanley Cup Playoff race. Eventually, their defensive deficiencies and average goaltending got the best of them and they fell short. It didn't stop Benn from leading and from scoring. Benn closed last season with 10 points in his last three games, including a hat trick in his final game. It was enough to nudge him past New York Islanders captain John Tavares for the Art Ross Trophy with 87 points. Tavares had 86. It was just a prelude to what's in store for Dallas' captain this season. With an improved cast around him, Benn will nudge out every other elite forward to win the Hart Trophy. He is the preseason choice to be the League's most valuable player in the 2015-16 season. "Jamie improves every game and every year," Stars center Tyler Seguin said. "I've only been with him for two years, but as a player and as a person it seems like every week he's getting stronger and better, and becoming a better leader and better captain. He wants the team to be so successful that he's making himself better as a player." The Stars became a better team during the offseason, adding goalie Antti Niemi, forward Patrick Sharp and defenseman Johnny Oduya. All three have won the Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks. Sharp and Oduya did it last season. Sharp is expected to start the season on a line with Benn and Seguin. It could become the best line in the NHL. Benn's numbers could go up. Would anybody be surprised if he scored 40 or more goals? He had 35 last season, 34 the season before. A better, more experienced team around him should make Benn an even better player. That should put Benn in the national spotlight, which gives him a chance to impress more members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, who vote for the Hart Trophy. Benn was 12th in the Hart Trophy voting last season and he did not receive a first-, second- or third-place vote. The 11 players that finished ahead of Benn in the voting were on playoff teams. So were the 10 players who finished behind him in the voting. Benn was the only one of the 22 players to receive a Hart Trophy vote who did not make the playoffs. He was also one of three nominees, along with Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price and Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin, for the Ted Lindsay Award as voted on by the players. "He was nominated as one of the top three players by his own peers and he's taken that upon himself to say, 'You know what, that's an honor, and I want to continue to be that guy,'" Stars general manager Jim Nill said. "It's his team. He realizes it's his team now and he's going to put it on his back any way he can." Benn should carry the Stars to the playoffs. He'll carry the Hart Trophy home from the 2016 NHL Awards show next June. FINALISTS Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins -- Crosby has never played a full season with a right wing as talented as Phil Kessel. He should get that chance this season. Crosby has the potential to help Kessel become a 40-goal, maybe a 50-goal scorer. Kessel has never had more than 37 (twice), but he's never played with a center like Crosby, who led the NHL with 1.09 points per game last season (84 points in 77 games) despite having linemates that were mostly in flux. Crosby's role on the power play could also be different. Instead of being on the half-wall directing the play, he'll be in the middle, the slot, directing the play. He'll be just as valuable, and with Kessel, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang on the unit, his production won't take a hit. It all should make the Penguins a legitimate threat to win the Metropolitan Division and finish with the best record in the Eastern Conference. That bodes well for Crosby's chances of winning the Hart Trophy for the third time in his career. Ryan Getzlaf, Anaheim Ducks -- Getzlaf has long been one of the best and most well respected players in the NHL. Nothing changes this season. His numbers dipped last season to 70 points in 77 games after he had 87 points in 77 games in 2013-14, when he was a finalist for the Hart Trophy. However, last season he had to play without Corey Perry for 15 games because he was out first with the mumps and then a knee injury. Getzlaf didn't have a regular left wing either. Getzlaf still led the Ducks to the best record in the Western Conference, playing a key role in all situations, special teams included. Anaheim should again be one of the top Stanley Cup contenders in the Western Conference, and Getzlaf's numbers could go up with a healthy Perry by his side. His contributions in all phases of the game will not go unnoticed. ALSO IN THE MIX: Alex Ovechkin, Washington Capitals; John Tavares, New York Islanders; Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens ---A little background. In the past few decades, land development in Maryland has grown at three times the rate of population. The state will add a million residents by 2035 — it's already the fifth highest-density state in the country — but, unless it invades Delaware, it can't add more land. Right now more than a quarter of all the state's land has been developed. A majority of that development has been dedicated to single-family homes of low (at least half an acre per housing unit) or very low density (5-20 acres per unit). At the current growth rate, Maryland will lose more than 400,000 acres of land to this type of development by 2035. "The tide of development keeps churning outward," says the new draft, "weakening communities at the core and natural resources at the edge." Last Friday, Maryland released the latest draft of PlanMaryland, the state's ambitious effort "to encourage smart growth and to discourage sprawl." The new draft takes into account comments received since the previous version, which was released in April. It makes a compelling case for developing Maryland into higher density residential pockets strategically placed along established lines of road, transit, and water infrastructure. If it succeeds, Maryland circa 2035 will be dominated by a strong orange-red D.C.-Baltimore mega-region: The solution proposed by PlanMaryland is to increase housing density in areas that already have roads, water systems, and transit access — in other words, to build upon the built. That means expanding outward from the city by focusing funding on "priority" areas where the density is at least 3.5 housing units per acre. If that type of growth captures 80 percent of development in each Maryland county, and if low, non-priority areas are developed at no more than one unit per 20 acres, the state will save 300,000 acres of land by 2030. To service this auto-centric growth, the state will need to build thousands of miles of new roads at a cost of billions of dollars. In addition to construction costs, building roads to serve sprawl carries a relative cost of rendering existing transit systems less effective. That's a particular burden for low-income residents who can't afford to locate close to main mass transit lines, since the cost of owning a car in Maryland is estimated by the plan at $8,500 a year. The problem with this type of sprawl — well, one problem — is that it creates a wide and costly gap between where people live and where they work. Right now 77 percent of Marylanders commute to work alone. When increased population leads to increased congestion, by 2035, that figure will increase to 84 percent, and the average commute will be just under 40 minutes. This image shows just how far most Marylanders live from centers of employment: It will also save lots of money: about $1.5 billion a year in spending on roads, schools, and other infrastructure, according to the plan. An analysis conducted last year [PDF] by the state planning department compares the cost of the current growth to the cost of smart growth by 2030 (PFA stands for "priority funding area"): That's $4 billion in public savings for the suburbs and $7 billion for the exurbs in road costs alone. Households will benefit, too. The 2005 book Sprawl Costs estimates that residents of the Washington-Baltimore area will save about $6,000 if just a quarter of the region's expected low-density development becomes high-density by 2025. As businesses join homes in priority areas, communities will become more walkable, which in turn makes homes more valuable, according to the latest Christopher Leinberger wisdom. Cities are changing fast. Keep up with the CityLab Daily newsletter. The best way to follow issues you care about. Subscribe Loading... So what's not to like? If you're a local authority, apparently a lot. PlanMaryland has already produced outrage among county commissioners, who fear it will strip them of their planning authority. It's hard to see how. For one thing, PlanMaryland requires no new laws; everything in the plan merely executes laws on the books more efficiently. And state planners won't act unilaterally; local governments will nominate zoning districts for priority status. Yet "don't tell us what to do" must be the most frequent complaint the state has heard from local leaders, because the latest draft of the plan addresses it directly: We intend no inference that the plan is a message from the state that it “knows all” and needs to “correct” local governments. To the contrary, the document is actually a striking acknowledgment from government — from any level of government — that its various agencies have sometimes worked at cross purposes and haven’t been as effective as they could in trying to fulfill the shared goal of smarter growth. PlanMaryland, we believe, is what the public says it wants and deserves in government; that is, leadership willing to take a critical self-assessment and examine ways to work better, more effectively and more efficiently. The public has 60 more days to comment on the current draft before state planners submit a final version to Governor Martin O'Malley, who strongly supports the plan's philosophy. Some locals are crying for more time — as much as a year, even. Considering that officials have already had four months to review the plan, making six months of review in all, such requests look a lot like a stall tactic. It took six months to walk the Oregon Trail; reviewing a key state plan of reasonable length should take considerably less time. (Plus, no typhoid.) In many respects the fear displayed by local authorities reflects the strength of the plan. While livability critics often cry about public expenditures, PlanMaryland demonstrates a significant public savings. Without their go-to argument, opponents have no choice but to call the plan a corruption of their individuality. Well, the new draft addresses that too — We don’t believe that sound planning is anathema to individual property rights. Sprawl … isn’t the result of an individual action. It’s the collective result of numerous similar but distinctly separate actions. A plan that produces better alternatives will provide more choices and less impact. — though Governor O'Malley recently addressed it with a bit more bite: "This is not a wall that prohibits counties from making stupid land-use decisions. They’re still free to do that, but we’re not going to subsidize it any more."After half a century of debate, a University of Alberta researcher has confirmed that dome-headed dinosaurs called pachycephalosaurs could collide with each other during courtship combat. Eric Snively, an Alberta Ingenuity fellow at the U of A, used computer software to smash the sheep-sized dinosaurs together in a virtual collision and results showed that their bony domes could emerge unscathed. The computer simulations by Snively and his co-author Andrew Cox of Villanova University offer clues as to how the dinosaurs (between 80 and 65 million years old and native to Canada, the United States and Mongolia), might have survived head-to-head combat like modern marine iguanas and musk oxen. Some researchers have suggested that pachycephalosaur domes, which ranged from one to 20 centimetres thick, enabled head-butting contests as a way to attract mates, similar to the contests bighorn sheep engage in today. "Pachycephalosaur domes are unique and we can't yet tell for certain if they butted heads, but we can test their capabilities for the behaviour with math and physics," says Snively. He and Cox did just that by constructing three-dimensional computer models and then putting them to the test in virtual smash-ups. In a study published in the journal Palaeontologica Electronica this month, the authors used a method called finite element analysis to simulate collisions in three kinds of pachycephalosaurs. Dome shapes immediately dropped stresses below those that would break even spindly struts of bone in some domes, and the collisions were mild enough to avoid concussions. "It turns out that nearly-adult pachycephalosaurs would be best at handling collisions," Snively said. "Other researchers have shown that big adults and young juveniles would be worse off, because they couldn't heal as well. We think young adults could go at it, and older adults might intimidate youngsters with their giant domes." The key to safe collisions wasn't just in the domes, but behind them in the body. Special sliding joints in vertebrae of pachycephalosaurs, including Stegoceras at the University of Alberta, show their backbones could buckle from collisions and then spring back into position. "It's a little like in giraffes, who have sideways springiness in their neck ligaments and smash the heck out of each other with their heads," Snively noted.Baby wild animals like Dinozzo, a fox cub whose mother was killed in a road-side collision, often don’t stand much of a chance when their parents are taken away from them. Luckily for this three-week-old fox cub, he was handed over to a vet and then adopted by an animal-loving couple in Germany with a beautiful collie dog named Ziva, whose motherly instincts helped nurse him back to health. Ziva belongs to Werner and Angelika Schmaing, a couple living in Oberscheld, Germany that also owns a Bengal cat named Leopold and two adopted piglets. Leopold has also formed an unlikely friendship with the now-recovered fox cub. The caring dog and cat duo have made Dinozzo feel welcome, and he now uses the cat-door regularly to get in and out of the house. Despite being given free run of the surrounding area, it seems like he prefers staying with his best friends for now! If you love unusual animal friendships as much as we do, check out this post! More info: barcroft This 3-week-old fox was rescued from a car accident where he lost his mom Luckily for him, Ziva the collie and her family took him in Though Dinozzo is free to roam, he still feels like he’s just ‘one of the dogs’ “The fox has gotten used to getting in and out of the house through the cats door,” said his owner, Werner He also made friends with their Bengal cat, Leopold “Ziva and Leopold fell in love with the little fox immediately” “Our collie acts as a foster mum for the little ones” “The interaction of animals is very much like siblings in a family” “They are mostly peaceful, often playful and sometimes tired – sleeping together in one place”A total of 91,731 reports from United States military databanks relating to the war in Afghanistan are to be made publicly available on the Internet. Never before has it been possible to compare the reality on the battlefield in such a detailed manner with what the US Army propaganda machinery is propagating. WikiLeaks plans to post the documents, most of which are classified, on its website. Britain's Guardian newspaper, the New York Times and SPIEGEL have all vetted the material and compared the data with independent reports. All three media sources have concluded that the documents are authentic and provide an unvarnished image of the war in Afghanistan -- from the perspective of the soldiers who are fighting it. The reports, from troops engaged in the ongoing combat, were tersely summarized and quickly dispatched. For the most part, they originate from sergeants -- but some have been penned by the occasional lieutenant at a command post or ranking analysts with the military intelligence service. The documents' release comes at a time when calls for a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan are growing -- even in America. Last week, representatives from more than 70 nations and organizations met in Kabul for the Afghanistan conference. They assured President Hamid Karzai that his country would be in a position by 2014 to guarantee security using its own soldiers and police. A Gloomy Picture But such shows of optimism seem cynical in light of the descriptions of the situation in Afghanistan provided in the classified documents. Nearly nine years after the start of the war, they paint a gloomy picture. They portray Afghan security forces as the hapless victims of Taliban attacks. They also offer a conflicting impression of the deployment of drones, noting that America's miracle weapons are also entirely vulnerable. And they show that the war in northern Afghanistan, where German troops are stationed, is becoming increasingly perilous. The number of warnings about possible Taliban attacks in the region -- fuelled by support from Pakistan -- has increased dramatically in the past year. The documents offer a window into the war in the Hindu Kush -- one which promises to change the way we think about the ongoing violence in Afghanistan. They will also be indispensible for anyone seeking to inform themselves about the war in the future. Despite repeated requests, the White House refused to provide any comment in time for the deadline of the printed edition of SPIEGEL. On Saturday evening, however, a White House official finally provided written answers to select questions about the content of the reports obtained, but refused to grant an interview. Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for communications, said: "Since taking office, President Obama has been very clear and candid with the American people about the challenges that we face in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The president and senior officials in his administration have spoken openly and repeatedly about the safe havens that exist in Pakistan, the security and governance challenges in Afghanistan, and the difficulties that lie ahead.... It is important to note that the time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December 2009. The war in Afghanistan was under-resourced for many years.... On Dec. 1, 2009, President Obama announced a new strategy and new resources for Afghanistan and Pakistan precisely because of the grave situation there." Responding to the intention of WikiLeaks to make the classified military documents available online, Rhodes said: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations that put the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security." He said that WikiLeaks made "no effort to contact the United States government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners and local populations who cooperate with us." The editors in chief of SPIEGEL, the New York Times and the Guardian have agreed that they would not publish especially sensitive information in the classified material -- like the names of the US military's Afghan informants or information that could create additional security risks for soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. The publishers were unanimous in their belief that there is a justified public interest in the material because it provides a more thorough understanding of a war that continues today after almost nine years. SPIEGEL ONLINE has summarized a selection of the most important findings in the data:During the presidential transition that took place at the beginning of this year, I was asked to provide my thoughts on how a Trump administration should prioritize what was anticipated to be up to a trillion dollars in infrastructure spending. It was an honor — and a testament to how large the Strong Towns movement has grown — to be asked to weigh in with some notes. I knew the odds of our foundational ideas being given serious weight was remote since, if asked what the federal government should do on infrastructure spending, I would have argued: the less the better. So, in the spirit of pragmatism, I tried a different approach. The question we at Strong Towns asked ourselves was this: If America's going to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure, how could that be done in the least damaging way? Using Strong Towns' framing, how could we limit the downside damage of a surge in infrastructure spending in 2017 and increase the likelihood that there would be some long term upside to these investments? While he was roundly criticized for making the comment at the time, I was and remain sympathetic to Donald Rumsfield's observation during the war with Iraq that you go to war with the military you have, not the one you wished you had. At its core, it's an acknowledgement that, particularly in major matters, we will never have the ideal set of conditions for moving ahead. Anyone who has successfully managed a complex system for any length of time grasps this intuitively, making reaction to Rumsfield's comments a litmus test of sorts for a certain type of competency. I referenced it in my comments below as a way to signal that we grasp this limitation. I ultimately framed my remarks as an open letter because it helped me think more like a politician and less like a policy advocate, and because I thought it would be helpful for the communities that received this money to think about things in this way. The four-point framing, while not universal, is simple to understand and, if followed, would generally produce better results than whatever is ultimately done. Speaking of which, despite seemingly broad consensus among elected officials, policy advisers and pundits that the smartest course of action for the United States is to spend a colossal sum of federal money on infrastructure, we haven't done it. Perhaps it will happen in 2018, but perhaps not. I'm not going to take the credit for the hesitation, but every day this is put off, we build more of a groundswell of opposition to our current infrastructure approach. If serious reform is not an option, here's to another year of inaction. - Chuck MarohnWith the 2017 IndyCar schedule set to be released in a few short weeks, here are the tracks in the United States that we’d like to see announced. After months of speculation and developments, the 2017 (and potentially 2018) Verizon IndyCar Series schedules are expected to be released later this month. And while race fans are clamoring for new tracks and a longer season for America’s leading open-wheel division, they may see that change as incremental progress. Hulman and Co. head Mark Miles has made it clear he would like to add races to the series calendar but only if they make sense for all parties involved, and are vetted well. He and many others certainly do not want a repeat of the debacle that was the Grand Prix of Boston, and will look to avoid that type of a mess going forward. There’s also the ongoing discussion about expanding into international venues, but we won’t discuss that here. But there’s clearly interest in putting more stops on the IndyCar schedule, and there are plenty of worthy American racetracks that would deserve a spot in 2017 and beyond. Click through these slides to see the Top 5 tracks we’d like to see make the cut.Google's Street View cameras have been carried around on cars, boats, people, and now camels. The company recently set out to capture 360-degree imagery of the Arabian desert, and to "minimize" disruptions of what Google calls a "delicate environment," the Maps team affixed its Trekker camera onto the back of a dromedary named Raffia. It's safe to assume that before Google came along, Raffia had never transported anything quite like this through the desert. The result is a truly fantastic tour of the Liwa Desert, and the unique perspective almost makes it feel like you're on the camel's back instead of Google's expensive camera technology. But just look down and you'll see Raffia's shadow along with the Indian guide who led the 10-year-old camel (and potentially millions of internet users) on the journey. Apparently that meant putting in some early mornings; The National reports that shooting began as early as 6AM local time. The effort was worth it, with spectacular views of vast desert dunes and a seemingly endless sand landscape. Depending on where you begin, you might wonder who the lonely man far off in the distance is. We were more than a bit curious. Could it be a mirage? But after taking the time to get up close, it turns out his face is (unsurprisingly) blurred out, leaving this desert man's identity a mystery — for now. Presumably he's there to help keep the camel tour on a particular trajectory. Google is hopeful that some Street View exposure can make this oasis even more of a tourist attraction than it already is today. But if you can't stand the heat, taking a tour over the internet isn't really such a bad thing.A recent study in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology is the first to investigate subcomponents of self-reported executive function related to academic. In my opinion, this is one of the best recent papers in terms of reviewing the literature and moving forward our of procrastination as a form of failure. Laura Rabin, Joshua Fogel and Katherine Nutter-Upham (Brooklyn College of the City University of New York) conducted ground-breaking research with their study relating executive function to procrastination. Their focus is well placed - procrastination as self-regulation failure. They write, "Procrastination is increasingly recognized as involving a failure in self-regulation such that procrastinators, relative to non-procrastinators, may have a reduced ability to resist social temptations, pleasurable activities, and immediate rewards when the benefits of academic preparation are distant...These individuals also fail to make efficient use of internal and external cues to determine when to initiate, maintain, and terminate goal-directed actions" (p. 345). The characteristics the authors summarize that are associated with procrastination are numerous: Reduced agency Disorganization Poor impulse and emotional control Poor planning and goal setting Reduced use of meta- skills Distractibility Poor task persistence Time and task deficiencies This reveals a common underlying self-regulatory system commonly referred to as "executive function" and associated primarily with the pre-frontal cortex. Executive function consists of numerous self-regulatory processes such as: novel problem solving, modification of behavior in response to new information, as well as the planning and generating of strategies for complex actions. Although there is some previous research that implicates the frontal system network in the self-regulatory failure of procrastination, no previous research had examined which aspects of executive function were most strongly related to procrastination. In their study, Laura Rabin and her colleagues examined the nine clinical subscales of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning Adult Version (BRIEF-A) in a sample of 212 undergraduate students (average age just under 22 years, 77% female). In addition, they measured procrastination, as well as,, and mood. They hypothesized that "BRIEF-A subscales tapping inhibitory control/impulsivity, self-monitoring, planning and organization skills, and task initiation would be significant predictors of academic procrastination.,, and mood symptoms were also hypothesized to be significant predictors of academic procrastination" (p. 345). Although I don't like to summarize all of the measures used, it is important to provide a little more background about the measure of executive functioning, the BRIEF-A. In short, it consists of 9 clinical subscales that I have summarized below providing sample items as described by the authors. Behavioral Regulation scale (or the ability to not act on an impulse) "I have problems waiting my turn" The Self-Monitor scale (the extent to which a person keeps track of his/her behavior and its impact on others) "When people seem upset with me, I don't understand why"; "I say things without thinking" The Plan/Organize scale (the ability to manage current and future oriented task demands within their situational contexts) "I don't plan ahead for tasks"; "I have trouble organizing work" The Shift scale (the ability to shift behaviorally or cognitively from one situation, activity, or aspect of a problem to another, as the circumstances demand) "I have trouble thinking of a different way to solve a problem when stuck" The Initiate scale (the ability to begin a task and to independently generate ideas, responses, or problem-solving strategies) "I start things at the last minute such as assignments, chores, tasks" The Task Monitor scale (the extent to which an individual keeps track of his/her problem-solving success or failure) "I misjudge how difficult or easy tasks will be" The Emotional Control scale (the person's ability to modulate emotional responses) "I overreact to small problems"; "I get emotionally upset easily" The
Diego. “We never wanted to resort to legal action, but when all reasonable requests to return what is the rightful property of UC San Diego were ignored, there was no alternative,” Dr. David Brenner, vice chancellor for health sciences, said in a statement. “We are pleased with today’s decision and believe it indicates the strength of our overall case.” Left unresolved Friday was UC San Diego’s request for monetary damages based on its accusations that USC, Dr. Paul Aisen and other defendants conspired to illegally transfer the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study to the Los Angeles-based university. Aisen resigned in June from UC San Diego, where he had overseen the study since 2007, to become founding director of an Alzheimer’s institute that USC was establishing in the Sorrento Valley neighborhood. In recent weeks, the two sides have argued about who owns the database for the $100 million, nationwide project. UC San Diego, which has overseen the study for nearly a quarter of a century, said it still retains the government funding — an assertion backed by the National Institutes of Health. Aisen and USC officials have countered that it’s academic tradition for departing faculty members to transfer their research to their new employer. They presented supporting statements from several researchers taking part in the Alzheimer’s project. After Friday’s hearing, USC attorney Glenn Dassoff told journalists that USC and Aisen’s interest in the study “is real, genuine, and unfortunately was not addressed today. This is not over.” In an email Friday night, Aisen wrote: “We all lose here. Science and public health lose when research is torn from the investigators with the passion, knowledge and skill to assure its success.” In the courtroom, San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith Hayes said she will issue a preliminary injunction early next week that requires USC to surrender custody of the Alzheimer’s project. She told USC not to manipulate data from the study or make any other changes to the database, which involves details of lab research and clinical trials from dozens of sites across the country. As the next step, the two universities and their lawyers will negotiate the choice of a “special master” to supervise the process of USC restoring full control of the database to UC San Diego. This phase will involve an independent expert on bioinformatics who can determine whether there has been tampering of information in the database. Dan Sharp, an attorney representing UC San Diego on behalf of the UC Regents, said USC will start returning the data next week. “How long it takes will depend on what we find in terms of what they’ve done with the (computer) system, changes they may have made,” he added. Dassoff, the USC attorney, said while his party disagrees with Hayes’ findings, “we’ll reflect on the decision and I’m sure that (we’ll) approach any settlement discussions in good faith.” During the hearing, Hayes offered to refer the opposing sides to a settlement judge, with the aim of negotiating an end to the lawsuit instead of proceeding to a jury trial. UC San Diego alleges that Aisen, USC and up to two dozen other defendants colluded to commit a range of violations, including contract interference, breach of duty of loyalty by employee, commission of computer crimes and civil conspiracy. Brenner, UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla and others at the university have said the defendants have harmed their school’s reputation. Aisen and his new employer have denied any wrongdoing. In the past year, USC has reached out to at least three life-science institutions in San Diego to explore a purchase, merger or other types of collaboration. None of those inquiries has resulted in a partnership. During an interview earlier this month, USC Provost Michael Quick said his university’s envisioned footprint in San Diego could include freestanding institutes, academic consortia and joint ventures with targeted companies. “The 20th century was dominated by physics. The 21st will be dominated by biomedical sciences,” Quick said. “We have to be at places where the conversations (in life sciences) are the best, and San Diego is one of those places.” He said about 50 biomedical companies have been spun out of USC in the past decade, but that they tend to leave for San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area because those locations already have hubs featuring prominent research-oriented universities, independent biomedical institutes, a concentration of biotech firms and various services to support the whole infrastructure. Being in San Diego can help USC learn how this is done — and how to replicate that success in Los Angeles, Quick said. “The last thing that we want San Diego to feel is that USC is being threatening.... People will see that we will be good partners, should we continue to grow down there. We want to be part of the San Diego community,” Quick said. UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla also expressed goodwill during a recent interview. “I wouldn’t rule out a collaboration (with USC) in the future,” Khosla said. “You can’t take the difference we’re having and imply that there’s bad blood between us.” On measures of reputation in the life sciences, UC San Diego bests USC. The San Diego campus received $390 million in National Institutes of Health funding last year, compared to USC’s $180 million. U.S. News & World Report ranked UC San Diego’s medical school 17th in the nation for research and put USC’s in a three-way tie for 31st. But in endowment funds, which can bolster faculty pay, UC San Diego’s $752 million is dwarfed by USC’s $4.5 billion, and USC’s fundraising machine far outstrips that of the La Jolla-based university.The latest films and books in the genre focus on relationships as much as outer space thanks to the Tim Peake effect Call it the Tim Peake effect. Science fiction has always been as much about the human condition as saving the world from an alien invasion, but now a new wave of films and books are taking that interest one step further and developing an existentialist genre set in outer space. “The idea of putting a man on Mars is no longer a great leap of imagination,” said David Barnett, whose novel Calling Major Tom was inspired by the moment in 2015 when British astronaut Peake called the wrong number from the International Space Station. “In the 1970s and 80s, space travel felt like something out of science fiction, but now it’s part of modern life, with astronauts tweeting and going on YouTube, and because of that, putting space travel in a book doesn’t freak out non-sci-fi fans as much as it might once have done.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest In Seat 25 a woman travels back to Earth to search for her lost love. Photograph: Lagom Pictures Nicholas Agnew’s prize-winning debut film Seat 25 follows a disillusioned young woman as she comes to terms with winning a lottery for a one-way ticket to Mars. Katie Khan’s novel Hold Back the Stars melds an emotional love story with a tale of a space mission gone very wrong, while Anne Corlett’s novel The Space Between the Stars deals with a woman travelling back to Earth to search for her lost love after a virus wipes out most of humankind. “I came up with the idea for Hold Back the Stars in 2012 when I realised that I wanted to write about a couple falling in love in space and how they came to be there,” said Khan about her debut novel, which secured publishing deals in 19 countries in just three weeks. “I love science fiction, but what I respond to most is books and films where there’s a very human story.” She agrees that we are seeing a move towards more heartfelt science fiction. “I think you can trace it back to the popularity of Chris Hadfield [the Canadian commander of the International Space Station in early 2013] and his use of social media. Since then, Nasa has also made great use of social media – as did Tim Peake. What we’re seeing is a closing of the gap between what seems possible and what could never happen, and that opens the door for very human stories to be told amid the escapist fantasy of heading into space.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Amy Adams tries to communicate with aliens in Arrival. Photograph: Jan Thijs/Paramount Pictures Khan cites 2015’s The Martian and last year’s Arrival as examples of sci-fi films with heart, and it is true that both place our desire for connection at their core. Arrival, which nods to the great emotional sci-fi film of the late 1970s, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is particularly concerned with how we communicate both with alien life forms and, crucially, with those we know best. The success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and recent spin-off Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, both of which are character-driven, also suggests that there is a growing desire for sci-fi that makes time for human relationships. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the character-driven spin-off from the Star Wars franchise. Photograph: Jonathan Olley/Lucasfilm Ltd “What’s important is that these films have enough magic to allow us to suspend our disbelief, yet we also respond to the human stories at their core,” said Dr Robert Massey, deputy executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society. “Take something like Interstellar [Christopher Nolan’s 2014 film]: there’s some hard science in that film and it’s well-handled because it really explores how those elements would work in a practical, believable way. But what really resonated with me was the relationship between the father and daughter.” The 10 best astronauts Read more If the central relationship is not right, it can derail the film entirely, as was the case with recent space romcom Passengers, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. “With Passengers there is a complete disconnect between the film’s premise and its tone,” said blogger and critic Abigail Nussbaum. “Chris Pratt’s character, Jim, commits murder [by waking Lawrence’s character, Aurora, from her on-board hibernation, knowing that this will lead to her eventual death]. Not only is he ultimately rewarded by Aurora’s decision to forgive him, but the film expects us to see him as a redeemed, male fantasy of heroism and competence that does a lot more to gratify Jim’s desires than mortify them.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Interstellar features a father-daughter relationship alongside hard science. Photograph: Allstar/Legendary Pictures Unsurprisingly, female audiences in particular abandoned Passengers. Entertainment Weekly recently listed it among the biggest box office failures of 2016. “People were really excited about seeing the film before they learned of the “twist” [that Jim wakes Aurora],” says blogger Kayleigh Anne Donaldson. “Once those reviews started coming out then women just started saying they didn’t want to go to a film that was normalising rape culture. It’s not romantic, it’s creepy. He stalks her around the ship. A director like Lynne Ramsay could have made a great horror film using that exact premise but instead this is a mess.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest The relationship in Passengers was seen as creepy and it did poorly at the box office. Photograph: Allstar/Sony Pictures Entertainment Yet for every failure like Passengers there is a success like the Oscar-tipped Arrival, which stresses the importance of communication in complicated times. “There’s definitely a sense that we gravitate towards these very human yet escapist stories because they offer comfort amid uncertainty,” says Massey, adding that he hopes science fiction will continue to focus on humanity as much as space. “Even scientists don’t work in isolation – the best science is based on curiosity and scientists digging deep to make a connection and the best science fiction does the same.” Calling Major Tom is now available on Kindle. Hold Back the Stars (Doubleday) is published on Thursday.“Imperial troops have entered the base!” –Echo Base transmission, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back From the Galactic Empire’s surface attack on Echo Base to a small team of Rebels maneuvering to catch the Imperial garrison on Scarif off-guard, the movement of troops is a key aspect of every land battle of the Galactic Civil War. Movement and placement are crucial at a grand strategy level, as armies are stationed on key planets or moved to cut off supply lines. But it’s equally important in every battle—and that’s one of the key tactical concerns of Star Wars™: Legion, the upcoming miniatures game of epic ground battles in the Star Wars universe. Today, we’ll take a closer look at the mechanics of maneuvering your squads of Rebels or Stormtroopers across the battlefield, or sending a few 74-Z speeder bikes zipping forward to strafe the enemy front! Forward March Firing your weapons and bringing down enemy units is of paramount importance in Star Wars: Legion—but that doesn’t mean that you can underestimate having your troopers or vehicles in the right place at the right time. Whether you’ve taken cover behind a barricade or you’ve slipped behind an advancing AT-ST to concentrate fire on its weaker rear hull, exactly where you position your troops is one of the aspects that separates veteran commanders from those fresh out of Imperial Academy. But how are you going to position your miniatures to make the perfect attack in a game of Star Wars: Legion? It all starts when you choose to activate one of your units. As we explained in our last preview, you’ll activate each of your units every round, alternating with your opponent to activate a single unit each turn, either by selecting a unit that was issued orders or by drawing a random order token from your order pool. Regardless of how you get there, your chance to move and position your troops comes when you activate a unit. Every unit in the game receives two actions when it activates, whether it’s a lowly squad of Rebel Troopers or an iconic villain like Darth Vader. Moving your unit is one of the most common actions that you can take, since it’s your only way of positioning your forces to claim objectives, take advantage of terrain, or line up a devastating enfilade of fire. Movement in Star Wars: Legion is fast and organic as you use the game’s jointed movement tools to quickly send your squads sprinting across the battlefield. Every unit has a speed shown on the right side of its unit card. This speed determines the length of movement tool that you will use—faster units like the 74-Z Speeder Bikes use the Speed 3 movement tool, while a slower character like Darth Vader can only use the Speed 1 movement tool. Moving an entire squad of troopers can be accomplished in a matter of seconds. First, you align your unit’s movement tool with any point on the base of the unit leader, adjusting the direction of the movement tool however you choose. Then, you’ll move your unit leader to the end of the movement tool or to any point along its path, as shown above. After the unit leader has been moved, however, you don’t need to go through a tedious process of measuring movement for every miniature in the unit. Instead, you simply pick up your other miniatures and place them in cohesion with the unit leader! For a unit to maintain cohesion, you simply place your other miniatures within a Speed 1 move of the unit leader. Within that radius, you can place the rest of your squad however you choose, representing your troopers scrambling forward and sticking with their squad. Vehicle Assault Movement for your infantry is fluid and open, and it makes perfect sense that your troopers would be able to change direction in an instant, turning a headlong charge into a dive for cover or slipping cautiously around the edge of a bunker. The vehicles that you bring to the battlefield are unmistakably powerful, whether they’re a stomping AT-RT or a lightning-fast 74-Z speeder bike, but their movement is cumbersome and rigid compared to infantry. The distinctive movement of vehicles is reflected by the restrictions imposed by vehicle bases. Every vehicle base has a notch at the front and back of the vehicle, and when you’re moving this vehicle across the battlefield, you must insert the movement tool into one of these two notches. Even fast-moving vehicles like speeder bikes cannot pivot and turn as quickly as a squad of infantry dashing across the battlefield. Duck and Cover Of course, moving is not the only action that your units can take in a game of Star Wars: Legion. Attacking is perhaps the most impactful action—and because of that, we’ll devote our next entire preview to exploring the game’s combat. Still, there are certain actions that you can choose to take that can make you much more likely to hit your target or evade incoming fire. As an action, you may direct your unit to take aim at their target, receiving an aim token. This token can be spent during an attack to let you reroll two attack dice! Conversely, you may devote one of your actions to hunkering down and avoiding enemy fire by taking a dodge token. Dodge tokens can be spent during combat to negate a single hit that would have targeted your unit! Your units may also choose to spend their actions rallying their spirits or preparing for enemy movement. The recover action allows you to remove all suppression tokens from your unit and ready all exhausted upgrade cards—we’ll take a much closer look at suppression tokens in our next preview when we examine combat. You may also hold your troopers in readiness, waiting to react to what your opponent does. By taking a standby action, your troopers gain the power to move or attack when it’s not their activation, reacting to any enemy unit within Range 1-2 taking an action! Taking Over the Battlefield The sound of Imperial Stormtroopers tramping onto the battlefield or a salvaged AT-RT pounding forward is part of battle in the Galactic Civil War—as much as the hum of a lightsaber or the hiss of blaster fire.Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric on ISIS during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning. Doubling down on his earlier claims that he would “bomb the sh*t out” of the terrorist organization, the real estate mogul insisted he “would knock the hell out ISIS.” “I would hit them so had like they’ve never been before,” Trump said. When “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade raised the possibility of civilian casualties, Trump was undeterred. “I would do my best, absolute best,” he said, regarding trying to avoid collateral damage. “I mean one of the problems that we have and one of the reasons that we’re so ineffective, is they’re trying to, they’re using them as shields. A horrible thing. They’re using them as shields. But we’re fighting a very politically correct war. And the other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. But they say they don’t care about their lives. You have to take out their families.” RELATED: GOP starts to panic as Trump’s odds improve Throughout the campaign Trump has refused to give specific policy details about how he would defeat ISIS, arguing that he doesn’t “want the enemy to know what I’m doing.” This hasn’t stopped Trump from publicly condemning President Obama’s approach to combating terrorism and his handling of Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS, which he has called “insane.” Meanwhile, he has been the source of widespread criticism for repeatedly claiming that he saw footage of thousands of Muslims celebrating the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New Jersey in their immediate aftermath. Several news sources have debunked Trump’s assertion, but he still insists that his statements are accurate. One thing is for certain, the controversies do not appear to be slowing Trump’s momentum in the Republican primary polls. A new Quinnipiac survey shows his already established national lead over the Republican field expanding to 10 points over his closest rival, Sen. Marco Rubio.The World Bank and other global institutions use a very specific measure to record global poverty rates. They gather data designed to record the number of people in a country who live on less than $2 a day, and then use the information to make a “poverty headcount ratio”— the percentage of people in a country who live under this standard. In most recent data, Sierra Leone, for example, had a staggering 82.5 percent of its citizens living in poverty by this count. What is less known is that millions of Americans are living in situations of similar poverty. A new book, "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America," explores the status of Americans who face this extreme level of poverty Advertisement: “Most of us would say we would have trouble understanding how families in a country as rich as ours could live on so little," Kathryn J. Edin, who co-wrote the book with H. Luke Shaefer, said in a conference call recorded by CBS News. "These families, contrary to what many would expect, are workers, and their slide into poverty is a failure of the labor market and our safety net, as well as their own personal circumstances." According to her research, the number of Americans living on $2 a day or less has “more than doubled since 1996, placing 1.5 million households and 3 million children in this desperate economic situation.” 1996 is an important marker, because that's the year the Clinton administration, working alongside Republicans in Congress, eliminated the Aid for Families With Dependent Children program, which provided a guaranteed safety net for the poor. In its place they created Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF), a much more meager and temporary safety net. CBS News notes that the two authors of the book cite this change as harming the poor: TANF isn't working, Shaefer and Edin said. Since the program was created in 1996 to replace a 60-year-old welfare system, the number of families living on less than $2 a day has more than doubled. In 2012, only one-quarter of poor families received TANF benefits, down from more than two-thirds in 1996, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. According to "$2.00 a Day," the welfare program reached more than 14.2 million Americans in 1994, but by 2014 only 3.8 million Americans were aided by TANF. The authors' research, which includes data analysis and interviews with ultrapoor families in four regions, found that many families aren't even aware of TANF. "One person said, 'They aren't just giving it out anymore,'" Shaefer said. "In fact, in Appalachia it has, in some ways, disappeared. We asked, 'Have you thought about applying for TANF?' and they said, 'What's that?'G4S, the security company which has lurched from crisis to crisis over the past two years, is facing an investigation by international authorities into its alleged activities in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Sources said the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) UK staff have indicated that it will be investigating the company’s work supplying Israeli security services. It is alleged that G4S provides Israel with surveillance equipment at its checkpoints in the occupied territories, although the precise nature of the equipment is not known. 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. The OECD, which operates under the umbrella of the Department of Business in the UK, is expected to investigate whether the supply of such kit is in contravention of its guidelines for multinational enterprises – a set of Government-backed recommendations for “responsible business conduct” overseas. Given the illegality of the settlements under international law, the OECD is expected to question G4S on how it can justify, as a company from an OECD-member country, supplying or servicing kit that aids the occupation. If the organisation finds G4S has acted improperly, it will create another major raft of bad publicity for the company which has already been pilloried for overcharging British taxpayers for its electronic tagging of prisoners and, perhaps most famously, its bungling of the Olympics security contract and its operation of prisons such as Oakwood, where there was a five-hour period of disorder at the weekend. Only last month, the British Government warned UK citizens of the risks of doing business with Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. The UK Trade and Investment website was updated to warn the settlements are illegal and that operating there was risky. The website warned against carrying out financial transactions, investments, purchases or procurements from businesses there, and tourism. It said EU citizens and businesses should “be aware of the potential reputational implications of getting involved in economic and financial activities in settlements, as well as possible rights abuses of individuals”, and added: “Those contemplating any economic or financial involvement in settlements should seek appropriate legal advice.” That update marked a severe ratcheting up of the British criticism of Israel’s activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In a move that enraged Israel, last July the European Union banned grants to Israeli companies or projects with links to the settlements. The OECD’s national contact point in the UK declined to comment on the investigation, which is likely to take about three months for its first stage. Its decision to press ahead is seen as a victory for campaigners like Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights and War on Want. Under rules signed up to by the British Government last year, G4S and other companies will have to include a section on their protection of human rights. 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 nowLONDON/MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron must hold a planned referendum on Britain’s European Union membership as soon as possible or risk “accidental Brexit”, the head of the Institute for Directors, a business lobby group, said on Tuesday. Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron is seen in his hotel room as he prepares for his speech for the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, October 6, 2015. REUTERS/Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/Pool Cameron has promised to renegotiate Britain’s EU ties and then hold a referendum on whether to remain a member by the end of 2017. He has said he will hold it earlier if he can, but Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has warned the schedule is tight for a 2016 referendum. Several polls have shown the gap between Britons who want to remain in the EU and those who want to leave remains narrow although one published on Tuesday put the ‘remain’ camp firmly in the lead. “Britain voting to leave the European Union is at least a 50-50 possibility,” IoD Director General Simon Walker told an audience of 2,000 business leaders in London on Tuesday. “My concern is the timing of the referendum. I hope this government will not drag out the referendum process any longer than necessary.” Walker said businesses could suspend investment plans ahead of the vote and holding the referendum in the middle of the government’s five-year term of office risked coinciding with a traditional peak in anti-government feeling. “While our members believe some uncertainty is a price worth paying to resolve EU membership, delay puts a brake on decision-making, investment and the vigour of their businesses,” he said. Nigel Lawson, a Chancellor under former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher and now leader of an anti-EU campaign group, told the conference that he expected the referendum would be “a very close run thing”. David Miliband, foreign minister under Britain’s last Labour government, said the referendum was a “risky and perilous venture” and that it was wrong to think Britain could prosper outside the EU as a “Singapore of the North Atlantic”. MID-TERM BLUES RISK A 2017 referendum would see Britain’s renegotiation efforts caught up among French and German elections that year, the IoD’s Walker said. Domestically, it risked becoming a vote on the government’s planned spending cuts. “The third year of an election cycle is a difficult time for any administration. There is a real possibility that a 2017 referendum would be a short-term judgement on the government: a chance to whack the political elite,” he said. “If... the public votes to leave Europe, our members will have to accept it, and the period of uncertainty for business that will follow. They will be less philosophical if carelessness and domestic discontent led to an ‘accidental Brexit’.” An opinion poll published on Tuesday showed many more people in Britain support staying in the EU than those who want to leave the bloc. Director General of the Institute of Directors Simon Walker speaks at the Institute of Directors annual convention in London September 18, 2013. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett Fifty-five percent of respondents in the poll — carried out by polling firm ComRes for the Daily Mail newspaper — said they would vote to remain in the EU if a referendum was held now. Thirty-six percent said they would vote to leave while eight percent were undecided, a smaller share than in previous polls. The poll also showed the aspect of EU renegotiation that is most important to Britons is restricting the benefits that EU migrants entering the UK can receive, ComRes said.Last updated on: June 06, 2016 12:23 IST When Superintendent of Police Mukul Dwivedi was beaten to death by a murderous SBVS mob, the killers included women and teenagers. Why did the district magistrate take over an hour to order retaliatory firing on the murderous SBVS mob? Rashme Sehgal reports from Mathura on the battle for Jawahar Bagh. IMAGE: A scene of the chaos after the brutal battle in Mathura between the police and members of the the Swadhin Bharat Vidhik Satyagrah, SBVS, an organisation that swore allegiance to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Photograph: PTI The Mathura police have launched a major cover-up operation so that their glaring lapses in the handling of the Swadhin Bharat Vidhik Satyagrah, SBVS, an organisation that swore allegiance to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. A 3,000-strong armed SBVS contingent had been camping on the 270 acre Jawahar Bagh located in the heart of Mathura city next to the army cantonment, the tehsil complex and the city jail for the past two years. There, men, women and children were receiving training in arms, with no intervention by the police. When Superintendent of Police Mukul Dwivedi was beaten to death by a lathi-wielding murderous SBVS mob on the evening of June 2, the killers included women and teenagers, both boys and girls. Doctors at the local hospital who examined Dwivedi reported that he suffered 12 fractures on his skull and face. The bullet that killed Farah Station House Officer Santosh Yadav, who was trying to save Dwivedi's life, is reported to have been /fired by a woman. City Magistrate Ram Araj Yadav -- who had accompanied Diwedi on a reconnisance mission on the evening of June 2 to see how the authorities could evict the SBVS squatters following an Allahabad high court directive ordering that they be forced to vacate government land, and who himself suffered injuries -- says, "Since we could not enter from the main gate, we decided to enter from the side and to do so, we used a JCB machine to break a part of a 5-foot wall." "As we entered," City Magistrate Yadav recalled, "the mob inside pelted bricks and stones at us. Dwiwedi was hit by a brick. He fell, and within seconds he was attacked by rioters wielding lathis. My right arm was also hit by a brick and I suffered fractures." The city magistrate admits that Dwivedi's gunner, whose job it was to protect the SP, fled for his life as did members of the Provincial Armed Constabulary -- comprising primarily fresh men and women recruits armed with plastic lathis who were no match for the well armed SBVS mob. IMAGE: Smoke from the Swadhin Bharat Vidhik Satyagrah camp site. Photograph: PTI SBVS leader Ram Vriksh Yadav, who reportedly died in the subsequent battle with the police, had long boasted that he was training a 'Bhindranwale army', referring to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who had led an armed movement for Khalistan in Punjab in the early 1980s and perished in Operation Bluestar on June 6 32 years ago. Viresh Yadav, Ram Vriksh Yadav's lieutenant, provided security training with groups of ten members patrolling the SBVS camp night and day. Chandan Bose, his IT specialist, provided technical inputs. SBVS had cameras to photograph people entering and leaving the complex. None of its members were permitted to step outside the SBVS camp. "When our PAC company recruits were entering the complex, we were armed with rubber bullets which we fired on these squatters," says City Magistrate Yadav, "but we were hardly in a position to take these people on." Tthe key question being asked by Mathura residents is that despite having lost two senior police officers, why did the district magistrate take over an hour to order retaliatory firing on the murderous SBVS mob? When District Magistrate Dr Rajesh Kumar and Senior Superintendent of Police Dr Rakesh Singh were asked this question, they replied almost in unison, "The state government has ordered an enquiry being headed by Commissioner of Police Chandra Kant heading the Aligarh district. All questions must now be directed to him." Chandra Kant was equally evasive. "I have just stared my enquiry," he said, adding, "I have spoken to officials in the administration and independent observers, I plan to submit my report to the state government within the next 15 days." Once District Magistrate Dr Rajesh Kumar gave permission for the police to retaliate, residents living in the colonies adjacent to Jawahar Bagh confirm that the firing went on for 90 minutes, between 5.30 pm and 7 pm. The non stop firing was followed by loud explosions caused by exploding gas cylinders and grenades. "The police have been telling us that they have recovered 29 dead bodies. We understand that around 300 people who were injured are being treated in the local district hospital," says Kunwar Narendra Singh, one of the tallest political leaders in Mathura, adding, "our suspicion is that between 300 to 500 people would have died in this operation." "But since the people living there were not locals and were brought there from Madhya Pradesh and eastern Uttar Pradesh," he said, "we have little idea about their antecedents." IMAGE: The day after at the Jawahar Bagh, Mathura, battle site. Photograph: PTI Local sources confirm that the death toll is much higher than the figure of 29 being claimed by the police. Commissioner of Police Chandra Kant insists that the death toll is 23, but locals say over 25 SBVS men trying to escape were lynched by angry residents, incensed by Dwivedi and Yadav's deaths. Narendra Singh helped set up the Jawahar Bagh Sangarsh Samiti whereby a group of 30 to 40 government staffers held protests outside the collectorate, demanding that the SBVS encroachers be evicted. Their offices were located inside Jawahar Bagh including office belonging to the state horticulture and agriculture departments. Once the encroachers had settled on this land inside Jawahar Bagh, they did not allow outsiders to enter. Fearing retaliation by the SBVS encroachers, the authorities forced Samiti members to hold their protests at another site. "The government knew from the start that they were a bad lot," says Narendra Singh. "When a group of patwaris went there, they were beaten up. Later, they destroyed a part of the tehsil and yet no action was taken against them." "Following the Allahabad high court order, a team of PAC jawans led by Chakrapani Tripathi went to persuade Ram Vriksh Yadav to vacate the premises," Narendra Singh adds. "A media team went with Tripathi. Ram Vrikish Yadav's men gheraoed these people and did not release them for an hour. The writing was clear on the wall. This was a dangerous vigilante group." IMAGE: The police opened fire after using lathis and tear gas at the murderous encroachers. Photograph: Sandeep Pal "Whenever Ram Vriksh Yadav stepped out of Jawahar Bagh, he used to strut around with a team of armed guards. How was he allowed to build up this private army?" Narendra Singh asks. He also questions how Ram Vriksh Yadav was paid a government pension of Rs 15,000 each month. "How were these squatters given Aadhar cards? Who was financing this group because not only were trucks carrying food items reaching the site every day, but this group had also started a daily bazaar where they sold vegetables and fruits at half rates." Ram Vriksh Yadav's SBVS is a splinter group of a sect run by Jai Gurudev who came to Mathura from Etawah in 1968 and who allegedly secured land in a similar manner. The land was apart of the UP state industrial area where Gurudev built a massive ashram which bore a resemblance to the Taj Mahal. He was said to be close to Samajwadi party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and his brothers. Ram Vriksh Yadav appeared to have government contacts as well. In 2014, the then DM reportedly provided the squatters with an electricity connection. His contacts in Lucknow, Mathura residents allege, had assured him that the Jawahar Bagh land would be transferred to him at the nominal rate of Rs one per square foot. There are precedents of such transfers -- Sadhvi Ritambara was reportedly given a large tract of land in Mathura at nominal rates by then UP chief minister Kalyan Singh. Were it not for the public interest litigation filed by local advocate Vijay Pal Tomar, the SBVS plan could well have succeeded. "They wanted to grab government land and our city would have lost one of its most beautiful parks. As it is, following the massive fire, the entire park with its trees and orchards has been burnt to ashes," says Tomar. Questions about the police operation are being openly asked in the city. Officials in the state intelligence wing had issued several warnings to the local administration about the weaponry that had been acquired by the SBVS sect. All these warnings went unheeded. Residents from the colonies overlooking Jawahar Park say over 100 ambulances were requisitioned from Agra and Aligarh to carry the injured on the fatal night of June 2. Independent observers wonder if dead bodies were ferried out of the city because the ambulances worked through the night. "How was the police allowed to carry out such a botched out operation?" asks Narendra Singh. "If the police had wanted to carry out a recee, they
meet the artist. These higher prices alone can cover the operating costs of a concert. The main problem facing concertgoers is what to do with tickets they can’t use. In Japan, there are no refunds or exchanges, so if a ticketholder falls ill or otherwise is unable to attend the show, they cannot get their money back, so internet resale sites are their best resort. The South Korean concert industry recently changed its policy to allow for refunds. In Japan, where ticket sales are dominated by three agencies — Pia, Lawson and E+ — who work as a de facto cartel, it’s unlikely that refunds will become a reality. Though the technology for paperless e-tickets is now available, hard copies of tickets are still the overwhelming flavor in Japan, a system that allows agencies to charge a number of extra fees that can add as much as ¥1,000 to the face value of a ticket depending on when you buy it. But as Fukui points out, the concert industry doesn’t seem to have a solution beyond protesting — as represented by the anti-resale ad. Specific acts, like the boy band Arashi, have instituted high-tech methods such as facial recognition to make sure that the people who enter the venue are the same people who originally bought the tickets, but such methods are limited to acts with dedicated fan clubs and may not be economically viable for other artists. The best solutions are dynamic ticketing and e-tickets that concertgoers can keep on their mobile devices, but those solutions would require that all the various players in the industry work together. Yen for Living covers issues related to making, spending and saving money in Japan on the second and fourth Sundays of the month.Share Computer maker Acer is launching its first Android tablet, the 10.1-inch Acer Iconia A500—and it’s aiming to appeal to consumers with a gaming- and entertainment-friendly design and a starting price tag lower than Apple’s now-iconic iPad: just $449.99 at Best Buy. “Staying connected and entertained are firmly embedded as a part of our everyday lives—and the Acer Iconia Tab A500 does this and so much more in a performance-minded, sleek, and stylish design,” said Acer America’s VP of product marketing Sumit Agnihotry, in a statement. vice president of product marketing, Acer America. Acer is positioning that A500 as a slim, lightweight tablet designed for entertainment and gaming—and it runs Google’s tablet-optimized Android 3.0 Honeycomb, offering more than just a smartphone scaled up to a tablet size. Powered by a 1 GHz Nvidia Tegra 250 processor, the Iconia A500 features a 10.1-inch touch display with a 1,280 by 800-pixel resolution so users can enjoy high-definition gaming and video entertainment—and an integrated HDMI output enables users to push high-def content to a nearby big screen. And it won’t weigh people down: the A500 comes in at just under 1.7 pounds, and measures just over a half inch thick. The A500 sports forward- and rear-facing cameras (2 megapixel and 5 megapixels, respectively), so the tablet can be used to shoot high quality images and video and do high-def video chat. The A500 also sports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth wireless networking, and an integrated GPS receiver. The A500 also sports two 3260 mAh Li-polymer batteries that Acer says can power up to eight hours of video playback and ten hours of Wi-Fi Web surfing. If there’s one place where the A500 skimps for some users, it might be storage: the A500 comes with 16 MB of flash storage, although a microSD card reader offers expandable removable storage. Acer says the tablet platform supports up to 32 MB of flash storage, so expect to see more capacity in future models. The A500 also supports Acer’s clear.fi media sharing for connecting to DLNA-compliant media devices. To emphasize entertainment capabilities, the Iconia A500 ships with two HD arcade games: Need for Speed: Shift and Let’s Golf. The A500 will happily run Adobe Flash content, although—in an interesting move—users will need to install Flash themselves. Online pre-orders for the A500 start April 8 exclusively at Best Buy in North America, with in-store pre-orders starting April 14. Customers should be able to set hands on the Iconia A500 in stores starting April 24. The A500 will carry a suggested price of $449.99, $50 less than Apple’s least-expensive iPad 2. Acer is also selling a selection of optional peripherals, including a $69.99 full-sized keyboard, a $79.99 dock with IR remote and external speaker jacks, and a $39.99 protective case that doubles as a stand. Acer is also offering an international power adapter taht can handle the UK and Europe as well as Central and South America for $29.99. The Iconia A500 has some strong points going for it: a high-definition screen, HDMI output, Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and a lightweight design—and, perhaps more importantly, a price lower than Apple’s entry-level iPad. However, it lacks a 3G mobile broadband option, is comparatively light on storage, and so far Android 3.0 tablets have failed to light a fire under consumers, while Apple’s iPad 2 continues to be in short supply at retailers.A witch hunt is brewing in Turkey, one that could result in the leading politicians within the country's pro-Kurdish party being sent to jail as terrorists. “Executives of this party should pay,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a fiery press conference Tuesday, referring to the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). “The Turkish state has the power to make so-called politicians [and] so-called intellectuals pay for the blood of its martyrs.” During the same press conference, Erdogan, formerly the country's prime minister, signaled an end to negotiations with Kurdish insurgents. If his comments are evidence of what’s to come, then there could be a war on the horizon reminiscent of Turkey’s not-so-distant bloody past. After over 30 years of conflict between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) -- which the U.S. has designated a terrorist group for its use of violence to push for greater freedoms for the Kurds, a historically oppressed ethnic minority -- it’s hardly shocking that Erdogan would call out Kurdish fighters or even link high-profile politicians to the group. But the country's period of relative calm during negotiations -- a yearslong break from the conflict that has killed nearly 40,000 people -- seems to be over. Tensions are boiling out of control. Credit: Bulent Kilic/Getty Images Left-wing protesters prepare to throw a Molotov cocktail from a rooftop during clashes with Turkish police officers on July 26, 2015, at Gazi district in Istanbul. The PKK has been accused of and claimed responsibility for various recent deadly attacks on military and police, including one that killed a military officer while he was driving with his wife and child. The government has ramped up its rhetoric against the Kurdish fighters, and against pro-Kurdish politicians and individuals. Hundreds of Kurds have been rounded up and arrested in recent days, lumped into the same “terrorist” group as accused Islamic State members. The fragile and long-hoped-for peace process between the state and the PKK looks dead in the water as Turkey bombs the group in northern Iraq, where it is now based -- alongside a bold new campaign to clamp down on the so-called Islamic State. But while Turkey says it’s reeling in terrorists both on the battlefield and in political positions, many critics insist it’s all a ploy to give the ruling AK Party the upper hand in possible early elections. “[The AK Party] is sending a very powerful message,” said Aaron Stein, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. “This is already being viewed as nakedly political and in preparations for elections.” The HDP shocked the nation when it won 13 percent of votes in June’s landmark election -- enough to secure seats in parliament and destroy the AK Party’s chance at changing the national constitution to grant Erdogan sweeping powers. Now, those same politicians who gave unprecedented hope to Kurds across the country could face jail time if Erdogan gets his way and there’s a majority vote in parliament to strip politicians of immunity from prosecution. “No one should doubt that we will protect the right of HDP politics and everyone who’s been elected,” Sezgin Tanrıkulu, the deputy head of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People's Party, wrote on Twitter following Erdogan’s comments. The current government, led by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu but largely seen as in thrall to Erdogan, has until Aug. 23 to form a coalition government. But talks between the parties have been utterly fruitless. Many Turks say they expect another election in November. “The underlying strategy is to coerce the HDP to physically renounce what the PKK is doing,” said Stein. Such statements, or arrests of major political players, could weaken the pro-Kurdish vote. In a speech directly following Erdogan’s press conference, HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas denied any links to the PKK and said the party’s “only crime was to get 13 percent of votes” in the election. “They'll make us into enemies of each other by burdening our shoulders with coffins, and reign in their sultan rule with joy,” Demirtas said, as tweeted by his party’s official Twitter account in English. While Erdogan’s comments were aired on major Turkish television stations, Demirtas’ speech was nowhere to be found on those same channels mere minutes after Erdogan finished. Dozens of Kurdish and pro-Kurdish websites have been blocked in recent days. “There's a reason [Demirtas’] speech wasn't on television. They aren't going to let this get out," Stein told The WorldPost. "[The state] will block the Kurdish narrative and block Kurdish websites. It shows the extent to which they're trying to cut this off.” Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Hostilities reached a breaking point on July 20 when a suicide bombing in Suruc, Turkey, killed 32 people and wounded 104 others who were headed to the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane, which has been ravaged by the Islamic State, to help rebuild. Many Kurds claim that Turkey not only hasn’t done enough to reel in the Islamic State, but is secretly sponsoring terrorism, even as Turkey pledges to ramp up attacks on the Islamic State in Syria and grants the U.S. access to its Incirlik air base to strike the militant group across the border. For years, the international community has slammed Turkey’s failure to crack down on Islamic State cells across the country or tighten up its porous 550-mile border with Syria, often referred to as the “jihadi highway.” Turkey’s dramatic moves to counter the Islamic State have been met by some with concern that it is all a plot to stop Syrian Kurds -- arguably the best U.S. partner fighting the Islamic State on the ground in Syria -- from establishing a Kurdish enclave just over the border. In an emergency meeting Tuesday requested by Turkey, NATO said it was in "strong solidarity" with the Turkish government in its fight against the Islamic State. But according to a NATO official quoted by the Associated Press, members also cautioned against using excessive force and abandoning the peace process with the PKK. Many Kurds say the government will stop at nothing -- even attempting to jail some of Turkey's top Kurdish political voices -- to put the Kurds in check and hold on to power. “After Erdogan’s election loss in the June 7 elections, it made Erdogan crazy,” Bercan Aktas, a member of the HDP’s Party Council, told The WorldPost. Erdogan’s speech was meant for one reason, according to Aktas: to instigate war with the Kurds and foster chaos for his own benefit. “We won’t give permission for his crazy demands,” he said. “Erdogan should accept the election results and stop this approach if he wants peace and democratization in Turkey.”— He is asked what he'll wear for the special occasion, and it causes a sudden adrenalin rush. For most of the morning, he moved around his house gingerly, which is what you'd expect from someone described by doctors as "walking dead" last spring, from someone who served as a pin cushion all summer, poked often by needles that fed constant blood transfusions. Now he's up from his chair and on his toes, bounding up the stairs toward his clothes closet. Within moments he's returned, holding -- make that cradling -- his baby, made of 100 percent pure linen. "Isn't it something?" asks Craig Sager. Well... yeah, it's, um, interesting. "I can't wait. The sooner I put this on, the better." It's a sports jacket, created just for him, and it is orange enough to make the University of Tennessee jealous. There are white pinstripes, too. The jacket screams for attention, like all of his work clothes. Sager is looking at it adoringly, like a bride does her gown, and to answer your next question, yes, there are matching slacks. The suit will complement the orange-trimmed shoes made of ostrich. Or is it alligator? Who the heck can remember or keep up anymore? When that special day finally arrives, he'll dress slowly, carefully, strategically. And then it's on. He knows what to expect; the finger-pointing, the whispers, the stares and, of course, the laughter and teasing. Did you see what Sager's got on? He's heard it all by now, after decades of causing TV viewers to reach for the tint button. Sager column: Kobe, keep doing what you're doing But anyone planning to give him the business about his taste should know this: His choice of suit for one day next February, his target for returning to work as the best sideline reporter in any sport, wasn't decided on a whim. Cancer has adopted certain colors for awareness, you see, such as pink for breast cancer. Orange is for leukemia, the disease that invaded Sager's life and threatened to take it. He's in full remission now, though he's still waiting to get medical clearance to do everyday stuff the rest of us take for granted. And so he pines for the day he'll be back doing NBA games while his orange suit blends with all the orange basketballs, an ensemble which will seem so... perfect. His biggest challenge Sager has interviewed thousands of people in dozens of different sports and asked maybe a million questions. Virtually all of his questions are on point. He's never flustered on-air. He is tireless, polished, always showing up on time and prepared in whatever stadium or arena (he lost track of how many) serves as his office for that day. With the exception of Marv Albert, no other TV person is more attached to the NBA than Sager, who joined Turner in March of 1981 (employee No. 343), a run of 33 years and counting, the last two decades as Turner's top sideline snoop. [Editor's note: Turner Sports, in partnership with the NBA, also operates NBA.com.] He's paid to be curious, and curiosity leads to questions. But interestingly enough, Sager didn't ask a single question of the doctors when he was diagnosed with adult acute myeloid leukemia soon after feeling woozy last April. Not even, Am I going to get through this? "I didn't have to," he said. "I knew something was wrong. I figured whatever they're doing to me, it's designed to help me. I put my trust in them and did whatever they asked." This is where Stacy comes in. She is blond and beautiful and a former member of the Bulls dance team, and beneath the glossy exterior is a fierce and protective wife and mother of two. And an investigative reporter, because she took the mic from her husband and was relentless. "I asked enough questions to the point where I probably drove the physicians crazy," she said. "I had to do everything I could. I wanted to know why things were done: Why do you have him on this antibiotic? Just little things like that. I had to, because he is my life." On the morning of April 10, before he was scheduled to work the Mavericks-Spurs game, Sager was too tired for his morning jog. This was unusual. He was athletic, always healthy. After the game, he found himself staggering. He explained his condition to Dr. Tarek Souryal, the Mavericks' team physician, who told him he needed to get to the hospital. "When?" "Now." Once there, they checked his hemoglobin. It registered 4.6. Anything between 13 to 16 is normal. Doctors were stunned. They never had anyone manage to stand on their own two feet, let alone function, with a number that low. They told him he was a walking dead man and a heart attack waiting to happen. Blood tests and bone marrow biopsies confirmed the worst. He spent his days getting chemo, his nights watching the playoffs carry on without him, and both carried their own manner and degree of torture. Neither compared with the impact his disease had on his ability to relate to his family. Stacy became his tireless caregiver and often slept on the sofa in the hall, outside his hospital room. Their two young children stayed home. Sager has three adult children from his first marriage, too. Their visits were welcome but heart-wrenching. "The two girls were really emotional," Sager said. "They would keep it inside until they got out of the room. Then I'd hear them break down. That hurt me." When I first came home from the hospital, I was crying. I had missed the sound of the birds, the smell of the grass, the feel of the air. And of course, I missed seeing my kids. – Craig Sager His two youngest, Riley and Ryan, 9 and 8, couldn't grasp the gravity of the situation, and because of their ages, Sager couldn't have any physical contact with them for months. The risk of getting germs and bacteria was always a concern because of Sager's compromised immune system. When Ryan, a gifted tennis player, competed in a tournament, Sager watched from the car in the parking lot. They couldn't have visitors to the house. Everyone had to use hand sanitizer daily. Sager's immune system essentially had to be flushed with a new one. He underwent three dozen blood transfusions. His vitals were tested every four hours. He took pills around the clock, even through the night. Sager spent time in the hospital for 93 straight days. He lost 44 pounds and locks of his hair. He couldn't open a bottle of water; Stacy had a firmer grip. He required a bone marrow transplant. Those can be tricky. Most are conducted with a worldwide donor search for a match. Sager found his medical soul mate a lot quicker and closer than he expected: His oldest son, Craig Jr. Father and son went through the procedure together. Bone marrow (1.5 liters worth) and stem cells were harvested from the hip of Junior and pumped into Sager. "He was happy and excited," said the father. "Usually you end up wanting to be like your dad, and strange thing is, I ended up being like him after the transplant. We have the exact same DNA now." Sager was hospitalized for four straight days before the transplant and underwent aggressive chemotherapy. As for the transplant, it took place the day before the Peachtree Road Race, the annual 10-kilometer road race in Atlanta. Sager had run the race for 32 straight years. His kids made it a ritual, too, and it became a family staple. This time, there was no Sager, and doctors ruled out Junior's participation as well. But you know how sons can be sometimes. He told his father about the clandestine plan to run the race anyway, without permission from the doctors. Sager shrugged and said: "Just don't try to beat the Kenyans." Not only did Junior complete the race, but he managed to snag an extra race bib for his father, and so unofficially, Sager can present documented proof that he ran a 33rd straight race, if he so chooses. "Not having him there was going to be tough," said Junior. "I wanted to do it for him and also my family. We'd all gone through so much." Not long after the transplant, Sager developed pneumonia, "and that was the worst," said Stacy. "That took a toll." More tests, more visits, more treatment, more worries. Stacy developed shingles from the stress. Eventually, Sager's system improved, the pneumonia was cured and Sager was on his feet again. He's down to two treatments a week. "When I first came home from the hospital, I was crying," he said. "I had missed the sound of the birds, the smell of the grass, the feel of the air. And of course, I missed seeing my kids." Ryan was particularly thrilled, jumping up and down. And the boy said this: "Oh, daddy's home and that means I don't have to see him in my dreams anymore," which of course made the old man puddle up. A little help from some friends Inside the NBA: Craig Sager Tribute In honor of Craig Sager who is ill, the Inside the NBA crew are wearing special Craig Sager throwback uniforms. Charles Barkley, now the Round Mound of Surround Sound, toned it down somewhat when he made a handful of heartfelt trips to the hospital to see his cancer-stricken Turner co-worker. "DAMN BOY, YOU LOOK AWFUL," is how he greeted Sager. And this: "You don't have any more hair!" More Sir Charles, now pointing to Stacy: "Is that pretty girl still with you? She shouldn't be with you. She should be with me." The entire hospital staff was always on the lookout for Barkley, and Charles being Charles, he charmed everyone. He quickly became The Favorite Visitor of the staff and, most importantly, the family and patient. That's because Barkley kept things normal, which is how Sager wanted it. Since Barkley poked fun at Sager's flashy suits and whatnot before cancer... well, Sager demanded Barkley at least be consistent. Of course, Barkley went much further. Presents, calls, flowers, Barkley smothered Sager with humor and concern and compassion. His generosity was typical of the sensitivity shown by the NBA family toward one of its own. Sager gets a softball in his throat every time he mentions the outpouring of affection. He kept index cards on everyone so he could personally thank them. Usually, a man doesn't get the sense he is this loved and missed until he's in his grave. Barkley, Kenny Smith, Shaquille O'Neal and Ernie Johnson Jr. (who had his own bout with cancer) from "Inside The NBA"... David Stern and Adam Silver from the NBA office... former referee Bob Delaney, who showed up at Sager's home unannounced and knocked on the door... and of course, all manners of players and coaches, both present and former. They all reached out. "I just couldn't believe it," Sager said. NBA's Best Honor Sager The NBA's best coaches and players honor Craig Sager and wish him well on his battle with leukemia. One in particular stood out. Gregg Popovich, the San Antonio Spurs' longtime coach, has made a habit of terrorizing sideline reporters and expressing his distaste for being interrupted with an interview during a timeout. Sager, who has worked a healthy number of Spurs games, wears the most "Pop scars" of anyone. "He'd criticize me on the air and even off the air," said Sager. "In our meetings with the coaches, he'd get pissed at me. He didn't like some of the questions I'd ask Tony Parker, a lot of questions which came because I was playing off of what Marv or somebody said during the broadcast. After the years went on, I think Pop had respect for my work ethic, but he still hated the in-game interviews." In a clever bit of maneuvering, the Turner folks had Craig Jr. stand in for his father during a Spurs playoff game last Easter Sunday. And Pop was brilliant, at first playfully admonishing Junior for "being nothing like your father" and then sending along his well-wishes during the timeout. The elder Sager, who wasn't informed until the last minute, was blown away. Popovich with Craig Sager, Jr. Gregg Popovich sends a heartfelt message to the ill Craig Sager. But Popovich just... wouldn't... leave... the Sagers... alone. "He called me four or five times in the next month to check on me and my dad," said Junior, and remember, Pop and the Spurs were in the heat of the playoff run. Pop's timing was downright surreal, too. "He called the day of my sister Krista's graduation from the University of Georgia, because my dad couldn't make it," said Junior. "And this was before a game against Portland." About a week later, Junior was involved in a hit and run accident on the Georgia 400 highway that gave his car a serious thrashing (he was OK). As he stood on the side of the road, waiting for help, his cell rang. Popovich. The Spurs in the midst of playing the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals. "Everything OK?" asked Pop. "Well, come to think of it..." replied Junior. Popovich kept calling and writing the father, who savored it all. Sager won't reveal much of what Pop said to him, choosing to keep such matters private, except to say the calls and letters "were beyond belief." Sager did allow that Pop mentioned how "we're a team." Meaning, Pop and Sager. Cranky coach (but a softie underneath) and sideline reporter. Imagine that. Counting his blessings Craig and Stacy Sager, Thanksgiving 2014 As he walks through his house, Sager is eager to show the perks collected along the journey of his TV career. Among them: The wedge Tom Watson used at the 17th hole at the 1982 US Open, when he chipped in to beat Jack Nicklaus; a "Rozelle" headband worn by Jim McMahon; a bra from Morganna (kept in shape by two mini basketballs); poo-poo from Seattle Slew persevered by a hard transparent coating; and a No. 45 jersey worn by Michael Jordan with the Birmingham Barons. He owns another, more personal collection. What began as a decision to wear funky ties mushroomed into a full-blown wacky wardrobe. His closet contains boldly colored suits and jackets of all patterns, around 135 or so. It's his trademark, often mocked and squinted at, but complimented more times than you would suspect. He never wears the same suit twice in a season. Most are made from material used for drapes and curtains and purchased in Miami at Rex Fabrics. "He's very picky," said Ricardo, the owner. "He's a perfectionist when it comes to design. But Craig is a trailblazer. We're always ready for him. We'll be ready for him when he comes back." There are three tubes that remain connected to his chest, and he doesn't expect to receive clearance to fly until January. His hair is fighting the good battle to regain some fluff. His wife Stacy said that until he read a pamphlet two weeks ago about Coaches Vs. Cancer, Sager had no idea about the mortality rate. "He didn't know the scope of his disease," she said. "He didn't want to hear it because he's such a positive person." He does know how close he is to returning to his element, his arena. Sager will spend Thanksgiving counting blessings instead of calories and counting down the days until he holds a microphone again. He hopes to work a Spurs game. Popovich will glare at his line of questioning. That would be a thrill. Sager will return in a striped orange suit that will cause whiplash from courtside fans and a handful of players, some of whom will howl. And that's fine. Because when it comes to wearing outlandish attire, only a few special people can pull it off. Veteran NBA writer Shaun Powell has worked for newspapers and other publications for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here or follow him on Twitter. The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - At least 1,320 underage Dutch girls between the ages of 12 and 17 fall victim to sexual exploitation in the Netherlands each year, a report on human trafficking published on Wednesday showed. That group makes up nearly half of female trafficking victims in the Dutch sex industry, Corinne Dettmeijer, National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children, said in the study. Dettmeijer said the report contained the first reliable statistics on human trafficking in the Netherlands and the first of their kind in Europe, but was concerned by a decline in cases indicating that fewer were being reported. The 108-page report compiled both domestic and United Nations figures from 2012-2016. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which cooperated on the report, is encouraging other countries to produce similar data, to help create a clearer international picture of the scale of the crimes. The total number of human trafficking victims in the Netherlands is roughly five times higher than reported figures indicated, at about 6,250 cases per year, it said, “meaning that many victims stay out of sight of authorities and support agencies.” Roughly half of about 3,000 cases of sexual exploitation, predominantly woman, involved underage girls. “The number is high, but what makes these statistics unique is that they show us what specific groups are falling prey to human trafficking,” National Rapporteur Corinne Dettmeijer said in an interview. “It has exposed our blind spots.” In a report published in 2015, the European Commission said there had been over 30,000 victims of human trafficking between 2010-2012 across all EU member States, of which around 1,000 were child victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation. Dettmeijer said it was known that a relatively high number of women from Central and Eastern Europe were being forced into the sex industry, but the number of underage Dutch girls was surprising. The figures were also remarkable because the number of reported cases of trafficking has fallen sharply over the past five years, from nearly 1,300 in 2012 to below a thousand last year. “I am very concerned about the falling number of reported cases,” Dettmeijer said. “This means that an increasingly larger portion of trafficking of humans is going unreported.”Russian state company Russian Technologies, or Rostec, has signed a $10 billion deal with China’s state-owned Shenhua Group Corp Ltd, the largest producer of coal in the world, to develop coal deposits in Russia’s Siberia and the Far East, Forbes reports. MOSCOW, September 7 (RIA Novosti) - Russian state company Russian Technologies, or Rostec, has signed a $10 billion deal with China’s state-owned Shenhua Group Corp Ltd, the largest producer of coal in the world, to develop coal deposits in Russia’s Siberia and the Far East, Forbes reports. According to the memorandum of understanding, signed by Sergey Chemezov, Rostec’s CEO, and Yuzhuo Zhang, the chairman of Shenhua Group Corporation, on September 4, the companies will explore and develop the Ogodzhinskoye coal deposit, located in the Amur Region. Coal reserves at the mine are estimated to be 1.6 billion metric tons. Rostec expects coal production to start in 2019 with an annual output reaching 30 million tons. The commodity will be largely exported to the Asia-Pacific Region, mainly China. Rostec and Shenhua will also build a marine coal terminal at Port Vera in the Primorsky Territory with annual capacity of 20 million tons. The construction is slated to begin in 2015 and Port Vera will be put into operation in 2018 – 2019. “The project to construct Port Vera will help implement the development strategy for the Far East and the Russian coal industry. It will greatly expand the access of Russian coal companies to sales markets in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Andrey Korobov, CEO of RT Global Resources, a Rostec subsidiary, according to the statement issued by the Russian state company. The project also involves constructing a power plant, high-voltage transmission lines to China, as well as social and transport infrastructure. According to Chemezov, the project will help deal with the issue of power shortages in Russia's Amur Region and China's northern regions and meet the electricity demand of those territories. It is also expected to create around 10,000 new jobs and up to 30,000 jobs in related and associated industries. “The cooperation with Shenhua is a comprehensive effort to broaden Russia’s energy business in Asia,” Chemezov explained, as quoted by Forbes. Korobov called Chinese companies professional partners that can be relied upon to help implement the most ambitious projects. The Rostec-Shenhua deal comes at a time of increasing cooperation between Russia and China in the energy sphere. In May, Russia's largest gas exporter Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a historic 30-year agreement worth $400 billion to deliver gas to China.Kotaku East East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. Excited about Metal Gear Solid V? Wondering when the main part, The Phantom Pain, is coming out? Game creator Hideo Kojima recently named a launch window for the game. It's incredibly vague. Hideo Kojima was in New York for the release of the PlayStation 4 earlier this month and was approached by Weekly Famitsu about Metal Gear Solid V. When asked why he was releasing the prologue separately from the main game, Kojima replied, "The main game –The Phantom Pain – is extremely massive and is still going to take a while. I discussed the situation with the marketing team and after much deliberation decided at least to let people play the prologue." Initially, Kojima intended for MGSV to be released as a single game, but apparently after showing the Fox Engine demo and periodically releasing information on the game, many fans seemed to fall under the impression that the bulk of the game was already completed. Kojima found himself receiving constant requests to hurry and release the game, and rather than prolonging the wait, he opted to give people an appetizer before feeding them the main course. Ground Zeroes is scheduled for release in Spring, 2014. So, how long will people have to wait after that for The Phantom Pain? "It looks like we'll be able to release The Phantom Pain around the time that the PlayStation 4 becomes widely adapted." Kojima answered. Apparently 4 million units isn't a high enough adaption rate for Kojima. Of course, more people going out and buying next-gen consoles isn't necessarily going to speed up the development, but here's hoping. Advertisement (Note: While Kojima made no mention of the Xbox 360 and Xbox One versions, keep in mind he was in New York for the release of the PS4.) ファミ通.com [ファミ通.com] Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. AdvertisementJust when the Chinese plunge protection team (and "arrest shortie" task force) seemed to be finally getting "malicious selling" under control, first we saw a crack yesterday when the composite broke the surge of the past three days as a result of yet another spike in margin debt funded purchases, but it was last night's reminder that "good news is bad news" that really confused the stock trading farmers and grandmas, which goalseeked Chinese economic "data" beat across the board, with Q2 GDP coming solidly above expectations at 7.0%, and retail sales and industrial production both beating, but in the process raising doubts that the PBOC will continue supporting stocks. After all, the only purpose of the stock bubble was to deflect attention from the bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse elsewhere in the economy. So if Beijing is willing to telegraph that the worst is over for the economy, there is no further need for SHCOMP 5000 which can now be carefully deflated, as otherwise a violent bursting threatens China's social stability. As a result the Shanghai Comp tumbled -3.0% and Hang Seng slid -0.3% with markets showing a subdued reaction as the data does dampen calls for further actions by the PBoC. However that does not do justice to yet another day of Chinese stock insanity. This does: BREAKING: Chinese stock market ends 3% lower, w/ 1,200+ stocks down 10% daily limit; Chinese media admit gov "failure to boost market" today — George Chen (@george_chen) July 15, 2015 Elsewhere in Asia equities traded mixed following a positive Wall Street close as soft retail sales data casted doubts over the viability of a Fed rate lift-off this year. Nikkei 225 (+0.4%) rose albeit off intra-day highs as the BoJ lowered its GDP and CPI forecasts for 2015, while the central bank also maintained its monetary base target at an annual rise of JPY 80trl. JGBs traded relatively flat in what has been a subdued session for fixed income markets. European Equites have trended higher after kicking off the session relatively mixed (Euro Stoxx: 0.0%) as many market participants await the main risk events later in the day, namely the Greek parliamentary vote and over in the US, Fed's Yellen's semi-annual testimony. While Yellen's testimony will hardly provide any major new data points (Fed Dow Jones data driven, ongoing bad news 6 years after the "end of the recession", such as the payrolls and retail sales misses are explained by snow in June and so on) and the only popcorn-worthy moment will be Hensaerling asking Yellen who at the Fed keeps leaking market-moving data to the market (now that Tim Geithner is gone) the best summary we have seen of the upcoming Greek vote, which is expected to pass through the parliament with support of the pro-European opposition parties, is the following: To be clear: the Greek parliament is voting today on a deal everyone knows is unfeasible, the IMF rejects & Schäuble doesn't want. Right? —
clutch of calls to world leaders. Key points: The ABC has spoken to senior Government sources who say The Washington Post report is "substantially accurate" Mr Trump reportedly claimed his conversation with Mr Turnbull was by far the worst of the day "I'm not going to comment on these reports of a conversation," PM says According to The Washington Post, Mr Trump claimed the refugee resettlement deal struck with former US president Barack Obama was "the worst deal ever", before abruptly ending the 25-minute phone call. Mr Trump reportedly accused the Prime Minister of seeking to export the "next Boston bombers" to the US, and complained that the deal was going to kill him politically. He reportedly said "I don't want these people" while discussing the resettlement deal with Mr Turnbull. At one point, Mr Trump reportedly claimed his conversation with Mr Turnbull was by far the worst of a day on which he also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the room during the call were Mr Trump's chief strategist Stephen Bannon, press secretary Sean Spicer and national security adviser Michael Flynn. The ABC has spoken to senior Australian Government sources who say The Washington Post report is "substantially accurate". Australian officials say the conversation was "robust" and "shorter than expected", while one minister has told the ABC that "Trump hates this deal". The revelations come amid mixed messages from the White House and the State Department, both of which issued statements on the refugee resettlement deal — the latter confirming it would go ahead, while the White House said the President remained undecided. Turnbull says relationship'very strong' Mr Turnbull refused to weigh in on the reports when pressed on the issue today. "I'm not going to comment on these reports of a conversation," he said. Mr Turnbull said conversations with world leaders are conducted "candidly, frankly, privately", but stressed that Australia's solid relationship with the US was still in place. "I can assure you the relationship is very strong," he said. "The fact we received the assurance that we did, the fact that it was confirmed, the very extensive engagement we have with the new administration underlines the closeness of the alliance. "But as Australians know me very well — I stand up for Australia in every forum — public or private." Opposition Leader Bill Shorten called on Mr Turnbull to confirm or deny the accuracy of the reports. "He made it clear that he had a constructive discussion and that the refugee deal, which Labor supports, was on track," he said. "But now it appears another different version of the same conversation has emerged. I just say to Turnbull, talk straight to the Australian people. Tell us what's going on." PM insists Trump gave him assurance on deal Despite refusing to comment on the reports, Mr Turnbull remained confident the resettlement deal would continue. "I can only say as I have said before, that I received the assurance that I did from the President himself," he said. "That assurance was confirmed by the President's spokesman in the briefing room of the White House. "That — and our officials, our respective officials — are continuing to work on the implementation of the arrangements. That's the position." In a statement, the US embassy in Canberra said Mr Trump's decision to honour the refugee agreement had not changed, and Mr Spicer's comments stand. "This was just reconfirmed to the State Department from the WH and on to this embassy at 1315 Canberra time," it read. Mr Turnbull described the call as "constructive" when addressing the media on Monday, saying the pair "acknowledged the already strong and deep relationship between the United States and Australia". A readout of the call from the White House stated that the pair "emphasised the enduring strength and closeness of the US-Australia relationship that is critical for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and globally". Philip Rucker, the journalist who broke the story for The Washington Post, told the ABC he had spoken with senior US officials who were briefed on the phone call. He described the phone call as "extraordinary" and said it was uncommon for personal phone calls between leaders to leaked to the media with such detail. Topics: world-politics, federal-government, government-and-politics, donald-trump, turnbull-malcolm, united-states, australia First postedSheffield Wednesday have signed goalkeeper Lewis Price on a free transfer. The shot-stopper, who was most recently with Premier League side Crystal Palace, has signed a one-year contract at Hillsborough. Price rose through the youth ranks at Ipswich and made his debut for the Tractor Boys in April 2004. Between 2003 and 2007, Price made 75 appearances for Ipswich and also enjoyed a brief loan spell with Cambridge in 2004. Derby moved for the services of the Bournemouth-born custodian in July 2007 and during his three years at Pride Park, he enjoyed three further loan spells, at MK Dons, Luton and Brentford. The Welsh international signed for then Championship club Palace in July 2010 and made a total of 16 appearances for the Eagles. Price played an integral part of the Palace side that reached the League Cup semi finals in 2011/12 and featured in the club’s victories over Crawley, Wigan, Middlesbrough, Southampton and Manchester United along the way. The 30-year-old was back on the move in 2014 and joined Mansfield on loan, posting five appearances for the Stags between April and May. During the 2014/15 season, Price signed on loan for League 1 outfit Crawley, originally until January 2015, but after impressing at the Broadfield Stadium, he promptly extended until the end of the campaign.Electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors is said to be releasing the newest Tesla car in March, and while no details have been confirmed, the price of the car has. The new Tesla car, the Model 3, will cost $35,000 which currently makes it the most affordable electric car on the market. Buying an electric car comes with tax credits, which could already push the Model 3’s price below that of the cost of an average new car in the United States. However, production of the Model 3 is only set to start in 2017, meaning consumers will have to wait and see whether the tax credits will still apply. Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk was quoted as saying: "I would try to take pains to say, look, our goal from the beginning has been to drive forward the electric car revolution, and we needed time to refine the technology — get to version two, get to version three. And really, with version three — the $30,000 car — that's where it becomes mass market." With the new Model 3, Tesla hopes to enter the mass market by creating electric cars that the general American can afford, a far leap from the company’s first vehicle the Tesla Roadster which sells for $109,000. With the general cost of a new car being set at around $31,000, the Model 3 which will sell for $35,000, could be eligible for a tax incentive of up to $6,000 or more, that could set the car’s final price at an affordable $21,500.When a passenger held a knife to his throat three years ago, Muhammad Azeez stopped driving taxi for a month. He’s still too scared to work the night shift. Azeez is not alone. According to a 2011 survey, Toronto’s iTaxiworkers Association reported more than half of the respondents had been assaulted, and 70 per cent felt in physical danger while driving. Cab driver Walayat Khan lost his best friend, Mahmood Bhatti, to a multiple stabbing attack in 2006. Cameras have been installed in all Toronto taxis, reducing assaults but leaving taxi drivers still the most vulnerable of all occupational groups. ( Charla Jones / Toronto Star file photo ) Many cities believe partitions in cabs are the best way to protect drivers. But new research from the U.S. shows that dashboard cameras, not partitions, are most effective at reducing taxi driver homicides. These findings come amid a city-wide review of the taxi industry. Three Toronto drivers were stabbed in one week earlier this year, despite the requirement of cameras in cabs. The review will also assess the feasibility of adding partitions. Azeez believes that might be the best option. “Maybe a partition would have stopped him putting a knife to my throat,” he says of his assailant. “The camera takes a picture, but a partition actually shields you from a person with a gun or knife.” Article Continued Below Crimes against taxi drivers dropped 75 per cent after cameras became mandatory in Toronto cabs in 2005. But the murder rate involving cab drivers still remains the highest of all occupations. Following the brutal murder of driver Mahmood Bhatti by a passenger in 2006, Councillor Janet Davis brought forward a motion to approve partitions. It passed, and the idea is currently under review. “The preliminary results show 53 per cent in favour of partitions,” Davis said. She believes both partitions and cameras may be necessary. “There are many violent incidents against taxi drivers every year, and we have an obligation to protect taxi drivers from murder and assault using whichever means possible.” A study of taxi driver murders in 26 U.S. cities by the National Institute of Occupation Safety and Health suggests that cameras have by far the bigger effect: the murder rate was seven times lower after cameras were introduced. But after examining 15 years of data, the study found that cities with partitions had the same cabbie murder rate as cities with no security measures at all. Taxi drivers are divided on the idea of installing partitions. Saleem Irshad, general manager of Diamond Taxis and a 30-year veteran of the industry, believes partitions will push customers to use limousines instead. “Toronto taxi cabs are small as it is, and if we have to install partitions, it will make it too uncomfortable to sit in the back.” The city’s answer is expected in January, when the final results of the Taxi Industry Review are due to be published.Now this is a fun rumor. As the Yankees try to pick themselves up after three losses in a row (including an ugly high-scoring affair in Colorado on Tuesday night), trade rumor season has arrived. The MLB Draft is in the books, meaning front offices can focus on the stretch drive for 2016. In Chicago, the Cubs are focused on just one thing: Winning a World Series in October and breaking a drought that has been going on since before World War I began. Predicting MLB blockbusters Enter the Yankees, potentially as sellers, and a bullpen that has multiple intriguing pieces for the Cubs to scout. While the idea of Chicago landing one of Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman or Dellin Betances was logical, the latest report on the Cubs interest in Yankees reliever is downright scary--at least for the other National League contenders. According to Phil Rogers of MLB.com, the rumors aren't just true; they've been understated. Chicago doesn't just want one of the Yankees arms. They want Chapman and Miller, per Rogers' story: Yes, Miller and Chapman in the same deal. I'd guarantee you that the Cubs will at least explore that, assuming the Yankees get to the point where they are willing to make them available. Rogers goes on to explain the desperation from Cubs ownership, Theo Epstein's history with Miller and how the club could sure up it's only weakness by adding two impact players. From the Yankees perspective, Miller-for-Kyle Schwarber may have been off the table and Jorge Soler could be possible, but it's hard to imagine much off limits if New York includes both--which means keeping Miller and/or Chapman away from other NL contenders like the Nationals and Giants. Prospects Yankees can target Buckle up, Yankees fans. The team doesn't sell often, but when they do, big possibilities apparently do exist. Joe Giglio may be reached at jgiglio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoeGiglioSports. Find NJ.com on Facebook.This article is a collaboration between The New Yorker, ProPublica, and WNYC. In the spring of 2012, Donald Trump’s two eldest children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., found themselves in a precarious legal position. For two years, prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office had been building a criminal case against them for misleading prospective buyers of units in the Trump SoHo, a hotel and condo development that was failing to sell. Despite the best efforts of the siblings’ defense team, the case had not gone away. An indictment seemed like a real possibility. The evidence included e-mails from the Trumps making clear that they were aware they were using inflated figures about how well the condos were selling to lure buyers. In one e-mail, according to four people who have seen it, the Trumps discussed how to coördinate false information they had given to prospective buyers. In another, according to a person who read the e-mails, they worried that a reporter might be on to them. In yet another, Donald, Jr., spoke reassuringly to a broker who was concerned about the false statements, saying that nobody would ever find out, because only people on the e-mail chain or in the Trump Organization knew about the deception, according to a person who saw the e-mail. There was “no doubt” that the Trump children “approved, knew of, agreed to, and intentionally inflated the numbers to make more sales,” one person who saw the e-mails told us. “They knew it was wrong.” In 2010, when the Major Economic Crimes Bureau of the D.A.’s office opened an investigation of the siblings, the Trump Organization had hired several top New York criminal-defense lawyers to represent Donald, Jr., and Ivanka. These attorneys had met with prosecutors in the bureau several times. They conceded that their clients had made exaggerated claims, but argued that the overstatements didn’t amount to criminal misconduct. Still, the case dragged on. In a meeting with the defense team, Donald Trump, Sr., expressed frustration that the investigation had not been closed. Soon after, his longtime personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, entered the case. Audio: Listen to WNYC’s story about how Ivanka and Donald Trump, Jr., came close to being charged with felony fraud. Kasowitz, who by then had been the elder Donald Trump’s attorney for a decade, is primarily a civil litigator, with little experience in criminal matters. But, in 2012, Kasowitz donated twenty-five thousand dollars to the reëlection campaign of the Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr., making Kasowitz one of Vance’s largest donors. Kasowitz decided to bypass the lower-level prosecutors and went directly to Vance to ask that the investigation be dropped. On May 16, 2012, Kasowitz visited Vance’s office at One Hogan Place, in downtown Manhattan—a faded edifice made famous by the television show “Law & Order.” Dan Alonso, the Chief Assistant District Attorney, and Adam Kaufmann, the chief of the investigative division, were also at the meeting, but no one from the Major Economic Crimes Bureau attended. Kasowitz did not introduce any new arguments or facts during his session. He simply repeated the arguments that the other defense lawyers had been making for months. Ultimately, Vance overruled his own prosecutors. Three months after the meeting, he told them to drop the case. Kasowitz subsequently boasted to colleagues about representing the Trump children, according to two people. He said that the case was “really dangerous,” one person said, and that it was “amazing I got them off.” (Kasowitz denied making such a statement.) Vance defended his decision. “I did not at the time believe beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed,” he told us. “I had to make a call and I made the call, and I think I made the right call.” Just before the 2012 meeting, Vance’s campaign had returned Kasowitz’s twenty-five-thousand-dollar contribution, in keeping with what Vance describes as standard practice when a donor has a case before his office. Kasowitz “had no influence, and his contributions had no influence whatsoever on my decision-making in the case,” Vance said. But, less than six months after the D.A.’s office dropped the case, Kasowitz made an even larger donation to Vance’s campaign, and helped raise more from others—eventually, a total of more than fifty thousand dollars. After being asked about these donations as part of the reporting for this article—more than four years after the fact—Vance said he now plans to give back Kasowitz’s second contribution, too. “I don’t want the money to be a millstone around anybody’s neck, including the office’s,” he said. Kasowitz told us that his donations to Vance were unrelated to the case. “I donated to Cy Vance’s campaign because I was and remain extremely impressed by him as a person of impeccable integrity, as a brilliant lawyer and as a public servant with creative ideas and tremendous ability,” Kasowitz wrote in an e-mailed statement. “I have never made a contribution to anyone’s campaign, including Cy Vance’s, as a ‘quid-pro-quo’ for anything.” Last year, the Times reported the existence of the criminal investigation into the Trump SoHo project. But the prosecutor’s focus on Ivanka and Donald, Jr., and the e-mail evidence against them, as well as Kasowitz’s involvement, and Vance’s decision to overrule his prosecutors, had not previously been made public. This account is based on interviews with twenty sources familiar with the investigation, court records, and other public documents. We were not able to review copies of the e-mails that were the focal point of the inquiry. We are relying on the accounts of multiple individuals who have seen them. Requests for interviews with Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., were referred to Alan Garten, the chief legal officer of the Trump Organization. In an e-mailed response, Garten did not address a list of questions about the criminal case. Instead, he quoted the company’s filings in civil litigation relating to the Trump SoHo, which described complaints as “a simple case of buyers’ remorse.” But even a lawyer in the Trump camp acknowledged that the way the case was resolved was unusual. “Dropping the case was reasonable,” Paul Grand, a partner at Morvillo Abramowitz who was part of the Trump SoHo defense team, said. “The manner in which it was accomplished is curious.” Grand, who was a partner of Vance’s when the District Attorney was in private practice, said that he did not believe that the D.A.’s office had evidence of criminal misconduct by the Trump children. But the meeting between Vance and Kasowitz “didn’t have an air you’d like,” he said. “If you and I were District Attorney and you knew that a subject of an investigation was represented by two or three well-thought-of lawyers in town, and all of a sudden someone who was a contributor to your campaign showed up on your doorstep, and the regular lawyers are nowhere to be seen, you’d think about how you’d want to proceed.” In June, 2006, during the season finale of “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump, Sr., unveiled the Trump SoHo as a visionary project. The luxury development was intended to mark the ascension of Ivanka and Donald, Jr.,—then twenty-four and twenty-eight years old, respectively—as full players in the Trump empire. They signed the licensing deal alongside their father, and photographs of Ivanka were featured in the Trump SoHo’s advertising, under the tagline “Possess your own SoHo.” Their partners on the project included two Soviet-born businessmen, Felix Sater and Tevfik Arif, who ran the Bayrock Group, a real-estate-development firm. Sater had a history of running afoul of the law. In 1993, he was convicted of assault and spent about a year in prison for attacking a man with the stem of a margarita glass in a bar fight. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering for his role in a forty-million-dollar securities-fraud scheme. The Trump SoHo was beleaguered from the start: named for one of Manhattan’s trendiest neighborhoods, the development wasn’t really in SoHo but located just west of it, near the entrance ramp to the Holland Tunnel. Zoning laws wouldn’t allow a residential tower at the location, so the Trumps fell back on an alternative: a “condo-hotel,” in which buyers got a hotel room rather than an apartment, and were legally prohibited from staying there more than a hundred and twenty nights per year. Worse, the high-priced condos hit the market in September, 2007, just as the global economy began to crater in what became the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Business was slow, but the Trump family claimed the opposite. In April, 2008, they said that thirty-one per cent of the condos in the building had been purchased. Donald, Jr., boasted to The Real Deal magazine that fifty-five per cent of the units had been bought. In June, 2008, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka, alongside their brother Eric, gathered the foreign press at Trump Tower in Manhattan, where Ivanka announced that sixty per cent had been snapped up. “We’re in a very fortunate position where we have enough sales, and now we are strategically targeting certain buyers,” she said. None of that was true. According to a sworn affidavit by a Trump partner filed with the New York Attorney General’s office, by March of 2010, almost two years after the press conference, only 15.8 per cent of units had been sold. This was more than a marketing problem. The deal hinged on selling at least fifteen per cent of the units. By law, the sales couldn’t close with anything less. The Trumps and their partners would have had to return the buyers’ down payments. Some buyers concluded that they’d been cheated. In August, 2010, some sued the Trump Organization and others involved in the project in New York federal court. “This action seeks to redress the substantial and ongoing pattern of fraudulent misrepresentations and deceptive sales practices” by the Trumps and the other defendants, the suit charged. The plaintiffs argued that there’s a vast difference in value between a unit in a building that is fifteen-per-cent sold and one that is sixty-per-cent sold. Their complaint accused the sellers, including the Trumps, of “a consistent and concerted pattern of outright lies.” After the civil suit was filed, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office opened a criminal investigation. Prosecutors are often wary of getting involved in a dispute between wealthy litigants. But, in this instance, according to a person familiar with their thinking, the lawyers in the Major Economic Crimes Bureau quickly concluded that there was enough to warrant an investigation. They believed that Ivanka and Donald, Jr., might have violated the Martin Act, a New York statute that bans any false statement in conjunction with the sale of a security or real estate. Prosecutors also saw potential fraud and larceny charges,applying a legal theory that, by overstating the number of units sold, the Trumps were falsely inflating their value and, in effect, cheating unsuspecting condo buyers. Peirce Moser, an Assistant District Attorney known for his methodical, comprehensive investigations, soon took over the case. “He is not a cowboy,” Marc Scholl, who spent almost forty years as a prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office, said. “He is certainly not out to make headlines for himself or to advance himself.” On the other side, the Trumps’ defense team included Gary Naftalis and David Frankel, of the law firm Kramer Levin; Paul Grand represented one of the real-estate brokers who had worked with the Trumps. As the investigation progressed, Vance suffered an embarrassing setback in one of his highest-profile cases. In the summer of 2011, his office had abandoned a sexual-assault case against the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Vance, who was pummelled in the press afterward, denied in his interview with us that the case made him reluctant to take on another prominent defendant. A few months later, on January 11, 2012, Marc Kasowitz contributed twenty-five thousand dollars to Vance’s campaign, unbeknownst to prosecutors in the Major Economic Crimes Bureau, who continued their work. Moser was particularly focussed on e-mail correspondence, according to seven people familiar with the case. Moser began considering impanelling a special grand jury, according to a person familiar with the investigation. That would have represented a significant escalation in the case, because it is often a prelude to indictments. With a grand jury in place, defense lawyers knew the risk of indictment was high. The defense team offered a deal to stave off this possibility, floating the possibility of a settlement of some kind, including a deferred prosecution agreement, which would have meant the corporate equivalent of probation for the Trump Organization. With the investigation appearing to gather momentum, Naftalis and Grand, who had already met with the prosecutors twice, began to step up their campaign against the case. Grand calls this the “internal appellate process.” Particularly when well-heeled or high-profile defendants are involved, there can be a multi-month advocacy process that slowly makes its way up the hierarchy inside the Manhattan D.A.’s office. Grand and Naftalis decided that it would be unwise to go over the heads of the staff prosecutors. Instead, on April 18, 2012, they sent a letter to Adam Kaufmann, then the chief of the investigative division (he’s now in private practice), outlining their arguments. The next day, the defense lawyers met with Moser, Kaufmann, and others from the prosecution team. The defense team acknowledged that the Trumps made some exaggerated statements in order to sell the units. But this was mere “puffery”—harmless exaggeration. Such language, they contended, didn’t amount to criminal conduct. The Trumps weren’t selling useless swampland in Florida. The condos existed. And the buyers’ money was in escrow the entire time. The defense lawyers argued that bringing such a case to trial would be wasteful and that resources would be better spent on more serious offenses. As Grand put it to us during our recent interview, “I guess in a world that is completely pure and where there is no deviation between propriety and the law, that kind of exaggeration and deliberately concentrated exaggeration can be pursued. But is that the kind of criminal-law enforcement the D.A. should be doing?” Moser’s answer seemed to be yes, and he found support among his supervisors. Moser had prepared an elaborate PowerPoint presentation, featuring dozens of e-mails that prosecutors believed showed that Ivanka and Donald, Jr., had repeatedly lied to buyers. “You couldn’t have had a better e-mail trail,” a person familiar with the investigation told us. At the meeting, Kaufmann peppered the defense team with questions, at one point raising his voice, according to a person who was there. “I believed in the case,” Kaufmann told us, though he declined to discuss the evidence. “But believing in the case doesn’t mean we had reached the point when [I had] settled on what should happen with the case.” White-collar criminal cases are often challenging to bring because of their complexity. And, by the time of the April meeting, prosecutors knew that they faced another impediment, this one created by legal maneuvers in the Trumps’ civil case. Five months earlier, the Trumps and their partners had reached a settlement with the disgruntled buyers. The defendants agreed to return ninety per cent of the buyers’ deposits, plus their attorneys’ fees. But they extracted a rare concession in return: the plaintiffs agreed not to coöperate with prosecutors unless they were subpoenaed. (Garten, the Trump Organization’s chief legal officer, noted that the settlement terms were confidential and declined to comment on them.) Adam Leitman Bailey, the attorney for the buyers, had been helping prosecutors. Now he provided aid to the Trumps, writing a letter to the District Attorney that stated, “We acknowledge that the Defendants have not violated the criminal laws of the State of New York or the United States.” In our interview with Vance, he said that he had never before seen a letter where plaintiffs in a civil case asserted that no crime had been committed. “I don’t think I’d ever received a letter like it,” Vance said. He calls it a “significant and important” communication. Certainly, prosecutors could subpoena the buyers of Trump condos. But they feared the witnesses would undercut the criminal case by claiming they weren’t victims of a fraud. Still, Moser, backed by his supervisors, persisted. “Peirce believed in his case,” Grand said. “We did not succeed in talking him out of it and didn’t succeed in talking one or two levels above him into dropping the case.”JP LeBreton was the main designer on the planty bit of BioShock: Arcadia. He recently joined his friends from the Idle Thumbs podcast to play through some early sections of BioShock, including his own, and talk about how they were built and why. You can watch the whole thing on their Twitch TV channel (skip the first 5m 30s), but since I don't entirely trust you to do that on my vague recommendation, I'll mention a few of the many interesting things I learned from it to sway anyone who hasn't already clicked that link. 1. The Horror Pass The designer of Thief 3's Shalebridge Cradle and BioShock's Fort Frolic, Jordan Thomas, did a 'horror pass' on BioShock: to go through the game and insert or enhance scary bits. The Cradle is famous for being one of the creepiest levels in a game, and it's interesting to see the horror elements of BioShock singled out. Separately, both JP and the designer of the Medical Pavilion used a cheap trick that makes me jump every time: that bit where you turn round to find a surgeon Splicer standing right behind you. 2. Don't Look at the Door The cave-in that forces you to take a detour into Arcadia is triggered by walking through a particular chunk of space, and triggers a little earlier if you happen to be looking in the right direction as you approach. JP recalls a speed-runner figured out both these conditions, and managed to stack objects to climb a tree and jump over the trigger. Since he also knew that looking at the door would trigger the blockage, he had to do the whole thing while very purposefully looking the other way. I don't think it's the exact one he's talking about, but the trick is used in the current record-holding speed run of BioShock: see part 6 of Mirko Brown's 1h 06m run. 3. Sisters Beyond Salvation At one point, it wasn't possible to save Little Sisters. Your choice was to harvest them, killing the girl but giving you precious Adam, or stick to your principles and go without. I'm really sad they didn't stick with this - I adored the game, but it really bothered me that the mechanics actually bribe you to do the right thing, rather than forcing a choice between principles and pragmatism. I'm guessing the drawback was that moralistic players wouldn't compromise even if the difficulty became tedious, denying themselves both the Big Daddy boss fights and access to a broad set of plasmids, which are two pretty key parts of the experience. Seems like there are ways around that. 4. The Biogun There's an odd looking thing on a workbench in the apiary of Arcadia, looks sort of like a weapon. It is a weapon, but it was cut: the Biogun was meant to be a sort of indirect utility weapon, firing a variety of things from Splicer repellent to bees. It was cut because that's what plasmids are for, and that's why we can fire bees from our hands. The story of the bee-ammo pickup is hilarious, and you should hear it for yourself. 5. Arkane's BioShock 2 Intro Dark Messiah and Dishonored developers Arkane did contract work for BioShock 2, including a whole opening segment to the game that was never used. It started in the Kashmir restaurant in its prime, before the revolution that ruined Rapture, and before the decay that flooded it. You'd then flash forward to the same place during BioShock 2's time, completely underwater. It sounds great. The whole thing is a couple of hours long, in three parts, and very much worth watching. The Idle Thumbs podcast is also great - you can grab their latest ones on their Kickstarter page.The punitive action follows criticism of Indonesian authorities for their failure to act to prevent such a widespread use of fires, which led to the worst pollution in the region for almost two decades. Twenty-three companies were sanctioned or had land-clearing licenses revoked, after being found to be responsible for starting the fires. Those firms facing punishment were mostly pulp wood and palm oil plantations operating on Sumatra and Borneo islands. As a result, three companies shut down altogether. The forest fires led to the deaths of 19 people as they spread lingering haze across Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Urban areas affected The smog caused a health and environmental crisis, estimated to have cost the Indonesian economy around $16 billion. More than half a million people suffered acute respiratory infections in Indonesia alone. Tuesday's announcement was the first time the government has revoked company licenses over forest fires, an annual occurrence caused by slash-and-burn land clearance. The haze severely limited visibility in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur for several weeks, causing health problems The Forestry Ministry's investigations director, Brotestes Panjaitan, said a further 33 firms remained under scrutiny and that decisions on possible punishment were still to be decided. "We do not hesitate to take stern legal action against companies found violating the law," Panjaitan said on Tuesday. The ministry confirmed that a total of 56 companies were involved in illegal land-clearing activities and that 276 firms were investigated since the latest fires broke out in September. Eco-groups happy The firmer response was welcomed by environmental activists, who said the most the government had done until now was to name suspects allegedly involved in the forest fires. "The minister has the courage to not only freeze the companies' operation but also chase the owners in a civil case, this is great and this must be guarded carefully," Riko Kurniawan, from The Indonesian Forum for Environment told Agence-France Pres. He added that it was unheard of for the government to revoke licenses and many companies previously avoided facing trial. Forest fires have been an annual problem in the region since the mid-1990s, but this year's was the worst since 1997 when blazes spread across nearly 10 million hectares. Last year, regional countries signed an agreement on transboundary haze pollution but calls for Indonesia to do more had, until now, fallen on deaf ears, some analysts said. mm/jm (AFP, AP)You could say that perfectionism is a against humanity. Adaptability is the characteristic that enables the species to survive—and if there's one thing perfectionism does, it rigidifies behavior. It constricts people just when the fast-moving world requires more flexibility and comfort with ambiguity than ever. It turns people into success slaves. , experts now know, are made and not born, commonly at an early age. They also know that perfectionism is increasing. One reason: Pressure on children to achieve is rampant, because parents now seek much of their status from the performance of their kids. And, by itself, pressure to achieve is perceived by kids as criticism for mistakes; criticism turns out to be implicit in it. Perfectionism, too, is a form of parental control, and parental control of offspring is greater than ever in the new economy and global marketplace, realities that are deeply unsettling to today's adults. "I don't understand it," one bewildered student told me, speaking for the five others seated around the table during lunch at a small residential college in the Northeast. "My parents were perfectly happy to get Bs and Cs when they were in college. But they expect me to get As." The others nodded in agreement. Today's hothouse parents are not only over-involved in their children's lives, they demand perfection from them in school. And if ever there was a blueprint for breeding psychological distress, that's it. Perfectionism seeps into the psyche and creates a pervasive style. It keeps people from engaging in challenging experiences; they don't get to discover what they truly like or to create their own identities. Perfectionism reduces playfulness and the assimilation of knowledge; if you're always focused on your own performance and on defending yourself, you can't focus on a task. Here's the cosmic thigh-slapper: Because it lowers the ability to take risks, perfectionism reduces and innovation—exactly what's not adaptive in the global marketplace. Yet, it does more. It is a steady source of negative emotions; rather than reaching toward something positive, those in its grip are focused on the very thing they most want to avoid—negative evaluation. Perfectionism, then, is an endless report card; it keeps people completely self-absorbed, engaged in perpetual self-evaluation—reaping relentless frustration and doomed to anxiety and. No one knows this better than psychologist Randy O. Frost, a professor at Smith College. His research over the past two decades has helped define the dimensions of perfectionism. This, he's found, is what perfectionism sounds like: "If someone does a task at work or school better than me, then I feel like I failed the whole task." "Other people seem to accept lower standards from themselves than I do." "My parents want me to be the best at everything." "As a child, I was punished for doing things imperfectly." "I tend to get behind in my work because I repeat things over and over." "Neatness is very important to me." Each statement captures a facet of perfectionism: Concern over mistakes: Perfectionists tend to interpret mistakes as equivalent to failure and to believe they will lose the respect of others following failure. High personal standards: Perfectionists don't just set very high standards but place excessive importance on those standards for self-evaluation. Parental expectations: Perfectionists tend to believe their parents set very high goals for them. Parental criticism: Perfectionists perceive that their parents are (or were) overly critical. Doubting actions: Perfectionists doubt their ability to accomplish tasks. Organization: Perfectionists tend to emphasize order. By itself, having high standards (or being orderly) does not impale a person on perfectionism; it is necessary, but not sufficient. "Most people who are successful set very high standards for themselves," observes Frost. "They tend to be happy." What turns life into the punishing pursuit of perfection is the extent to which people are worried about mistakes. Concern with mistakes and doubts about actions are absolute prerequisites for perfectionism. Perfectionists that a mistake will lead others to think badly of them; the performance aspect is intrinsic to their view of themselves. They are haunted by uncertainty whenever they complete a task, which makes them reluctant to consider something finished. "People may not necessarily believe they made a mistake," explains Frost, "they're
down election posters to showcase Northern Ireland and our beautiful scenery, also applies to flags and paramilitary murals." Image copyright PAcemaker Image caption Anna Lo wants flags and paramilitary murals removed from the Giro d'Italia route She added: "Funding will be made available in towns along the route to improve the image of eyesores such as derelict buildings but I have a bigger problem with images of paramilitary gunmen. "Do we really want these images to be visible on the route when millions of people will be watching the race on television? "Why would we spend money on improving derelict buildings but not deal with threatening and intimidating paramilitary murals?"Cosmic dust containing elements like iron, carbon or oxygen plays an important role in the formation of planets and stars. But early galaxies consisted only of gas, and the dust appeared later. Where the dust came from has long been a mystery. After years of searching, astronomers have observed cosmic dust that appears to have survived the hot aftermath of a supernova. The finding was reported in the journal Science. “When a supernova explodes, it forms a bunch of dust” said Ryan Lau, an astronomer at Cornell University and lead author of the new study. “But dust is pretty fragile material. So the question is, who’s to say the dust survives this extremely hot, violent environment? And if it does, how much?” Using infrared images from an observatory aboard a Boeing 747, Dr. Lau and his colleagues located a supernova remnant near the center of the Milky Way with substantial amounts of cosmic dust.The entry list for the next round of the 2016 FIA WEC at the Nurburgring shows the expected 33 car grid, but with some significant changes to the driver line-ups from earlier in the season. In LMP1, as expected, Mathias Beche replaces Nelson Piquet Junior in the #12 Rebellion R-One. In LMP2 there are a trio of changes from the last six hour race at Spa. Alex Brundle takes up his position at G-Drive in the #26 Oreca 05 Nissan. Lewis Williamson gets his FIA WEC debut in the #42 Strakka Racing Gibson 015S Nissan, replacing Danny Watts. And at Manor there’s the, as yet, unexplained replacement of Will Stevens in the #44 Oreca 05 Nissan by Antonio Pizzonia, the ex Jaguar and Williams F1 driver making his first appearance in LMP2 since a two race stint in the FIA WEC in 2013 that saw him help ADR Delta to a pole position and a class win at Silverstone (below). In GTE Pro the addition of Harry Tincknell to the #67 Ford GT crew for the remainder of the season is confirmed and the reshuffle at Aston Martin Racing with Darren Turner moving over to the #97 from the #95, and Fernando Rees and Jonny Adam ‘parked’ is confirmed too. No changes to report in GTE AM though the official entry still has Paolo Ruberti listed, (Stop Press, now confirmed!) after the Italian’s recovery from a back injury suffered in the lead up to Le Mans. ENTRY LIST >>Not time to wake up (Image: Universal Images Group/Getty) It’s the day of your operation. As the anaesthetic kicks in, you start to drift off… only to reawaken with a scalpel cutting away at you. It is the stuff of nightmares, and there is no fail-safe way to stop it happening, says anaesthesiologist Alex Proekt, at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. People wake under general anaesthetic about once in every 19,000 cases, according to a large study last year, and when paralysing drugs have been used, their awake state can go unnoticed. But that might be about to change. There is mounting evidence that the stability of brain activity could indicate when a person is no longer still under, and enable us to do something about it. Advertisement Proekt and his team used grids of electrodes placed directly on the brain to record the activity of four monkeys as they lost consciousness under one of two common anaesthetics. They then used computer modelling based on dynamical systems theory to test how stable this activity was. According to this theory, stable systems can respond to changes by returning to a baseline state, whereas unstable systems go haywire. While awake, the monkey brains seem poised between mathematical stability and instability. But as the monkeys succumbed to anaesthesia, the activity of their brains became more stable. A study in April found that tiny bursts of stability, in which brain activity holds steady for hundreds of milliseconds, are necessary for us to consciously perceive something. But Proekt’s work suggests that if this goes on for too long, you will become unconscious. Conversely, modelling suggests that if signals spread too much, this may also cause a loss of consciousness. “The brain is somehow balancing between the two,” says Proekt. Together, the studies illustrate the delicate balance of the conscious brain, says Aaron Schurger of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, who did the earlier work. “The system is pushed towards the boundary between stability and instability so that it can perform a delicate dance from one state to another,” he says. Doctors can currently use methods like EEG monitoring of brain activity to check whether a patient is still unconscious. But the signals that these monitors pick up vary with the depth of anaesthesia, and don’t work for certain drugs. By EEG measures, the brain of someone knocked out with ketamine looks the same as that of an awake person. Proekt thinks being able to record and test the stability of brain activity in real time will allow him, and other anaesthetists, to more accurately assess the consciousness of the people they are putting to sleep and keep them under for the required length of time. Journal reference: Journal of Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.4895-14.2015Image caption Contaminated water supplies are worsening the cholera outbreak Health officials and medical agencies in Haiti are racing to stem a cholera epidemic that has reached the crowded capital Port-au-Prince and threatens to spiral out of control. The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is struggling to get a clear picture of the situation. "I wouldn't say it is out of control but it is a huge challenge," said Claire-Lise Chaignat, head of the WHO's global cholera taskforce. "We know that cases have now reached [the capital] Port-au-Prince, but there are quite a lot of areas we have no knowledge of, for example the rural areas," she told the BBC. "We are very concerned about the strength of the epidemic in Port-au-Prince because we know that people are living in terrible conditions where the water is very poor quality, there is hardly any sanitation and it is overcrowded. This might be a big outbreak." 'Explosive setting' Cholera is a bacterial disease spread by contaminated drinking water or food, but is treatable with oral or intravenous rehydration and antibiotics. Stefano Zannini, Medecins Sans Frontieres' head of mission in Haiti, described the situation as "worrying and complicated". "At the moment people are focusing on Port-au-Prince, but from the north and the north-west we are hearing of a catastrophic situation with bodies in the streets," he told the BBC. "Port-au-Prince is probably the most explosive setting, but the situation in other parts of Haiti is not so easy at all." If we want to stop the outbreak we have to make sure the people don't get contaminated any more and that is by having a safe water supply Claire-Lise Chaignat, World Health Organisation Mr Zannini said about 400 beds were available in cholera treatment centres (CTCs) across the country and another 600 would be in place by the end of the week. He said they were also putting up tents in parts of Port-au-Prince where anyone with symptoms can be treated and if necessary be referred to a hospital or CTC. "We have two big challenges - the first is the lack of medical personnel. The second is getting the information about cholera to the population. Many people are still not aware of the need to go straight to hospital if they are sick." Ms Chaignat said a priority was to make sure people had access to clean water. "The situation that the population is living in is absolutely disastrous," she said. "If we want to stop the outbreak we have to make sure the people don't get contaminated any more and that is by having a safe water supply, and ensuring people use proper hygiene and good food safety practices. She said that supplies were stockpiled but could become stretched if the epidemic worsens. "At the moment there is a small proportion of cases who need IV (intravenous) fluids, but if you have 100 cases that on average need 10l (2.2 gallons) you already need 1,000l of IV fluid and logistically that is challenging. Haiti has never had a cholera epidemic before and this is new for everybody." Alerting population The British Red Cross has been sending hygiene promotion volunteers door-to-door across refugee camps to advise people how to keep themselves and their families safe. The agency has also broadcast hygiene advice to hundreds of thousands of people using mobile phone text messages, local radio and newspapers. Borry Jatta, the British Red Cross sanitation expert in Port-au-Prince, said: "Once people have the disease, treatment is vital, but prevention is the real key. Providing clean water and sanitation, and letting people know how they can protect themselves can cut the chain of transmission." The agency says it is boosting supplies of intravenous drips, rehydration salts and antibiotics, and delivering 2.5m litres of clean water every day. "In the camps we can provide those elements, but there are hundreds-of-thousands more living in Port-au-Prince who don't have access to clean water, and who don't have access to decent toilets," said Mr Jatta. "We are doing all we can, but despite that, cholera in Port-au-Prince still has the potential to be a massive humanitarian disaster." Medecins Sans Frontieres says its staff are now treating all cases of severe diarrhoea according to standard cholera treatment guidelines. Hurricane Tomas More than 70 people are being treated for the disease in the city and health workers say there are dozens more suspected cases. The disease had already killed more than 540 people when Hurricane Tomas swept in last week, flooding areas where earthquake survivors were already living with only basic sanitation. The storm also flooded rivers including the Artibonite, believed to be one the main sources of the cholera outbreak. Jon Kim Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organisation (Paho), warned that cholera transmission in Port-au-Prince was expected "to be extensive". Gabriel Thimote, Haiti's health ministry director, has said the cholera epidemic was now "a matter of national security". However, US State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley said he believed the Haitian government's aggressive response, along with the help of international partners, should help contain the disease. "Tragically, we know that people will die from cholera even though it is a very treatable disease," he said. "But, through a combination of the improved surveillance, the pre-positioned stocks that are on hand in Haiti, that Haiti is well positioned to contain the outbreak."Seagate is cutting most Barracuda and Momentus warranty periods down to one year with others moving from five-year warranties to three. Following on from Western Digital cutting some of its warranty periods to two years, we learn that Seagate is going further. In a letter to its authorised distributors, dated 6 December 2011, the company writes: Effective December 31, 2011, Seagate will be changing its warranty policy from a 5 year to a 3 year warranty period for Nearline drives, 5 years to 1 year for certain Desktop and Notebook Bare Drives, 5 years to 3 years on Barracuda XT and Momentus XT, and from as much as 5 years to 2 years on Consumer Electronics. The details of the new warranty periods are:- Constellation 2 and ES.2 drives: 3 years Barracuda and Barracuda Green 3.5-inch drives: 1 year Barracuda XT: 3 years Momentus 2.5-inch (5400 and 7200rpm): 1 year Momentus XT: 3 years SV35 Series - Video Surveillance: 2 years Pipeline HD Mini, Pipeline HD: 2 years Mission-critical and retail products are not affected by this change. The new warranty periods will apply to shipments from 31 December. Seagate says it is standardising warranty terms "to be more consistent with those commonly applied throughout the consumer electronics and technology industries. By aligning to current industry standards Seagate can continue to focus its investments on technology innovation and unique product features that drive value for our customers rather than holding long-term reserves for warranty returns". Possible translation: Seagate needs to switch some warranty funding into product development. ®When in trouble, what better escape than to cause more trouble? The Great Successor also referred to as the Dear Leader (Junior Edition ) summoned the head of his intelligence team for an urgent consultation. As the spymaster entered his chamber, knees knocking together in fear (for when did any Supreme Commander invite his dirty tricks czar for coffee and conversation?) he was met with the piercing gaze of a rattled boss. "What's this i hear?" barked North Korea's undisputed supremo. The spy chief was mystified. All through the day, he and his deputies eavesdropped on the conversations of ordinary citizens that were dreary, desolate and dead boring. It seemed unlikely that NoKo's top dog had sniffed out anything intriguing from this anthology of sob stories. The Supreme Commander pulled out a newspaper from a drawer and tossed it on to the table. "This paper has a story of some person called Didi who claims that a political party in India plans to liquidate her using the ISI and the Maoists. Apparently this effort is financed by Venezuela, Hungary and our country." He banged his fist on the table. "Why was i kept in the dark about this?" The secret agent surreptitiously pulled out his little black book and flipped through it until he came to the page titled 'Upcoming Assassinations'. Strangely, no such name featured among those listed for an early date with their Maker. "This collaboration confuses me," confessed the Dear Leader. "The ISI is our long-term partner. They helped us corner the best Black Friday deals at A Q Khan's nuclear Wal-Mart before it shut shop. We offered them the pick of our missiles, which they would repaint and pass off as their own. Each helping each." The intelligence chief nodded his head sagely. Just yesterday, he had been on the phone with the head of that country's missile development programme, suggesting lime or fern as the choice of colour for their latest import from the NoKo inventory. They had finally settled on a sterner forest green to gel with the persona of the invader after whom the missile was renamed. "As for the political party," continued the Great Successor, "one of its leading lights recently admitted to preferring the quick and easy, if messier, way of eliminating rivals, rather than fighting them in the polls. That sounds like our kind of political discourse." "We made it a clean sweep during our last purge," agreed the agency head. "With Venezuela, things get trickier. They need to comprehend that there is space for just one prima donna in the Global Bad Boys' League. When we launch a barrage of missiles we demand the world's undivided attention. Choosing such a moment to fire a volley of abuses at the Great Satan and thus grab the limelight is bad form." The spook shuddered in remembered agony. It had needed two missiles to explode in midair and another to do a backflip before the spotlight was jerked away from the southern pretender. The dictator moved to the last pieces of the puzzle. "Why Hungary and why Didi? If we did team up, why not choose a more high-profile target? It just does not add up." Realisation dawned on the sleuth. "What would you do if your state's economy was tanking, its infrastructure was in a shambles and recovery seemed a long distance away?" "I'd fire a few missiles or threaten a nuclear strike to divert attention," rep-lied the Supreme Defender. "Start a fire to douse another fire. Statecraft 101." "Lesson Two: The Assassination Bid," concurred the spy. Drawing on his Alice in Wonderland, he continued. "With her state reeling and writhing, it makes sense for Didi to shift focus to the four branches of arithmetic - Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision."The UK Metric Association has issued the following press release: … news release … news release … news release … news release … news release… Embargoed until 01:00 on Friday, 24 January 2014 Government policy on metrication has failed – says metric group London, 24 January 2014 The UK’s dysfunctional muddle of two incompatible measurement systems will continue indefinitely unless the Government takes decisive action. This is the conclusion of a report from the UK Metric Association (UKMA) based on a new opinion survey carried out by YouGov. A follow-up survey also shows that if a future government were to end the official use of the remaining imperial units (such as miles on road signs) it would have no impact on the result of a General Election. UKMA spokesperson, Robin Paice, said: “We have known for many years that the UK is stuck in a muddle of metric and imperial measurements. What our report shows is that more than half the population do not understand some of the basic weights and measures. But it also shows that most people are happy to use metric units if they are the normal units in general use – e.g. using metres to measure a room for floor coverings. The solution to the muddle is obvious: it is in the national interest to finish the job of converting to metric units for all purposes. The trouble is that politicians are scared of doing the right thing in case it loses them votes. However, the follow-up survey demonstrates that completing the conversion to metric units would make absolutely no difference to the result of a general election.” What the surveys do show is that successive governments’ attempts to convert the UK to general use of metric units have failed. This is because government policy has been based on the false assumption that because children are taught metric units in maths and science lessons at school, they will grow up using metric units in everyday life – and therefore governments need only wait for the change to occur naturally. However, experience has shown that this assumption is wrong, and the change is not happening. Thus the “very British mess” will continue indefinitely unless the Government intervenes. The covering report argues that this “mess” is not just a harmless national quirk but actually does real damage in terms of consumer protection, health and safety, communication, wasted education, understanding of science, accidents, conversion errors and foreign perception of the UK as insular and out of date. Finally, the report lists the essential steps needed to resolve the “mess”. The full covering report of the surveys can be read at http://ukma.org.uk/docs/sam.pdf, and its Executive Summary, which is appended to this notice, is available at http://ukma.org.uk/docs/sam-exec-summary.pdf Notes for editors: The UK Metric Association (UKMA) is an independent, non-party political, single issue organisation which provides accurate information on the international metric system (“Système International”) and supports its adoption for all official, trade, legal, contractual and other purposes in the United Kingdom as soon as practicable. UKMA is financed entirely by membership subscriptions and personal donations. All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample sizes were 1978 adults and 1878 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 2nd – 3rd September and 7th – 8th November 2013 respectively. The surveys were carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+). Further extensive background information can be found generally on UKMA’s website at www.ukma.org.uk. UKMA also has a blog at www.metricviews.org.uk. Robin Paice (spokesperson for UKMA in respect of this survey) is available for interviews in Portsmouth or by telephone on 023 9275 5268. Alternatively the UKMA Chairman John Frewen-Lord may also be contacted on 07803 594985, or in person in Grimsby. ____________________________________________ Still a mess The continuing failure of UK measurement policy Government policy on metrication has failed. This is because it is based on the false assumption that, as children receive some metric education in maths lessons at school, they will grow up using metric units. Therefore (so it is assumed) as the population ages, acceptance and adoption of metric units will grow until eventually the metric system will be the default system for all purposes. Unfortunately, experience has not borne out this assumption. Based on this false assumption, and having achieved partial metrication in most fields of activity, successive governments have given up on trying to complete the conversion of the UK to primary use of metric units. No further action is planned. The UK Metric Association (UKMA) therefore commissioned YouGov to carry out a survey of public understanding and use of metric and imperial units and of public support for completing the metric changeover. A follow-up survey also examined the salience of metrication as a political issue. Key results were as follows: Half of respondents were opposed to completing metrication, with a quarter supportive and a fifth indifferent or noncommittal. Although younger generations were more supportive than the older, still 36% of the 18-24 age group were opposed. Where there are specific practical reasons for using metric units, the majority of the population prefer to use them However, where parental, peer and media pressures are strongly in favour of imperial units, all age groups continue to use imperial – including for personal weighing Although there was a definite association between age and acceptance/use of metric units, there was still either a majority or a large minority of younger people who habitually use imperial rather than metric units for various everyday functions Thus the basic assumption that underlies Government policy – that metric education in school will lead naturally to a general acceptance of metric units for all purposes – is shown to be incorrect. It is concluded that, without Government action to complete metrication, the present dysfunctional muddle of two incompatible measurement systems – the “very British mess” – will continue indefinitely. So why does this “mess” matter? The “mess” matters for several reasons: To function effectively, an adult in Britain needs to have a detailed knowledge of two measurement systems. Yet the YouGov survey showed that: 76% of respondents were unable to answer correctly how many yards there are in a mile 43% could not say how many metres there are in a kilometre 32% of respondents were unable to answer correctly how many pounds there are in a stone 39% did not give the correct answer when asked how many grams there are in a kilogram These findings suggest that many adults in Britain are unable to understand or make use of the key information that is provided for their protection or benefit. Incompatible units make comparison difficult – undermining consumer protection Mutual incomprehension – people who use different systems don’t understand each other Constant need to convert – prone to errors Accidents – such as the airliner that ran out of fuel as a result of wrong conversion Costs – of mistakes, and of running two systems Failure to reap the benefits of past investment in metrication – esp in education Foreign perception of the UK as insular and living in the imperial past Politicians of all parties need to recognise that: the policies of successive governments over the past 40 years have failed, and Government action is needed to resolve the problem Specific action includes: Declaration that completing metrication remains the Government’s objective Duty on public sector bodies to use metric units Requirement to use metric units in advertising and product description Conversion of road signs and speed limits Better enforcement of existing rules Contrary to the common assumption that metrication is a vote loser, the survey evidence shows that such a programme of action would be very unlikely to cost a party votes in the context of a general election or to make any difference to the result. ( 0 ) Likes ( 0 ) DislikesThe Channon Market, in northern NSW, turns 40 Updated The Channon Craft Market, in northern NSW, turns 40 Forty years of colourful characters, alternative thinking, performance, and controversial politics. The Channon Craft Market was one of the very first art and craft markets in Australia. It all started in the grounds of a tiny village hall on the north coast of New South Wales. Rural revolution The year was 1976. The traditional farming village of The Channon was a battleground between loggers and environmentalists who had travelled from across Australia, to stop the clear-felling of rainforest at Terania Creek. This was the first direct action protest in Australia. Many environmentalists decided to settle in the region, buying cheap agricultural land and setting up communities with a "back to the land" philosophy. A group of these newcomers, including artisans and woodworkers, started a traditional village market where they could exchange and barter goods. It had a strict ethic of "make it, bake it, or grow it". Today the craft market is a major tourist attraction, but retired solicitor Graham Irvine explained that tourists were at a big disadvantage at the first markets. "I was selling herbs," Mr Irvine said. "Tourists would come up and say 'how much' and we would say 'we're not selling them, we're exchanging them', and because they had nothing to exchange they used to either get it for free, or go away and buy something and bring it back to us." The markets were not an instant success. "The first two market days flopped because they were washed out by rain," Mr Irvine said. "The third market was advertised with posters on every pole in the nearby town of Lismore and they got 2,000 people there. "That market was so successful they were on their way then forever … an inspiration and a template for all the local markets that came after." Robyn Kelly has been the manager for 15 years. She said the "make it, bake it, grow it" ethic is still nurtured by the market today. "We average 220 stallholders every market. "Eighty per cent of our stallholders have touched their products, produced their wares, crafted or drafted their goods. "We also now accept stallholders who have special interests like our water tank man, our solar panel man … they're small businesses or individuals who are promoting alternative living and sustainable living practices, which fits the ethic of our community." Under the same tree for 35 years "We're evolving, myself and the tree," John Peebles said. Making jewellery and surfing is a way of life for Mr Peebles, who has been selling his wares under the same tree at The Channon Craft Market for 35 years. Mr Peebles first started making jewellery in the 1970s when he was travelling through Asia and realised he had a talent for buying quality gem stones. He sat and learned at the feet of craftsmen in Afghanistan, India and Indonesia and for decades this meditative art has provided the balance to his life as an adventurous surfer. "I'm 68 and go to places like west Sumatra and surf the coral reefs," Mr Peebles said. "I still run when I see the surf, you get excited, you get adrenalin and you run and say 'here I am happy, in my element'." While he has a stall at other markets on the north coast, The Channon Craft Market is Mr Peebles' favourite. "It's like an old-style market place where the person who makes something goes directly to the person who wants to buy it," he said. "That direct connection is something that is unique and is why the market is so successful." Children of the market Among the current stallholders are young people who were first introduced to the market as children at their parents' stall. Plant and flower seller Tess Wood is one of them, who remembers the market as a safe place where she would play and ride the donkeys. She remembers being captivated by some eccentric characters. "I remember a man who had padlocks through his nipple piercings," Ms Wood said. Ms Wood now brings her own daughter to the market. "It's a very family-friendly market," she said. "It's the best office in the world." Sharing art and culture Warmu and Mindjungbul artist Phillip Collins has been a regular at The Channon Craft Market for 20 years. He is part of the Wollumbini Art Collective, which has set up an outdoor painting studio at many local markets and festivals. While Mr Collins also exhibits in galleries, he says he enjoys painting at markets, and particularly The Channon Craft Market, because of the contact with the passing people. "We share stories, we give them a bit of the true history of this country and share culture," Mr Collins said. Chai, chat and challenging the establishment A traditional fixture of The Channon Craft Market is the Chai Tent, a family affair run by siblings Michael and Megan Jack and their mother Liffey Jack, or Mama Chai as she is more commonly known. The first Chai tent was a stall at St Andrew's Market in Melbourne by Bali, an Indian man, who handed over his Chai Joint to Michael Webb. When the Chai Tent took to the road as part of the Australian Peace Train Tour in 1986, young chai tent volunteers Michael and Megan Jack went with it, beginning a nomadic lifestyle where mixing chai with politics became their recipe for happiness. "Markets are the base of commerce in the world and that's why I like the markets, everyone rubs shoulders with everyone," Mr Jack said. It takes three hours to erect the Chai tent and another three to take it down at night. "Sometimes I think it's a bit crazy when you see how much work it is for one day but we feel that it plays an important role in bringing the community together," Mr Jack said. The Chai tent travels to many music and alternative festivals, and political protests. At The Channon Craft Market it is a place where locals frequently demonstrate solidarity for the anti-CSG movement, the anti-nuclear movement, and the rights of first nation peoples. "You know what happens in this place everyone gets 'curried' away and that's the way it's'samosed' to be," John Arkan told the passing crowd from behind the counter at his Indian food stall. Mr Arkan is a Sikh whose grandparents migrated from India to Australia in 1895. His grandfather was a farmer in India and found work in the Clarence Valley in the sugar cane fields. Mixed in with the dahl and rice at Mr Arkan's stall is always conversation exchanging stories of India and Indian culture. "It's such a great energy here and I think it is because of the people", Mr Arkan said. "People sometimes divide the community and say this is where the hippies hang out — I would say this is where the really, intelligent, good-looking humans hang out." Mr Arkan travels two and half hours to attend The Channon Craft Market. "It's beautiful up here, I wouldn't miss it for the world." Reporter: Catherine Marciniak Topics: community-and-society, community-and-multicultural-festivals, history, the-channon-2480 First postedA new variant of the Conficker/Downadup worm has been detected. The worm opens a backdoor on an infected machine and allows hackers remote control of infected PCs. Dubbed Conficker B++ (and not to be confused with Conficker B), the new variant of the worm opens a backdoor with auto-update functionality, allowing a hacker to distribute malware to infected machines. It's difficult to know exactly how long Conficker B++ has been circulating, but researchers first noticed it on February 6 of this year. (Source: pcadvisor.co.uk) 10.5 Million Computers Infected Machines infected by the Conficker/Downadup worm can be used to send spam, to log keystrokes or to launch denial of service (DoS) attacks, but reports suggest that for the most part, that has not been happening. The worm spreads by exploiting a dangerous Windows bug to attack computers on a local area network and by USB devices. According to SRI International research, about 10.5 million computers have been infected with variants of Conficker. (Source: pcadvisor.co.uk) The Technical Analysis Conficker B++ is no longer limited to re-infection by similarly structured DLL files, but can now be pushed in new self-contained Win32 (executable) applications. These executables can infiltrate the host using methods that are not detected by the latest anti-Conficker security applications. (Source: mtc.sri.com) Under Conficker B++, two new paths to binary validation and execution have been introduced to Conficker drones, both of which bypass the use of Internet rendezvous points, increasing the flexibility of the direct flash mechanisms which offer the ability to load digitally-signed Win32 executables directly to a Conficker host. Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 Patches Flaw The Conficker/Downadup worm has been able to proliferate widely because many PC users have not applied the patch supplied by Microsoft. Security Bulletin MS08-067 from Microsoft patches the Windows flaw. Information that will help you find out if your computer is infected and how to fix it is available from Microsoft. (Source: microsoft.com) Detailed information on all variants of the Conficker/Downadup worm can be found from SRI International Research. Visit Bill's Links and More for more great tips, just like this one!I’M tearing up my card – victimhood and censorship are not compatible with my idea of accelerating social progress, writes Tiffany Jenkins. My feminist awakening came as I was reaching adulthood, reading old tomes taken from my mother’s bookshelf. Some of them resonated with my experiences, providing the necessary social analysis to unpick and understand them. It was an exciting time: I felt part of a movement – men as well as women – who wanted to rethink the way society was organised and could probably make a difference. Since then, I have been proud to say: I am a feminist. But no longer will I use the f-word to describe myself. It’s not obvious to me that feminist thinking today is progressive. In fact, most feminist campaigns – especially those that are successful – are illiberal, censorious and divisive. Their end result is regulation, and many promote the idea than men and women are different, irreconcilable, and that the female needs special care and protection – ideas about the so-called weaker sex that groundbreaking writers and campaigners such as Mary Wollstonecraft started to challenge in the 18th century. Two events in the past seven days have helped me reach this decision. The first is the T-shirt incident, when David Cameron faced a backlash after choosing not to wear a Fawcett Society top, sent to him from Elle magazine, with the slogan “This is what a feminist looks like” on it. The response to his decision was childish, gesture politics, where sporting a naff item of clothing is said to do more for changing people’s lives than, say, creating opportunities and improving the standard of living. The second event is the Hollaback video doing the rounds on the internet. It shows a young woman who secretly filmed herself as she walked the streets of New York City. The idea was to record the reaction of the men she passed: the sexist comments, come-ons, cat calls and wolf-whistles. She got them. In ten hours, 100 incidences were recorded, now edited down to two minutes. Men shout out “Smile”, “Da-amn!” Annoying behaviour, recognisable to any of us. Some of it is cute and a smart retort from the actress would not have been unwelcome, instead of filming them without their knowledge to later expose them. But other remarks and actions are not all that nice. One guy silently walks alongside her for five minutes: he is deliberately intimidating. Now, I don’t wish to make too light of it, but come on, this stuff happens all the time to all of us in some way; there were different things going on here, and it’s really no big deal. Or rather, even when it’s not all that pleasant, uncomfortable even, it is far better than what the campaigners – because this was not a neutral experiment: it is a video with a purpose – are calling for. Hollaback is a group lobbying “to end street harassment”. They wish to criminalise these everyday interactions. Others agree. Kate Smurthwaite, a comedian and activist, argued on Radio 4 that street harassment was a problem; that she won’t go out jogging on her own because it happens all the time: “I live near a… string of greasy-spoon cafes, and you can’t jog past them as a woman and expect to be left alone.” She was clearly complaining about working-class men rather than the artisan bacon-eating, latte-drinking, middle-classes (as if wealthier guys never cross the line). She followed up her concerns by stressing how vulnerable some women were. “I wonder how a young women in her late teens, just starting to go through puberty, and she’s maybe having a tough time at school, and she’s just moved to a new area, this must be the kind of woman who is destroyed by it. It might be the last straw.” Speak for yourself, Kate. This is the sort of thing that was said about women in the past to keep them in their place: that they are too fragile, sensitive and weak for the workplace, or for the political sphere, that they may faint at any moment, that they need a chaperone. Give your sisters a break. We are stronger than you think. We can tell guys to “back off”. And it is incredible that it’s necessary to make these points in the 21st century. The T-shirt and the video may seem minor events to lead me to change my feminist identity, but it is because they are not that uncommon or unusual. Feminism has always contained different strands of opinions, some oppositional, as well as contradictions, but today the dominant strain ends up demonising men and promoting female victimhood – which will hold us all back. It’s not that there is nothing to fight for. We still need women in top positions (though quotas will not help), and a good old-fashioned demand for 24-hour cheap childcare will help mothers as well as fathers. Abortion is also not quite on demand as it should be. But, if anything, men face problems today. Our culture is ambivalent about masculinity, which is blamed for everything. Increasing
80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Damage in Cocoa Beach. Hide Caption 30 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Waves crash against a bridge in St. Augustine, Florida. Hide Caption 31 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A car drives past a downed tree as the hurricane moves through Daytona Beach, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 32 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A billboard canvas flaps in the wind after Hurricane Matthew passed North Palm Beach, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 33 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A woman inspects her damaged car under a tree in Fort Pierce, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 34 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A space shuttle model stands near some downed trees after Hurricane Matthew passed by Cocoa Beach. Hide Caption 35 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A woman uses her phone under a battery-operated lantern at a hotel in Titusville, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 36 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Palm trees on Cocoa Beach sway in the wind on October 7. Hide Caption 37 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Firefighters respond to a pre-dawn house fire in Satellite Beach, Florida, that was possibly caused by a downed power line on October 7. Hide Caption 38 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Heavy rain billows in front of Exploration Tower in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on October 7. Hide Caption 39 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People stand on a beach in Broward County, Florida, as the storm approached the coast on Thursday, October 6. Hide Caption 40 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A police officer walks along the beach in Singer Island, Florida, on October 6. Hide Caption 41 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Kevin Forde and John Haughey put plywood on a Miami Beach window on October 6. Hide Caption 42 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Hurricane Matthew moves through Paradise Island in Nassau, Bahamas, on October 6. Capt. Stephen Russell, the head of the Bahamas National Emergency Management Authority, said there were many downed trees and power lines but no reports of casualties. Hide Caption 43 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People leave Disney's Magic Kingdom theme park, in heavy rain, after it closed in Orlando, Florida in preparation for the landfall of Hurricane Matthew, on October 6. Hide Caption 44 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A man rakes up debris from a storm drain as he begins cleanup near a damaged gas station in Nassau on October 6. Hide Caption 45 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Residents repair their homes in Les Cayes, Haiti, on October 6. The damage from Hurricane Matthew was especially brutal in southern Haiti, where sustained winds of 130 mph punished the country. Hide Caption 46 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Girls hold hands as they help each other wade through a flooded street in Les Cayes on October 6. Hide Caption 47 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Two days after the storm, authorities and aid workers in Haiti still lacked a clear picture of what they fear is the country's biggest disaster in years. Hide Caption 48 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A supermarket shelf is nearly cleared out in Titusville, Florida, on Wednesday, October 5. Hide Caption 49 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Bumper-to-bumper traffic lines Interstate 26 in Columbia, South Carolina, as people drive west on October 5. Hide Caption 50 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Workers start removing umbrellas and the colorful rocking chairs that line the Cocoa Beach Pier in Cocoa Beach, Florida, on October 5. Hide Caption 51 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People carry a coffin and try to cross the La Digue river on October 5 after a bridge collapsed in Petit-Goave, Haiti. Hide Caption 52 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People cross the La Digue river on October 5. Hide Caption 53 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Evacuees return to their homes in the Carbonera community of Guantanamo, Cuba, on October 5. Hide Caption 54 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People embrace at their damaged home in Baracoa, Cuba. The hurricane rolled across the sparsely populated tip of Cuba, destroying dozens of homes in the country's easternmost city and leaving hundreds of others damaged. Hide Caption 55 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A woman cries amid the rubble of her home in Baracoa. Hide Caption 56 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Bus drivers in North Charleston, South Carolina, wait for word to start evacuations. Hide Caption 57 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction The high winds of Hurricane Matthew roar over Baracoa on Tuesday, October 4. Hide Caption 58 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Beth Johnson fills up her car at a gas station in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, on October 4. Hide Caption 59 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction The mother of two girls who died in the storm is comforted near her home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on October 4. The girls were killed when a landslide caused by flooding breached the walls of their house. Hide Caption 60 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A worker clears a sewer on a flooded street in Santo Domingo. Hide Caption 61 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Anita Baranyi feeds her baby while keeping an eye on the generator she intends to purchase from a home-improvement store in Oakland Park, Florida, on October 4. Hide Caption 62 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People wade through the flooded streets of Cite Soleil in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on October 4. Hurricane Matthew is the strongest storm to hit Haiti since 1964 and the first hurricane to make landfall in the country since the devastating earthquake in 2010. Hide Caption 63 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People observe the flooding of a river near Port-au-Prince on October 4. Hide Caption 64 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Children swim in a flooded neighborhood of Santo Domingo on October 4. Hide Caption 65 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A truck used as public transportation drives through flooded streets in Port-au-Prince on October 4. Hide Caption 66 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Hurricane winds blow against palm trees in Port-au-Prince. Hide Caption 67 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A food vendor lays out goods for sale during a light rain in Port-au-Prince on October 4. Hide Caption 68 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Haitian civil protection workers arrive to evacuate the Tabarre region of Haiti on October 3. Hide Caption 69 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Officials urge residents to evacuate their homes in the Grise River area of Tabarre on October 3. Hide Caption 70 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Clouds loom over the hills of the Petionville suburb of Port-au-Prince on October 3. Hide Caption 71 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Families seek shelter from Hurricane Matthew at a university facility in Guantanamo, Cuba. Hide Caption 72 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People near Kingston, Jamaica, take a photo in front of the rough surf produced by Hurricane Matthew on October 3. Hide Caption 73 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A backhoe removes garbage to clear a canal in Port-au-Prince on October 3. Hide Caption 74 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Nice Simon, the mayor of Tabarre, Haiti, holds a baby as she helps evacuate the area along a river. Hide Caption 75 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction People stock up on food at a supermarket in Port-au-Prince on Sunday, October 2. Hide Caption 76 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A worker dismantles a traffic light in Santiago before Hurricane Matthew struck Cuba. Hide Caption 77 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Motorists drive through heavy rains in Kingston, Jamaica, on October 2. Hide Caption 78 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction Residents of Cuba's Holguin Province line up to buy gas on October 2. Hide Caption 79 of 80 Photos: Hurricane Matthew's path of destruction A worker nails a board to a storefront window in Kingston on Saturday, October 1. Hide Caption 80 of 80 St. Germain, who spoke to CNN on the phone from Les Cayes, Haiti, said the storm sheared a wall off his house and tore roofs off many buildings in the area. And in a significant setback for emergency responders and aid relief efforts, the bridge that connected Port-au-Prince with southern Haiti collapsed. There are reports of communications towers being affected by downed trees and officials are worried it will hamper the emergency response. Matthew was moving across Cuba on its way to the Bahamas. The Category 4 hurricane made landfall near Les Anglais, Haiti, around 7 a.m. ET, according to the National Hurricane Center Up to 40 inches of rain could be dumped Haiti, which is still recovering from a devastating 2010 earthquake and a cholera outbreak. Cameras outside the space station captured dramatic views of major Hurricane Matthew as the orbital complex flew 250 miles above (speed x4). pic.twitter.com/nfAQuw2OQC — Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) October 3, 2016 River levels rise Les Cayes Mayor Jean Gabriel Fortuné said Tuesday morning the storm was slamming into his city. He posted videos on social media that showed wind whipping through trees as heavy rains pelted people on the streets. The United Nations mission in Haiti shared a photo of people wading through water in a flooded street there. #MatthewHaiti Current situation les Cayes south of Haiti pic.twitter.com/bLDCAeNOUH — MINUSTAH (@MINUSTAH) October 4, 2016 Witnesses also reported streets flooding in the capital of Port-au-Prince. Leogane was also hit hard. HAiti is going to need a lot of help after this storm #Leogane #haiti #flooding #hurricanematthew #humanitariancrisis @weatherchannel @washingtonpost @nytimes A video posted by Foundation Marie (@foundationmariehaiti) on Oct 4, 2016 at 1:02pm PDT Along the US East Coast governors in four states declared states of emergency and two told residents to prepare for possible evacuations. Florida Gov. Rick Scott was particularly blunt, telling residents to prepare for the state quite possibly taking a direct hit. Death toll rising Seven people have died in incidents connected to Hurricane Matthew within the past week, authorities said. Four people in the Dominican Republic died, the government announced, without providing any details about how the victims passed away. In Haiti, Guillaume Albert Moleon, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said one fisherman died on Sunday. A second fisherman is presumed dead, but the body has not been recovered. In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a teenager died in a landslide as he was cleaning a drain behind his house, according to Michelle Forbes, deputy director for the National Emergency Management Office. The boy died Wednesday after storms from Matthew passed. The hurricane could cause further devastation for Haiti as much of the country's infrastructure remains weak after the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. More than 300,000 people are in shelters across the country, the United Nations said. Watches and warning Hurricane warning is in effect for: • Haiti • Cuban provinces of Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Granma and Las Tunas • Southeastern Bahamas, including the Inaguas, Mayaguana, Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Cay and Ragged Island • Central Bahamas, including Long Island, Exuma, Rum Cay, San Salvador and Cat Island • Northwestern Bahamas, including the Abacos, Andros Island, Berry Islands, Bimini, Eleuthera, Grand Bahama Island and New Providence • North of Golden Beach to Sebastian Inlet • Lake Okeechobee Hurricane watch is in effect for: • Cuban province of Camaguey • US state of Florida, from north of Sebastian Inlet to the Flagler/Volusia county line Source: National Hurricane Center After the storm clears Haiti, residents could face risks from another threat: standing water. "That means a potential spike in cholera cases," said John Hasse, the humanitarian aid agency World Vision's national director in Haiti. "Other mosquito-borne diseases that have been more or less controlled are going to rear their heads." Haiti is still recovering from a post-quake cholera outbreak that killed 10,000 people. Collision course for Cuba Forecasters said Matthew could dump up to 20 inches of rain in Cuba. The United States, taking no chances, airlifted 700 family members of military personnel stationed at Guantanamo Bay to Florida. The 61 detainees held by the United States as alleged enemy combatants will not be evacuated, officials added. After skirting Cuba, Matthew is expected to hit the Bahamas and turn toward the United States. It should lose some strength, but still have 115 mph winds.Excerpt: 'The Compass Of Pleasure' The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good By David J. Linden Hardcover, 240 pages Viking Adult List Price: $26.95 Bangkok, 1989. The afternoon rains have ended, leaving the early evening air briefly free of smog and allowing that distinctive Thai perfume, frangipani with a faint note of sewage, to waft over the shiny streets. I hail a tuk-tuk, a three-wheel motorcycle taxi, and hop aboard. My young driver has an entrepreneurial smile as he turns around and begins the usual interrogation of male travelers. "So... you want girl?" "No." "I see." Long pause, eyebrows slowly raised. "You want boy!" "Uh, no." Longer pause. Sound of engine sputtering at idle. "You want ladyboy?" "No," I answer, a bit more emphatically, nonplussed at the idea that I give the impression of desiring this particular commodity. "I got cheap cigarettes... Johnnie Walker..." "No thanks." Undaunted, he moves on to the next category of his wares, now with lowered voice. "You want ganja?" "No." "Coke?" "No." "Ya baa [methamphetamine tablets]?" "Nope." A whisper now. "Heroin?" "No." Voice raised back to normal. "I can take you to cockfight. You can gamble!" "I'll pass." Just a little bit irritated now. "So, farang, what you want?" "Prik kee noo," I respond. "Those little'mouse shit' peppers. I want some good, spicy dinner." My driver, not surprisingly, is disappointed. As we tear through the streets to a restaurant, blasting through puddles, I'm left wondering: Aside from various shades of illegality, what do all his offers have in common? What is it exactly that makes a vice? We humans have a complicated and ambivalent relationship to pleasure, which we spend an enormous amount of time and resources pursuing. A key motivator of our lives, pleasure is central to learning, for we must find things like food, water, and sex rewarding in order to survive and pass our genetic material to the next generation. Certain forms of pleasure are accorded special status. Many of our most important rituals involving prayer, music, dance, and meditation produce a kind of transcendent pleasure that has become deeply ingrained in human cultural practice. As we do with most powerful forces, however, we also want to regulate pleasure. In cultures around the world we find well-defined ideas and rules about pleasure that have persisted throughout history in any number of forms and variations: Pleasure should be sought in moderation. Pleasure must be earned. Pleasure must be achieved naturally. Pleasure is transitory. The denial of pleasure can yield spiritual growth. Our legal systems, our religions, our educational systems are all deeply concerned with controlling pleasure. We have created detailed rules and customs surrounding sex, drugs, food, alcohol, and even gambling. Jails are bursting with people who have violated laws that proscribe certain forms of pleasure or who profit by encouraging others to do so. One can fashion reasonable theories of human pleasure and its regulation using the methods of cultural anthropology or social history. These are valid and useful endeavors, for ideas and practices involving human pleasure are certainly deeply influenced by culture. However, what I'm seeking here in The Compass of Pleasure is a different type of understanding — one less nuanced, perhaps, but more fundamental: a cross-cultural biological explanation. In this book I will argue that most experiences in our lives that we find transcendent — whether illicit vices or socially sanctioned ritual and social practices as diverse as exercise, meditative prayer, or even charitable giving — activate an anatomically and biochemically defined pleasure circuit in the brain. Shopping, orgasm, learning, highly caloric foods, gambling, prayer, dancing 'til you drop, and playing on the Internet: They all evoke neural signals that converge on a small group of interconnected brain areas called the medial forebrain pleasure circuit. It is in these tiny clumps of neurons that human pleasure is felt. This intrinsic pleasure circuitry can also be co-opted by artificial activators like cocaine or nicotine or heroin or alcohol. Evolution has, in effect, hardwired us to catch a pleasure buzz from a wide variety of experiences from crack to cannabis, from meditation to masturbation, from Bordeaux to beef. This theory of pleasure reframes our understanding of the part of the human body that societies are most intent upon regulating. While we might assume that the anatomical region most closely governed by laws, religious prohibitions, and social mores is the genitalia, or the mouth, or the vocal cords, it is actually the medial forebrain pleasure circuit. As societies and as individuals, we are hell-bent on achieving and controlling pleasure, and it is those neurons, deep in our brains, that are the nexus of that struggle. These particular neurons also comprise another battleground. The dark side of pleasure is, of course, addiction. It is now becoming clear that addiction is associated with long-lasting changes in the electrical, morphological, and biochemical functions of neurons and synaptic connections within the medial forebrain pleasure circuit. There are strong suggestions that these changes underlie many of the terrifying aspects of addiction, including tolerance (needing successively larger doses to get high), craving, withdrawal, and relapse. Provocatively, such persistent changes appear to be nearly identical to experience- and learning-driven changes in neural circuitry that are used to store memories in other brain regions. In this way, memory, pleasure, and addiction are closely intertwined. However, addiction is not the only force responsible for experience-driven changes within the brain's pleasure circuits. The combination of associative learning and pleasure has created nothing less than a cognitive miracle: We can be motivated by pleasure to achieve goals that are entirely arbitrary — goals that may or may not have an evolutionary adaptive value. These can be as wide-ranging as reality-based television and curling. For us humans (and probably for other primates and for cetaceans as well), even mere ideas can activate the pleasure circuit. Our eclecticism where pleasure is concerned serves to make our human existence wonderfully rich and complex. I like to tell the students in my lab that the golden age of brain research is right now, so it's time to get down to business. This sounds like a cheap motivational gimmick, but it's true. Our accumulating understanding of neural function, coupled with enabling technologies that allow us to measure and manipulate the brain with unprecedented precision, has given us new and often counterintuitive insights into behavioral and cognitive phenomena at the levels of biological processes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the neurobiology of pleasure. One example: Do you, like many, think that drug addicts become drug addicts because they derive greater reward from getting high than others? The biology says no: They actually seem to want it more but like it less. This level of analysis is not only of academic interest. Understanding the biological basis of pleasure leads us to fundamentally rethink the moral and legal aspects of addiction to drugs, food, sex, and gambling and the industries that manipulate these pleasures in the marketplace. It also calls for a reformation in our concepts of such virtuous and prosocial behaviors as sharing resources, self-deprivation, and the drive for knowledge. Crucially, brain imaging studies show that giving to charity, paying taxes, and receiving information about future events all activate the same neural pleasure circuit that's engaged by heroin or orgasm or fatty foods. Perhaps, most important, analysis of the molecular basis of enduring changes in the brain's pleasure circuitry holds great promise for developing drugs and other therapies to help people break free of addictions of many sorts, to both substances and experiences. When I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in the early 1990s, I was fortunate to work with Sid Udenfriend, a pioneer in the biochemistry of the brain and a real mensch. Sid's favorite pedagogical phrase, usually intoned at the bar, was "It's always good to know a little chemistry." I couldn't agree more. It would be possible to write a book exploring the brain's pleasure circuits that was free of not only molecules but also basic anatomy, but that sort of spoon-feeding would require ignoring some of the most interesting and important issues, and so that's not what you'll find here. If you come along for the ride and work with me just a bit to learn some basic neuroscience, I'll do my best to make it lively and fun as we explore the cellular and molecular basis of human pleasure, transcendent experience, and addiction. From Compass of Pleasure by David Linden. Copyright 2011 by David J. Linden. Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.Former US Vice President Dick Cheney has said that Russia’s (alleged) interference in the 2016 presidential election could be "considered an act of war.” Cheney made the remarks at the Economic Times’ Global Business Summit in the Indian capital of New Delhi on Monday, after several Democratic lawmakers also made similar statements regarding Russia and its leadership. “There’s not any argument at this stage that somehow the election of President Trump was not legitimate, but there’s no question that there was a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin and his government, his organization, to interfere in major ways with our basic, fundamental democratic processes,” he said. “In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war.” In a declassified report released in January, the US intelligence community concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin helped Trump win the White House, an allegation dismissed both by Moscow and Trump. Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban give a joint press conference on February 2, 2017 in Budapest. (Photo by AFP) During his presidential campaign and afterwards, Trump repeatedly praised Putin and called for closer ties between Washington and Moscow, despite the hacking allegations. Cheney warned the Trump administration against improving ties with Russia under the leadership of Putin, saying the Russia leader has operated “in ways that none of his predecessors have done for the last 40 years.” “I would not underestimate the weight that we as Americans assign to the Russian attempts to interfere with our internal political processes,” said Cheney, who served as President George W. Bush’s No. 2. The US intelligence community has reportedly shared with foreign governments the classified version of their report on what they believe was a Russian plot to help Trump defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton delivers remarks at the Children's Defense Fund's Beat the Odds Celebration at the Newseum on November 16, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP) The Russian president wants to “undermine the perceived validity of the democratic model and try to suggest an authoritarian model is equally valid,” has accused Senator Tim Kaine, Clinton’s vice presidential running mate in last year’s election. Despite Russia’s alleged cyber attacks of mostly Democratic officials during the US presidential race, several American intelligence officials, however, privately acknowledge there is no evidence that hackers altered the result of the election itself.State Department officials released roughly 800 of Hillary Clinton's private emails Friday evening, just hours before the South Carolina Democratic primaries begin. The 1,500 pages of emails in the latest batch did not contain any "top secret" emails, an agency spokesman said. The State Department withheld 22 emails from a trove of emails made public earlier this year because they included "top secret" information. Clinton faced a new wave of questions about her private emails this week after a federal judge ruled her top aides should be subject to depositions about their roles in setting up a personal server in Clinton's home. In addition, the judge threatened to subpoena Clinton and one of her top campaign staffers, Huma Abedin, over emails Clinton's legal team deleted in late 2014. The State Department should have completed its review of Clinton's emails by the end of January under the original court order in the Freedom of Information Act case in question. However, agency officials missed a court-ordered deadline on Jan. 29 after overlooking thousands of pages of emails that needed to be sent to outside agencies for review. The State Department has been ordered to complete the publication of the remaining Clinton emails by Feb. 29. It is unclear whether the agency will make the new deadline.After many tense hours following initial reports that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalithaa had passed away, Apoll Hospital confirmed that the AIADMK supremo had breathed her last at 11.30 pm. Earlier, the hospital denied media reports that Jayalalithaa passed away on Monday evening, saying that doctors from both AIIMS and Apollo continue provide her with “life-saving measures”. Dismissing the reports as “totally baseless and false”, Apollo asked news channels to rectify their “mistake”. Confusion gripped Tamil Nadu as news of Jayalalithaa’s “death” was flashed by Tamil news channels and picked up by the national media. Soon, a scuffle broke out between AIADMK supporters and police with the former throwing stones and upturning barricades outside Apollo Hospitals in Chennai. Police, deployed in large numbers to preempt any untoward incident, were forced to resort to lathicharge. Even the party flag was seen flying at half mast at the AIADMK headquarters in Royapettah after the reports of her death, but it was hoisted once again after the hospital issued a denial. The chief minister, who has been in Apollo since September 22, had suffered the cardiac arrest on Sunday evening. Advertising WATCH \| Jayalalithaa Medical Report Self-Explanatory, No Info Held Back, Says Tamil Nadu Health Secretary The party MLAs are scheduled to meet later this evening, apparently to chalk out the next course of action. Though party sources did not reveal the agenda of the meeting scheduled in the evening, they, however, confirmed that the legislators would discuss key matters. The AIADMK chief suffered the cardiac arrest hours after her party told media that she has fully recovered and will be returning home soon. Born in 1948, Jayalalithaa started her career as an actress in South Indian films. In 1982, she joined the AIADMK, which was founded by her mentor MG Ramachandran. She first became the chief minister of Tamil Nadu in 1991. She has ruled the state for over 15 years.Voice actress Satomi Arai (Beatrice in Re:Zero, Peke in To Love Ru: Darkness ) announced her marriage in 2012. Arai had kept the union under wraps for four years as well as her almost two-year-old son. The identity of her husband wasn't disclosed. On Friday, the last mystery was revealed when voice actor Yoshimitsu Shimoyama announced the two were married. Shimoyama, who plays Alzack Connell in Fairy Tail, wrote that he and the character share similarities: that they are both husbands and fathers. He also stated that Bisca Connell, his character's wife, is voiced by his own wife. Shimoyama and Arai were 31- and 27-years-old when they were married and even Fairy Tail director Shinji Ishihira was amused by the dual casting. The characters relationship and their respective actors continued to mirror one another. When the couple's son was born in 2010, staff members within the industry knew about it even though it wasn't reported publicly for two more years. Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima wrote Alzack and Bisca's daughter, Asuka, into the story to celebrate the birth. Arai also voices Asuka in the anime adaptation. [Via Yara-On!]Get the biggest weekly stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Chester Zoo is taking legal action against vloggers who filmed themselves breaking in where they allegedly damaged property and startled an endangered species of zebra causing an injury. At one stage the ‘overnight challenge’ video, posted on YouTube, reveals three of the thrill-seekers climbing over a fence into an animal enclosure in the dark. Moments later the young men, who were carrying torches, run away believing they have disturbed a rhino. It appears the group, numbering about half a dozen, was spotted by a security guard who gave chase but they got away. Zoo chief operating officer Jamie Christon condemned the actions of the video bloggers, or vloggers, saying they showed no regard for their own safety or that of the animals. Legal action He said: “We’re aware of the small group who trespassed onto the zoo site a couple of weeks ago and we are taking legal action. “There was damage to zoo property including a set of customer toilets following the trespass. It appears that the group also startled a Grevy’s zebra, an endangered species who we care for as part of a Europe wide breeding programme, as the animal had an injury to its hind leg following the trespass. “Thankfully the animal has since been making a good recovery, helped by our senior keepers and veterinary teams who were quickly on site. “With over 15,000 animals in our care, including large carnivores and predators, trespass onto the site is both unacceptable and extremely dangerous. The members of the group appear to have little or no regard for their own safety, or the safety and welfare of the animals. “We condemn the irresponsible actions of the group and are taking the matter extremely seriously.” The video, one of many in a series showing dangerous stunts, begins with two young men on the roof of a high rise building in Manchester city centre. Next the action switches to a swimming pool where an individual from the male-only group disrupts a tournament by jumping from the top of a 10m diving board as people swim below – potentially endangering the swimmers and apparently hurting his own knees in the fall. That evening a car journey is filmed to Chester Zoo where the gang meet up after dark before scaling a high gate. Signs for the animal enclosures can be seen by torchlight such as the ‘Monkeys entrance’, black rhinos and meerkats. At one point a couple of the vloggers climb over a fence into an enclosure and gingerly approach an animal in the darkness then make a hasty retreat thinking it is a rhino, although in fact it was a zebra. The video picks up signs for the chimpanzee house and the animals can be heard in the background. A giraffe’s head can also be seen in the torchlight. The vloggers decide to scarper as the animals are making so much noise they feel sure it will attract the attention of on-site security. Safely back at home, the main video blogger concludes unapologetically: “The whole vlog was a madness, broken knees and breaking into the zoo, what more could you want?”Man gets probation for disciplining girl with stun gun A Beaver County man got probation today for disciplining his 9-year-old daughter with a stun gun. Jeffrey Young, 38, of Brighton, and the girl's mother, Michelle Lee Hopkins, each were charged with child endangerment, possession of a prohibited weapon and disorderly conduct. Mr. Young also was charged with use of an electronic incapacitation device and reckless endangerment. Beaver County Judge Richard Mancini, however, accepted a plea bargain by which the two adults could avoid jail. Mr. Young pleaded guilty to child endangerment. He was sentenced to two years of probation, plus fines and court costs. He also was ordered to undergo a mental evaluation and treatment; and he is to have no contact with the 9-year-old girl or her sister. The county's Adult Probation Office can terminate the probation at its discretion. A neighbor reported seeing incidents involving the girls with the stun gun from July 28 to 30. Mr. Young entered his guilty plea in October. Prosecutors agreed to drop the charges against Ms. Hopkins, provided she successfully completes a 12-week parenting class. First published on December 4, 2008 at 2:34 pmDemocrats’ goal is to overthrow Trump presidency, even if they have to destroy America in the process It is becoming increasingly obvious to millions of Americans that the Democratic Party, aided and guided by the so-called “mainstream” media, is out to destroy the presidency of a legitimately elected candidate – Donald J. Trump – and they are willing to take the entire country down if it means they can regain power. We see it with the insane actions of elected Democrats and a hyperventilating Washington establishment media, all of whom are claiming that Trump’s firing of FBI Director James B. Comey is the act of a tyrant who has thrown the country into a “constitutional crisis” in trying to protect himself and his administration from evidence proving they “colluded with Russia” to “steal the election” from Hillary Clinton. There is no evidence to prove such a ridiculous allegation, despite nearly a year’s worth of investigating by the FBI (at the direction of the Obama administration, by the way). There’s no evidence now because there has never been any evidence of such collusion. But the narrative lives on and Trump’s firing of Comey – which he, as president, has ever right and all the power to do – has only made the media and Democrats even more insane. (RELATED: Trump Says The Entire “Russia Hacked The Election” Narrative Has Been Fabricated By Democrats) None of this is lost on long-time conservative author, pundit, columnist and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, who said in a recent interview with Breitbart News that none of what’s happening with Trump comes close to what went on during the Nixon administration he once served. “Did we witness a redux of the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’ the other day? Is this Watergate 2017?” asked SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily program. “Not quite,” Buchanan replied with a chuckle. Buchanan added: “What President Trump did is simply fire a subordinate here who he was fed up with, and getting more and more exasperated with, which he had every right to do. People are treating it as though Truman had fired MacArthur.” He went on to note that in 1972, Nixon won in a 49-state “landslide,” as did Ronald Reagan in 1984; for his part, Trump won 306 delegates in a bitterly divided country, including so-called “Blue Wall” states in the upper Midwest that had been voting Democrat for two decades. All three presidents, Buchanan said, are now being targeted by the Deep State – “the alliance, if you will, of a hostile media, hostile politics, hostile bureaucracy.” “These same elements, same forces in our time right now, they’re weeping and wailing over what happened to poor Comey, but the objective here is to bring down and break the President of the United States,” he continued, as reported by Breitbart News. “They’re not going to let a single issue go without this semi-hysteria, as though we’re in some kind of constitutional crisis because an FBI director who got too big for his britches got fired.” Asked if he thought the Democratic-led effort to oust Trump would succeed, Buchanan said that despite being just four months into Trump’s first term, we are already “pretty far along” in a mounting major war between “the Deep State and the incumbent forces of media culture [that] are really determined to bring him down.” Earlier this week, in fact, after the Comey firing, McClatchy Papers did its duty by giving several Democrats another forum to put a Trump impeachment on the table: Democratic leaders aren’t calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. But they’re getting closer. To one Democratic congressman, the president’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey reminded him of the “doomsday clock,” a symbol that warns about the likelihood of nuclear war. “We should maybe have an impeachment clock,” Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., said on Wednesday. “And if we did, I think yesterday moved us about an hour closer to having that need.” You know the media is involved in this because never once are these Democrats challenged about making such threats – without a shred of proof or evidence to substantiate them. If anything, their attempt to impeach Trump, should they win the House of Representatives in 2018, would create a social stability crisis, if not a constitutional crisis as well. Truly, this is as unprecedented as it is outrageous. Never since immediately before the Civil War has there been such hatred of a president and such a concerted effort by a political party or faction to deleg
oil bound for eastern refineries through Toronto, where it meets the flow of crude and ethanol coming from the U.S. via Windsor. This makes the trip 250 kilometres longer, strains CP’s busy southern Ontario network and increases the safety risks. Article Continued Below CN abandoned its Ottawa Valley line back in 1995 and has sent traffic for Montreal and points east through Toronto ever since. Its Toronto-Montreal line is busier than CP’s, handling numerous Via Rail passenger trains and all manner of freight, including U.S. crude oil entering Canada at Sarnia. Today, another 975 kilometres of track is slated for scrapping. This includes the original CN Maritime main line. When the Plaster Rock derailment closed its primary Maritime freight artery, CN sent all Atlantic Canadian traffic, including crude oil, over this alternate route, proving its strategic value. Also indicative of trouble are the angry shippers, who are furious about across-the-board cost-cutting that has undermined our rail industry’s on-time performance. Western grain growers are screaming about CN and CP’s failure to efficiently move their 2013 bumper crop, jeopardizing exports and Canada’s food processing industry. Finally, there is the accelerating deterioration of perpetually hobbled Via Rail. In 2012, the publicly owned passenger carrier obtained government permission to trim frequency and de-staff stations — the third cut since it was spawned in Parliament in 1977 with no clear legislative mandate or stable funding. At the same time, Via fumbled a $923-million capital renewal program, which was inadequate for the full rebuilding it has always needed. Via’s recently departed president called the train cuts and botched capital projects “right-sizing” and proof his team had “continued to develop a train culture in Canada.” Rising costs, declining revenue and stagnant ridership prove otherwise. Via is being suffocated. The causes of these challenges are complex. So are the solutions. But Canada is not alone in having to come to terms with a railway system past its best-before date. For decades, the U.S. faced even worse. By the mid-1970s, a quarter of the U.S. system was bankrupt thanks to corporate greed, subsidized road, marine and air competition, and government indifference. Safety was in the ditch, lines were being scrapped furiously and the publicly owned passenger system was struggling under inadequate investment and congressional hostility. Article Continued Below The U.S. turnaround was slow, difficult and expensive. It’s far from complete. But solid progress has been made, much of it involving public investment and increased oversight. The key was the combined will of a handful of enlightened railroaders and politicians, who realized the railways must be nurtured back to health if the U.S. was to compete economically, environmentally and socially with other nations that continually invest in rail. That penny hasn’t dropped in Canada. Rail executives and politicians have issued soothing statements, but taken little action. There’s been no admission that fundamental questions about our rail system must be answered. If Canada fails to deal with this problem, we will pay a steep price. No major nation can compete globally without an efficient rail system. To turn our rail system into the thoroughbred it must become, we need a blueprint that balances public and private interests. The first step must be the long-overdue public debate leading to the production of a national rail policy. With our railways traditionally regulated by Ottawa, that puts the ball in Transport Minister Lisa Raitt’s court. So, dear minister, let the debate — and the rail recovery — begin. Greg Gormick is a Toronto transportation writer, policy adviser and the author of the recent municipally commissioned report, Revitalizing New Brunswick’s Rail Sector. His clients have included CP, CN, Via, among many others.Disgraced wellness blogger, Belle Gibson, has confessed that she lied about having cancer and curing her illness with a regime of healthy eating and natural therapies. Ms Gibson launched The Whole Pantry as a “lifestyle and wellness” app in 2013 after claiming in her blog to have survived an aggressive malignant brain tumour using only natural foods and alternative therapies. She also later claimed to be suffering cancers in her liver, spleen, uterus and blood. But after months of scrutiny of her story, including by The Australian, the 23-year-old has come clean. Read Next In an interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly, Ms Gibson was asked if she had, or ever had cancer. “No. None of it’s true,” she told the magazine. “I don’t want forgiveness,” she told The Weekly which describes her as “the girl who conned us all’’. “I just think [speaking out] was the responsible thing to do. Above anything, I would like people to say, ‘Okay, she’s human.’” Belle Gibson, founder of The Whole Pantry app. In March, Ms Gibson, whose story of miraculous survival from terminal cancer helped launch her global “health and wellness” business, admitted that her claim of suffering multiple life-threatening cancers may be false. Gibson said her announcement last year that she was suffering from cancer of the liver, uterus, spleen and blood was based on a “misdiagnosis” by a doctor she won’t name. “It’s hard to admit that maybe you were wrong,” she said, adding that she felt “confused, bordering on humiliated”. But last month, Gibson was still standing by her claim that she has used alternative therapies to survive an aggressive malignant brain tumour for five years without any conventional medical treatment. An investigation by The Australian uncovered a series of unusual and contradictory medical claims by Gibson dating from May 2009, when she claimed to have undergone multiple heart surgery operations and momentarily died on an operating table. Gibson had also stated that in July that same year, when she was 20, a doctor told her she had terminal brain cancer and would be dead in four months. But according to the birth date on her own corporate filings, she was 17 at the time. Ms Gibson’s Australian publisher, Lantern, confirmed that it had never asked for documentary verification of her medical condition or her age before publishing her book The Whole Pantry in October. Ms Gibson told The Weekly although she was passionate about avoiding gluten, dairy and coffee, she didn’t really understand how cancer works. The magazine, which goes on sale tomorrow, said that it made no payment for the interview. Read NextAsus PadFone gets priced and heads for pre-order The Asus PadFone is an interesting device. This is a little smartphones that can be turned into a tablet with a keyboard dock to let you work a real full-size keyboard and a larger screen while you’re on the go. We have a few more details on the PadFone today including the official price in Taiwan and the launch date. In Taiwan, the PadFone will sell for NT$17,990 or about $610 here in the States. That price is for the PadFone only and does not include the stylus or the tablet section. It makes little sense to get the PadFone without those two accessories in my book, and I imagine most of the people shopping this device feel the same way. To get the PadFone along with the tablet and stylus/Bluetooth headset will cost you NT$28,901 working out to about $850 in the United States. If you want the whole works, including the keyboard dock add on, that will cost you NT$28,901 or about $980 in the States. If you pre-order, Asus is throwing in an extra battery to sweeten the deal. You can pre-order starting tomorrow in Taiwan with official availability date of April 20. If you have missed this device so far, check out the Asus teaser video below. [via Engadget]Minsk 2.0 agreement de facto shows that Germany and France, the leading European powers are trying to break away from the "American Chaos project." © Sputnik / Nikolay Lazarenko Minsk Agreement Poses Serious Challenge to Poroshenko - Schröder Washington has certainly succeeded in permeating an already embattled EU with a little extra – what else – chaos, by pitting the “West” against Russia. The Obama administration – infested with neo-con cells, those ghosts inside the machine – have always believed that a package of Western sanctions plus a Saudi-unleashed oil price war would be enough to bring down the Russian economy, thus “changing its behavior” on Ukraine, and in the best scenario provoking regime change in Moscow. Well, it’s not working. Minsk 2.0 – as fragile an agreement as it is – de facto shows Germany (assisted by France), the leading European powers, trying to break away from the American Chaos project. The Empire of Chaos does not want a lasting agreement on Ukraine – and will do everything to torpedo Minsk 2.0. NATO’s strategic imperative remains clear; force Moscow into a war in Ukraine to exhaust it economically, prevent a EU-Russia economic/trade partnership, and eliminate Russia as a global competitor to the US. The oil price war, for its part, is also not going swimmingly anymore. Neo-cons are actually desperate; they’ve seen how the Saudi strategy is killing the US shale oil industry. Now they are not saying out loud they want an oil price rise to help Russia; but rather to keep killing Russia with low prices while the US reaps the gains by imposing a protectionist tariff. As the neo-cons see it, this way they will also kill Saudi Arabia and Iran. And this scheme was not even concocted by notorious Russophobe Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski. Don’t You Step on My Loaned Suede Shoes © Sputnik / Sergey Pivovarov German Lawmakers Claim Ukraine Conflict Covers Up Massive Cropland Seizures If geopolitically and in the energy sphere the Empire of Chaos is facing trouble, all’s fine and dandy in the realm of disaster capitalism. Thanks, once again, to the IMF. The IMF in Ukraine has been perpetrating the same devastation recently unleashed on Greece or Ireland, or across the Global South as a whole since the 1970s. Dreaded “structural adjustment” still applies – complete with an array of savage privatizations starring Western “investors” embedded with local oligarchs. That includes, of course, land grabs facilitated by IMF loans. The $17 billion IMF loan that was miraculously produced on the eve of Minsk 2.0 not only allows the oligarchs in Kiev to keep prosecuting – by proxy – an Empire of Chaos war against Russia. It came with a key conditionality; Ukraine must imperatively be ravaged by hardcore biotech farming. And what a fabulous agricultural prize; Ukraine is the world’s third largest exporter of corn, the fifth largest exporter of wheat, with a deep, rich, black soil where anything, literally, can grow. The winners, predictably, will be the usual corporate GMO suspects – from seed producers Monsanto and Dupont to farm equipment dealer, Deere. Michael Hudson has conclusively tracked this path of turbo-neoliberalism run amok; and yes, just like in the recently orchestrated run on the ruble, “finance is the new kind of warfare”, with “finance and forced sell-offs in a new kind of battlefield.” Legally, IMF head Christine “look at my new Chanel” Lagarde, also currently involved in perpetuating Greece as a “debt colony” (in the words of Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis) would not know how to justify the IMF making billionaire loans to an Ukraine plunged into civil war, and on top of it completely broke. But Madame Lagarde actually does not run the show; secretive Masters of the Universe in the Washington/Wall Street axis do. EU out, BRICS and SCO in The Empire of Chaos certainly has reasons to gloat about the nasty split between the EU and Russia. Moscow’s working hypothesis is that sanctions won’t vanish anytime soon. And forget about “business as usual” anytime soon. Germany’s captains of industry are not amused. And yet, if only a few years ago President Putin was proposing — in Germany — a wider Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok, the Ukraine tragedy has in fact turbocharged a “Go East” move; the Russia-China strategic partnership, a sort of prime Eurasia from Shanghai to St. Petersburg that also happens to be one of the touchstones of the massive Chinese-driven New Silk Road(s) infrastructure project, linking China to Europe via Central Asia and also via a high-speed rail upgrade of the Trans-Siberian. The myth of Russia’s “isolation” propelled by Washington and its vassals is a joke. An Empire of Chaos-imposed Cold War 2.0 is not the end of (Russia’s) world. Russian diplomacy is active on all fronts – from South Asia (India) to the Middle East (Egypt). This summer, Russia will host two crucial summits: the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The BRICS keep advancing their push for a multipolar world — from the implementation of a development bank to trading in their own currencies. The SCO will soon welcome India and Pakistan as members, and in the near future, Iran – solidifying itself as an Asian political/economic alliance. The Empire of Chaos’s obsessive agenda precludes any benefits for the EU. Apart from Gazprom, Russia has been sidelined as a trade partner – at least in the near future. And there’s not much the EU may profit from Ukraine; it won’t fork out a single devalued euro to “save” it from bankruptcy, and it won’t play with fire by facilitating its incorporation by NATO. I have argued it all depends on Germany. Business Germany wants to do business with Eurasian powers Russia and China. Political Germany is still wondering where its strategic priorities lie. Diplomats in a split to the core Brussels, off the record, have hinted Moscow sent a clear message. Either everyone embarks on a Chinese-style “win-win” situation, from Lisbon to Vladivostok; or the EU blindly follows the Empire of Chaos, chooses confrontation in Ukraine, and receives as a poisoned gift a war in its eastern borderlands it cannot possibly win. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official position of Sputnik. You can buy Pepe Escobar’s latest book "Empire of Chaos" here Follow him on FacebookIn the past 10 years, Communist Party of India (Maoists) organised as many as 489 training camps for more than 40,000 cadres who have been taught about the use of sophisticated weapons and guerrilla warfare, according to information obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). The revelations are significant as in the recent months several attacks on security personnel have been carried out by Maoists. These very 40,000 cadres have been trained over the years for such deadly attacks. The original number of cadres trained could be much higher as this is just the data which MHA has recorded. The information provided by MHA under RTI shows that while there was a year-on-year increase in the number of training camps – from 16 in 2004 to 93 in 2010, thereafter the numbers decreased to five in 2014. While ministry officials are attributing the decrease to the success of Operation Green Hunt, Maoist experts claim that the rebels are shifting the districts of the training camps and thus the forces are not able to find out about the camps. "Because of the Operation Green Hunt the Maoists have not been able to organise training camps like before," said an official who works in the Naxal Management Division of the MHA on condition of anonymity. The Operation Green Hunt was launched in November 2009 during the previous UPA government and is described as an 'all-out offensive' by paramilitary forces and the state's police against the Maoists. "MHA has no idea about the exact number of training camps. These numbers are their imagination. The actual numbers could be much higher. While Maoists shift base and the camp locations, the security forces and state police have eyes glued to the same spot," said Suhas Chakma, Director, Asian Centre for Human Rights. For instance, not a single training camp was held until 2010 in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. And since 2010 nearly 10 camps have been organised, training more than 1,000 cadre. "If they know about these camps, why are they not able to dismantle them," asks Chakma. The biggest challenge for the security forces came from the BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh, which tops the chart. Maoists organised 200 training camps in the forest areas during the above period and trained 20,000 cadres. Next in line is Jharkhand in which 12,582 cadres were trained in 136 camps. In the third position is Orissa with 4,136 cadres trained in 56 camps. As per the MHA data, preferred districts of organising camps have been Dantewada, Narayanpur in Chattishgarh and Giridih and Bokaro in Jharkhand. Cumulatively, more than 15,000 cadres were trained in these districts. Training camps have two major components – military and in-doctrine. The military training mainly consists of guerrilla warfare, ambush, handling of explosives and sophisticated weapons. Generally, such training camps are conducted for 10 to 15 days, but sometimes it lasts for more than a month. Under in-doctrine training, cadre are told about the Maoist ideology in details and explained about the ultimate objective. Recoveries made during the raids conducted by the state police on Maoist training camps in the past give us a glimpse of what goes on in such training camps. Police have recovered devices ranging from solar plates and radio sets to tiffin bombs, guns and other explosives. "The newly recruited cadre that also includes young kids are trained in handling sophisticated weapons and explosives. They are also taught methods to escape and retaliate during a police crackdown," said former Director General of Police Rahul Gopal, who is known for his anti-naxal operations in Gadchiroli district.A City IT consultant and former Bank of England adviser was today under police guard in hospital as detectives waited to question him over the killing of his wife. Stuart Andrews, 54, was detained in London on Friday over the death of his wife Caroline, 52, the previous day at the rented £500,000 bungalow in Benenden, Kent. The father-of-four was thought to be suffering from money troubles and the stress of a nightmare commute into the City. He was also said to be under pressure from his primary school teacher wife’s frail father staying at the family home. Mr Andrews is also understood to have become increasingly stressed by his inability to secure a mortgage to buy the £550,000 bungalow his family rented. They were reportedly facing eviction within a fortnight and the couple was said to have rowed over whether to leave the picturesque village, with Mr Andrews wanting to move closer to London to shorten his commute. The Oxford classics graduate was also thought to have become exhausted by his lengthy commute into the City of London, often leaving home at 5am and returning at 7pm or later. Their landlord, Charles Lenox-Conyngham, 81, said he was keen to sell them his property, but they never “managed to close the deal.” He said: “We agreed a price for it this time last year and then Stuart was going to get a mortgage. By the autumn it was painfully clear that it wasn’t going to happen. “The elderly father caused a problem. Stuart desperately wanted to get a mortgage but Caroline’s father brought an extra cost with carers visiting the home regularly.” “Stuart had quite a hard life. He would travel up and down to London every day, leaving at 5am and sometimes not getting back until midnight. “He had a very stressful life with little sleep and they were having to move.” The couple had been married for 31 years and had four children: Charles, 26, an organist; Henry, 23, a graduate; Polly, 19, a student; and a 14-year-old daughter, the only child to still live with them. According to his online CV, Mr Andrews was an information management consultant for global business advisers Alix Partners, and had previously worked in IT for banks including HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland. He had also worked for three years as an adviser on a IT project for the Bank of England. During the hunt for Mr Andrews on Friday 30 officers carrying guns piled on to a busy commuter train at Gillingham station and searched it for 90 minutes. Police have not revealed the nature of Mr Andrews’ injuries or how he had received them. A Kent Police spokesman said: “He has non-life threatening injuries in hospital. Officers are waiting to speak to him.”WNY family builds special "Bella's Bumbas" chairs inspired by their daughter Copyright by WIVB - All rights reserved Video BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - A two-year-old Buffalo girl is now the inspiration behind a movement to help kids with disabilities. "Bella's Bumbas" is a company started by Isabella Shorr's family. Isabella was born with a condition that made it hard for her to get around. That is until her family built her a moving chair. Now she's up and running! "It took us by surprise we had no idea what spina bifida was," Jeffrey Shorr said. Isabella Shorr was born with her spine on the outside of her body. Now, she's paralyzed from the knees down. He said, "She wasn't able to basically move around so she was kind of stuck in whatever position we put her in. If she wanted to interact with her brothers and sister it was basically sitting in one spot." But, her family wanted her to be independent. So they built her a special wheelchair made out of a "bumbo" seat and wheels. Shorr said, "It works just like a wheelchair moves around here, it's got the seat-belt, we have a break on it also." Within two weeks, Bella was up and running. Shorr said, "The joy she gets, you can see it on her face. She just has a big smile ear to ear." Her mom, Sonya Shorr said, "She's not depending on me or Jeff or her siblings. And she enjoys it. She's able to go places we thought she might not be able to go." Once they saw Bella so successful with the chair, they knew they had to make more. Now, the Shorrs' are teaming up with family members in Rochester to build more chairs. Jeffrey Shorr said, "There's a lot of kids out there that are affected by spina bifida that you really don't hear about often. This is a great opportunity to give those kids the freedom and joy that we see Bella have." There are similar products on the market, but one will cost you about $1000 dollars. So the Shorrs' are collecting donations and shipping them to families for free Demand is growing, they've had 12 requests just this week. Right now they need Bumbo chairs and 12 inch tires. You can check out their Facebook page for more information on how you can help.Last month’s bold decision by an entire MFA class to drop out in protest over mistreatment by school administrators dramatically highlights systemic problems in art education from coast to coast. Seven graduate students at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and Design left the school on May 15 over the school administration’s changes to their promised funding, faculty and curriculum. The decision, by students Julie Beaufils, Sid Duenas, George EgertonWarburton, Edie Fake, Lauren Davis Fisher, Lee Relvas, and Ellen Schafer, came as a shock, to say the least. Over the last several years, USC’s MFA program has been viewed as a model of what a graduate experience in studio art should look like: generous scholarship packages, teaching assistantships with cash awards, close ties to Los Angeles cultural institutions like MOCA, and a who’s-who list of visiting artists and faculty (see Entire 2016 MFA Class Drops Out of USC’s Roski School of Art and Design). Ten current and former USC faculty members recently issued a statement of support of the students, also calling out the disconnected administration. The students’ passionate public statement outlined what they claim amounts to an entire academic year of constructed obfuscation, consistent question-dodging, wildly inconsistent communication, and blatant disrespect from program administrators. The basic issue is that the program and support that they were promised during recruitment, which included a tuition-free second year with a teaching assistantship and cash award, turned out to be what they describe as a “classic bait-and-switch.” Frances Stark, an artist who was a tenured faculty member, resigned from the program December of 2014, citing the administration’s “lack of transparency or ethical behavior.” It’s All too Familiar Having served on the faculty member of multiple post-secondary art schools including Virginia Commonwealth University and Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA), and having a considerable amount of arts education administrative experience at PNCA and New York University, I find all this depressingly familiar. Leading the accused USC administration is Roski dean Erica Muhl, appointed in May 2013 despite virtually no actual relationship to contemporary art (see USC Roski Dean Denies Accusations by Students Who Dropped Out in Protest). In fact, it was Muhl who, amongst other administrators, championed changing the name of the school from Roski School of Fine Arts to Roski School of Art and Design just months after her appointment to the position of Dean, calling this a “subtle but momentous shift.” Momentous, yes. But subtle? Hardly. Artists, by and large, think designers and start-up people are tools because, by and large, designers and start-up people are tools. I stand by that 100%—you can “user experience design” that on my headstone after cancer “disrupts” my “engagement” with existence. What’s possibly even more troubling about Muhl’s relationship to the art students is that she is founding executive director of the USC Iovine and Young Academy for Arts, Technology, and the Business of Innovation, the start-up-themed pedagogic collaboration between USC and $70 million of Jimmy Iovine’s and Dr. Dre’s money. The academy is technically a different school than Roski, though Roski’s site directly links to it, and, since Muhl herself has been designated an upper administrator of both, one has to question its impact on the fine arts department. USC claims the Iovine and Young Academy is “an environment for those rare undergraduate students whose interests span fields such as marketing, business entrepreneurship, computer science and engineering, audio and visual design, and the arts.” Please stop saying “the arts,” you tech-humping poseurs. It’s my opinion that any administrator comfortable with having job titles that include Professor of Art and Founding Executive Director of anything with “innovation” in the title needs to take a day off, have a cheeseburger, and do a little “me” work. To study art is to learn to think critically, actually critically, not the way the Iovine and Young Academy uses the word. It’s not about the sophomoric buzzword “disruption,” it’s about the actual disrupting of one’s own social conditioning through the development of visual literacy and a profound, sometimes very upsetting, understanding of the political, social, and cultural paradoxes present in culture. In fine art, innovation means pushing oneself beyond aesthetic tropes and posing what are often extremely uncomfortable questions. It has nothing to do with innovating the way corporations can use metrics and data to monetize the social behaviors of everyday people. Sure, there are plenty of artists who are cash-hungry, capitalist pigs. But at least when I suffer through listening to Jeff Koons give an interview I don’t hear the hell-spawned fucking information-incubus that I do every time Zuckerberg opens his volatile, poke-inventing mouth. Art School, Disrupted Following the students’ May 15 open letter, USC Roski’s administration quickly released its own public statement attempting to discredit the students’ accusations. The students responded with a new document, the USC Roski Drop-Out Fact Sheet. While the administration’s communications used vague and unconvincing arguments, the students’ annotated response is clear and provides formal documents from USC as evidence supporting their claims of deliberate deceit. I interviewed the USC Seven collectively via email for this article, and their response to the obsession with start-up language now favored by USC is barbed and astute: Tethering an entire program with an industrial design focus to a trendy theory of “disruption” seems misguided and overall shortsighted. The marketing of the Academy as a place of innovation and conceptual thinking all happens against the backdrop of an administration that is hostile to critique and dissent, and a school where faculty is mistreated, maligned and intimidated. When cultural institutions recklessly adopt the language and values of start-up culture (or the shallow world of design) in an attempt to seem current, their constituencies suffer. But the effects aren’t limited to art-viewing audiences or student populations. I also contacted writer Michael Pepi, who has extensively covered and taught classes on the complicated relationship between contemporary art and the tech sector, to ask his opinion about initiatives like the Iovine and Young Academy at USC. He said: It’s no secret that donors and other groups that exert control over cultural institutions have a sort of ideological stamp on those structures. The university and the museum are little more than organs for the values of the ruling class, or more directly, the state. But today it is more complex, since for the first time the new “robber barons” have a distinctly anti-intellectual bent, believing that private sector value creation has an educational worth to society, or that blind worship of “disruptive” innovation somehow stands in as an alternative (or replacement) for creativity and personal development. The shift that is evidenced by the Iovine & Young program is only the beginning. Institutions of higher education, in basically any discipline, are relied upon to train critical thinkers able to stand outside something like the new gold rush we’re seeing in Silicon Valley, not follow the hype cycle fomented by a cheerleading press. As USC’s administration focuses on growing a program that sounds practically antithetical to an art education, they’re also throwing the Roski students under the bus. “These [MFA] students would have received a financial package worth at least 90 percent of tuition costs in scholarships and teaching assistantships,” Muhl’s letter from May 15th claimed. Not only is that factually false, it also conveniently disregards the costs incurred in addition to tuition fees. One need only examine the “Funding” section of the students’ fact sheet to see how the administration is spinning this. Formal communications from Penelope Jones, assistant dean for student affairs, and then-MFA director A.L. Steiner in April 2014 both clearly state that they’d be assured a paid TA position before they entered the program. By the spring 2015, the end of their first year at USC, the administration sent a contradictory document telling them that for 2015-16, they’d “authorized faculty to prioritize awarding of TA-ships to qualified second-year MFA applicants.” Even if it’s more likely than not that an MFA student would get a TA position and cash award in their second year, it’s absolutely not a guarantee. According to USC’s own financial aid calculations, if students didn’t receive the paid TA position that they were promised, their debt at the end of two years for school and living costs at “one of the most generously funded programs in the country” would likely be $75,252.40. How Does Roski Solve a Problem Like A.L. Steiner? It gets messier. Artist A.L. Steiner, who recruited these students as MFA director and was a full-time faculty member at USC Roski until very recently, told me via email: In the spring 2015 semester, the seven first-year MFA students—who were recruited during my Directorship [in 2014]—were told by Roski’s administration that their funding promises, faculty and curricular offerings were changing, in advance of this cohort’s 2016 graduation. As you know, the students released a detailed statement regarding these matters. On May 13, 2015, Muhl informed me that she was declining to renew my one-year contract, which was ending on May 15, 2015. I’m the only full-time non-tenure track Roski professor whose renewal was declined. Steiner is a respected visual artist with an active exhibition record whose work is in collections including New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is a co-founder of Working Artists in the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E), a group that advocates for appropriate compensation for artistic labor. She has demonstrated a real, energetic dedication to education. At Roski, she was the only faculty member tapped to teach in the MFA program as well as the critical studies, intermedia, and photography programs. USC, or any program, should feel privileged to call her faculty. Not renewing Steiner’s contract seems like a powerful way for Muhl’s office to intimidate other faculty. Steiner had voluntarily stepped down from her position as MFA director in the fall of 2014 (and was not replaced, the USC dropouts complain), but, as she describes it, only for personal reasons. Her father had died, she told me, and she wanted to focus on teaching instead of her administrative load. Amidst increasing media heat, Muhl released a follow-up statement on May 21. After claiming to respect the students’ decision and their strong feelings on the issue, she says, “We honored in every respect the 2014 offer letters sent to them by the school,” then goes on to say that she “understand[s] that the students found some of the school’s other communications confusing or unclear, and as dean [she has] already taken steps to correct those shortcomings.” What “other communications”? Does she mean the aforementioned official letters the students received from Steiner and Penelope Jones? Because those two letters seem pretty clear to me. The students were promised TA positions, a tuition-free year of study, and a cash award; to indicate that those letters confused the students is patronizing, if not entirely offensive. The part that raises a red flag for me is her most recent letter’s closing. In a charade of generosity, she indicates that she has not recorded their withdrawal, opting instead to grant each of them a two-year leave of absence with the option to re-enroll. At first glance, it may seem like she’s left the door open for further conversation. But that’s bullshit. How can a dean refuse to let you drop out of college? This granting of a leave of absence reeks of an accounting scheme. Judging by a new letter released by the students on Thursday the 28th, it appears that they’ve come to the same conclusion. The time I’ve spent working in the administrations at private art schools leads me to be highly suspicious of what’s behind the school’s latest correspondence. I believe that Muhl is attempting to keep her student population numbers at what’s expected. Students who are on a leave of absence can still be counted as students, while those who have withdrawn cannot. Academic deans, no matter how autonomous they may seem, do not operate in a vacuum. If it’s Muhl who is orchestrating this scheme, it’s quite possibly with a stamp of approval from provost Michael Quick and president Max Nikias, both of whom are likely pressuring her to keep, at the very least, some of the seven students who have dropped out. Administrations project anticipated tuition income for the following year and budget accordingly. When USC opted to make changes to the funding promises and curriculum, including potential tuition dollars from students who didn’t get a now “competitive” TAship, I suspect they mistakenly assumed that the students wouldn’t have the audacity to actually collectively drop out. One or two maybe, but all seven? That was a hell of a gamble. The students said much of the same in their original letter, stating, “Perhaps the University imagined that we would suffer any amount of lies, manipulations, and mistreatment for those shiny degrees.” It’s not easy to personally justify dropping out after going into debt and working so hard, no matter how awful the environment. The school is now going to strange lengths to try to convince some of them to stay enrolled, despite the new policies and potential tuition costs, because any amount of income is still income. Simply honoring the original offers would have kept them in school, and at least avoided this public relations nightmare. It’s a little sadistic, but I’m getting a real kick out of imagining the conversations about all of this between USC Roski’s administration and the MFA class they’ve just recruited to begin this fall. Unlike anything coming out of Muhl’s office to the public, the students’ final words to me over email highlight their thoughtful and realistic perspective on what happened this year at USC: We all attended USC with the professional expectation that the financial promises made to us were specifically budgeted for us during our time at the University. We understand that department budgets change, especially for schools that have just secured a $70m donation, but we expected the financial changes would be made with respect for the obligations they already had promised. Start-Up Art School It’s difficult, after hearing this story, to maintain any optimism about the future of higher art education. From the Cooper Union debacle (see Scandal Erupts as New York Attorney General Investigates Cooper Union for Shady Financial Dealings) to the USC Roski fiasco, it’s demoralizing to hear how disconnected art school administrations are from what should be their mission: serving their students. Frighteningly, the adoption of start-up mentalities that value quantitative data over qualitative learning may become the norm. And it’s no secret at all that the rapid expansion of administrative staffs at art schools is a major cause of the rise in tuition. For a heavy take on how tuition dollars at colleges in general are spent, I recommend viewing Andrew Rossi’s 2014 documentary The Ivory Tower. Still, let’s not forget that there is still power in action. The USC Seven intends to maintain their cohort and produce an exhibition. The students will continue to learn from one another, which is how artists learn best. Indeed, sometimes we get a glimmer of hope, like when a group of students stand up for themselves and refuse to take any more shit. Follow artnet News on Facebook:Freedom campers in Queenstown are clustering their vehicles together, creating makeshift campsites on public land - and challenging enforcement officers if they get clamped. Photo: 123RF The Queenstown Lakes District Council has handed out 484 enforcement notices to freedom campers since last month and the Department of Conservation (DOC) has hired an extra ranger to clean up after them. Council spokesman Lee Webster said council staff had seen a new trend of campers bunching vehicles together and challenging
of Heraclius they were very great idolaters. From that time to the present a false prophet named Mohammed has appeared in their midst. This man, after having chanced upon the Old and New Testaments and likewise, it seems, having conversed with an Arian monk, devised his own heresy. Then, having insinuated himself into the good graces of the people by a show of seeming piety, he gave out that a certain book had been sent down to him from heaven. He had set down some ridiculous compositions in this book of his and he gave it to them as an object of veneration.” Heraclius was the Byzantine Emperor during the years 610-641. So this places the Mohammed mentioned by Saint John into the correct time period. But this Mohammed is most definitely not the historical Mohammed of the Hadiths and The Qur’an. Saint John’s Mohammed was a literate man, knowledgeable in the Old and New Testaments, sophisticated enough in theology to understand the arguments that underlie Arian Christianity, the producer of the Qur’an himself, and a man, not of military accomplishments, but one of feigned piety. The continuation of this quoted text is well worth reading, since it leaves no doubt that the Syrian Christian world at that time considered the followers of Mohammed as nothing more than Christian heretics. If this critique of early Islam wasn’t salt enough in the wound, Norbert Pressburg further shows from the archeological record that the Ka’aba, that center of Muslim devotion, is actually the walled up shell of an earlier 4-5th century Yemeni-style Christian Church. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Norbert Pressburg continues to add to the work of Emmet Scott and Robert Spencer in making the case against the historically accepted reality of a rapid conquest, beginning in the mid-7th century, of North Africa and the Levant by invading Muslim armies. There are, in fact, no reliable historical records, dating to that time period, that indicate any such thing happened. What we do know is that time period corresponds to the collapse of the Persian Empire along with a withdrawal of the Byzantium Empire from many of the areas that it formerly controlled. There was no need for an Arab conquest. With the collapse of the Persian and Byzantine Empires, the power vacuum left behind would have been more than enough to account for local Arab leaders moving from previously minor roles to being the big bosses of their regions. Moreover, this transition to local Arab rule would have essentially happened overnight, without a single army marching or a single major battle being fought. Going the next step further, since Islam, as we know it today, didn’t yet exist in the 7th and 8th centuries; there couldn’t have been any “Muslim” conquests either. One of our big mistakes when looking back at that period of history has been in making the assumption that Arab equates with Muslim. We therefore end up mistakenly crediting to a religion we call Islam, a historical shift that was no more than the resurgence of Arab rule into the power vacuum left by the collapsing and withdrawing Persian and Byzantine Empires. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The embryonic early history of Islam makes perfect sense when viewed as a heretical Christian movement that was originally founded by a charismatic individual whose theology began as a hodge-podge of various Christian heresies. This heretical Christian movement then grew and matured during the 7th and 8th centuries within the Arab populations; eventually it appeared fully formed on the world stage as the religion of Islam. Islam is the bastard love child of Gnostic Christian thought with pagan Arab religiosity. While this idea might seem totally off-base to anyone accustomed to a modern accepted understanding of Christianity, it cannot be emphasized enough that the Christian world of the 4th through the 8th centuries would be almost unrecognizable by anyone experiencing it from a modern point of view. For this reason, a strong recommendation to anyone planning on reading Norbert Pressburg’s book is to first review the history of the various classic heresies that were prevalent in the Syrian Christian world of that time, notably Arianism and Nestorianism. Here are two good starting points. Both will have further bibliographies: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * If you stop to think about it, you’ll realize that virtually everything we think we know about the history of the Arab world of the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries has come down to us in the form of written narratives based on second-hand, third-hand, and even more distant sources. These sources were not written down until generations or even centuries after the time of the purported events. But if you ask, “Are there any first-hand accounts that can be reliably dated to a time contemporary to the events they record, and that corroborate the accepted narrative surrounding the early history of Islam?” …you come up empty handed. This is the new direction in Islamic scholarship represented by the authors Norbert Pressburg, Emmet Scott, Christoph Luxenberg, and Robert Spencer. They all start with the assumption that the historically accepted narratives are suspect, and then attempt to rebuild a view of history using only sources and methods that they know from their own areas of expertise to be reliable. In Emmet Scott’s case, he falls back on archeology and finds that not only doesn’t the archeological record of that period support the historically accepted narrative surrounding Islam; it stands in direct contradiction to it. Christoph Luxenberg applies linguistic analysis to the text of the Qur’an based on his knowledge of the Syro-Aramaic language and finds an extensive presence of older Syro-Aramaic passages and phrases. Likewise, Norbert Pressburg falls back on the science of linguistic analysis and uses it to examine extant Arabic and Qur’anic writings from the 7th and 8th centuries that pre-date the first known complete copy of the Qur’an. And again, like Emmet Scott, he is led to conclusions that stand in direct contradiction to the historically accepted narratives surrounding Islam. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * If this alternate view of history, as it is developing in the above mentioned books, continues to hold up under further examination, then the implication is that everything we’ve been accepting as historically true about Islam during the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries is completely wrong. There was no historical Mohammed. There was no Muslim-Arab conquest of North Africa and the Levant; there was not even an Arab conquest of those regions. The religion of Islam didn’t even appear, as we know it today, until sometime around the mid 9th century, so it would have played no role in the history of that earlier time period either. No wonder then, when it comes to the issues of Islam’s impacts on Western Society, we never seem to be able to win a debate on the matter. It’s because, before the debate even begins, we’ve already been unwittingly accepting as our starting point Islam’s false narrative about itself. But once you accept the fact that the commonly accepted early history of Islam and the Muslim world is a complete fantasy, the temptation that comes next is to start creating a new narrative building from your own speculations. If there is any cautionary lesson to be learned from the works by Norbert Pressburg, Emmet Scott, and Robert Spencer, it is that we really don’t know anything for sure about the historical period of the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries, and we shouldn’t be making any assumptions at all at this point. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Epilogue Not every reader would necessarily notice this, but Saint John of Damascus’ singling out of Arianism as the source of Mohammed’s heretical view of Christianity provided for me one of those proverbial “aha” moments. Arianism was the first of the Gnostic heresies to arise in the early church. It postulated Christ as a creation of the Father, hence he could not be equal with the Father. It was this sticking point, the Trinitarian view of Christianity, which eventually prevailed over Arianism. Thus, anytime you hear new-age-spirituality describing Jesus as just another prophet, a wise teacher, an enlightened master, this is simply a modern echo of that early Arian heresy. And if you go to any of the mainline Protestant churches today, the ones who have fully embraced politically-correct multiculturalism, listen to the clergy: you will discover that these churches have incorporated into their theology elements of Arianism as well. All of the Germanic/Gothic barbarian tribes, as they progressed from paganism to Trinitarian Christianity, went through a stage where they were first Arian Christians. One notable exception was the Vandals; they remained Arian throughout their stay in the historical record. Is it only a coincidence that the Vandals ended up in North Africa where several centuries later the religion of Islam became dominant? Is it also coincidence that the Arian Christian Vandals practiced forced conversions under threat of death, just as the followers of Mohammed later would? There appears to be a special resonance between the pagan barbarian mindset and the Arian version of Christianity. The early Church Fathers lived in a world much of which was still pagan. And they had firsthand experience dealing with the Germanic/Gothic barbarian ways of thinking. Were they seeing, in the way the pagan barbarians embraced Arianism, an especially toxic combination? Looking back in history, we see that the First Council of Nicaea was adamant in eliminating the Gnostic heresy of Arianism from the early church. The Nicene Creed was worded precisely to exclude the Arian view of The Christ. Did they know something back then that we should be paying attention to today? Arianism shows up as a common thought pattern shared by both Islam and by those segments within the Christian faith that have embraced PC/MC. After my old ELCA Lutheran Church called a new pastor, one of the first things she did was cut the recitation of the Nicene Creed from our regular service. On the other hand, those within the Christian faith that seem to be immune to the effects of PC/MC are those that still confess the traditional Trinitarian view of The Christ. All this leaves me wondering if there isn’t something very important going on here. But I not sure what exactly it might be.BUSINESS The South Korean food industry pledged Friday to actively partake in new government measures aimed at reducing citizens’ sugar consumption and promoting public health. Local food companies say they are already engaged in efforts to reduce sugar content in their products and will continue on this trajectory in line with rising health consciousness here and abroad. “The food industry will actively abide by the government’s new policy toward sugar reduction,” the Korea Food Industry Association said in a statement. “As a consumer-based industry, we are dedicated to promoting the health of our citizens.” (Yonhap) (Korea Yakult) The new measures, announced by the Food Ministry on Thursday include requiring all food-makers to openly share their products’ sugar levels, pursuing health awareness campaigns and banning schoolchildren from consuming high-sugar foods such as carbonated drinks and coffee, among others.The ministry’s net goal is to ensure that every citizen’s sugar consumption only makes up 10 percent of their daily calorie intake -- a move forecast to take a toll on the sales of sugary foods here.Market officials say the trend against high sugar consumption is not new. Though there will be difficulties, companies plan to ramp up efforts to introduce a wider range of low-sugar food products amid growing health concerns.Korea’s leading sugar maker CJ CheilJedang said it does not expect drastic changes to the sugar market in the short run, though long-term shifts will be inevitable due to changing consumer preferences.“As the industry has been aware of sugar issues for a long time, we do not expect the new policy to take a significant toll on the sugar market as of now,” CJ CheilJedang spokesperson Chai Min-su told The Korea Herald.Nonetheless aware of consumers’ moves to lower sugar intake, CJ plans to continue investing in developing more sugar substitutes like Xylose and Allulose sugar that allow consumers to enjoy new forms of “healthier sweetness.”“Though it won’t happen immediately, we believe food companies in the B2B market to increase their use of sugar substitutes in the long run as well in line with growing health demands,” Chai said.The beverage and snacks industry, which stands to be impacted the most by a movement against high-sugar foods, cited plans to offer a wider variety of low-sugar products to consumers in the future.“We will fully abide by any government policy related to lowering public sugar consumption and work to offer a wider variety of low-sugar products in the future,” Kang Hyun-joong, a spokesperson for Korea’s top beverage maker Lotte Chilsung Beverage, told The Korea Herald.Korea Yakult, the best-known seller of yogurt drinks, said it has already reduced sugar content in all of its fermented dairy products as part of a low-sugar campaign launched in August 2014.Sales of Yakult Light, which contains about half as much sugar compared to regular Yakult, has risen by 400 percent as of March 2016 since its launch, the firm said.As a forerunner in this direction, the firm will “further work to lower the amount of sugar in its products as well as implement healthier substitutes for sugar in the future,” according to company spokesperson Park Won-kyung.Lotte Confectionery, Korea’s top snack producer, told The Korea Herald that it is reviewing plans to develop low-sugar sweets in line with the government’s initiative, though it will require significant time and effort.“It is not easy to suddenly change a recipe and developing new low-sugar products will take some time,” Lotte Confectionary spokesperson Ahn Sung-kun told The Korea Herald.“What’s most important making products that can appeal to consumers’ tastes -- a complex process which will require time and effort.”Other critics echoed similar concerns, pointing out that food firms may be reluctant to make drastic changes in their recipes, in fear of losing customers.“It is inherently difficult for a food company to reduce sugar content in a product, as lowering it can change its taste. This could lead to customers, who are used to the original taste, turning away from buying the product,” a food industry official said on condition of anonymity.“Nonetheless, ‘low-sugar’ is an inevitable trend that cannot be avoided. Companies will need to make efforts to reduce sugar content in their products while maintaining taste.”By Sohn Ji-young ( jys@heraldcorp.comSpitzenkandidaten is one of the words of the moment in Brussels, and one that is giving British political parties a few headaches. The concept of ‘lead candidates’ is familiar in Germany and many other parts of Europe. And it is now a key feature of this year’s European elections. For the first time, the new European Parliament will elect the President of the European Commission, based on a proposal from national leaders sitting in the European Council. This is a big change from the behind-closed-doors deals of the past and a small but important step to making Europe more democratic. It is one of the main topics Burson-Marsteller Brussels is covering as part of our Europe Decides initiative. European-level political families are putting up candidates who will lead their campaigns and be their candidates for the Commission presidency, heading the body that initiates and implements EU law. Labour The Party of European Socialists – of which Labour is a member – has chosen Martin Schulz, the current President of the European Parliament. Schulz was elected last weekend by centre-left parties from across Europe, and has the backing of several prime ministers. He professes his wish to be the first ‘democratically-elected’ Commission President, rather that the victor of a back-room deal. Labour’s leadership, however, chose the eve of the PES Congress to rain on Schulz’s parade, announcing that it would not support him. Fearing criticism if they back a pro-integration candidate, Labour buckled in the face of Euroscepticism. This is a blow for Schulz, who may need to votes of 20 or 25 Labour MEPs to win the presidency. It is also for British influence in European affairs – especially if the German eventually heads the Commission. Conservatives The Conservatives also have a spitzenkandidaten problem. David Cameron is desperate to stop Schulz becoming Commission President, but doesn’t care for the Christian Democrat (EPP) or Liberal nominees either. Recent meetings with his German and Dutch counterparts have tackled this issue, with Cameron looking to bring in a ‘compromise’ candidate at the last minute. The UK cannot block a nomination, as the decision is taken by a qualified majority decision. Cameron is thought to have an alternative if the Socialists win the election – the Danish PM, Helle Thorning-Schmidt (incidentally, the preferred choice of Labour, too) – as well as suggestions from the centre-right, such as IMF head Christine Lagarde. The approach of both Labour and the Conservatives is seen by many in Brussels as slightly bewildering. Both have argued for a more democratic, transparent and open Europe, but are opposing the choice of a President by this more democratic (if imperfect) process. At a European level, the Conservatives have set their faces against the whole process, arguing that there is no European ‘demos’ to justify the presence of Europe-wide candidates. A candidate emerging from a smoke-filled room may serve their immediate political interests, but it does nothing to boost the legitimacy of European institutions (perhaps a deliberate intention) - or to enhance Britain’s standing in the long run. EPP Dublin On Friday afternoon, the race for the Commission presidency begins in earnest, with the election of Jean-Claude Juncker (EPP) to face Schulz and Guy Verhofstadt, the Liberal former Belgian premier. However, this could be a race where the crossing the line first is not enough. Haggling and horse-trading after the elections on 22-25 May are likely still to determine the outcome – a disappointing outcome for those who support these initial steps towards a more democratic and legitimate European Union.Japan's Super GT series remains a favorite at the Autoblog office, because like British Touring Cars and Germany's DTM, the cars look vaguely like the ones you can actually buy, and the racing is close and intense. And next year, Japan's wildest racing will include the Lexus LC 500 Toyota and Gazoo Racing are phasing out the old RC F – which will continue racing here in the US GT3 ranks since it's barely a year old – in favor of Lexus'bigger, cushier two-door coupe. The racer depends on a 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder – just like every other car in the GT500 ranks – but unlike the 5.0-liter V8 or a 3.5-liter hybrid V6 in the LC 500s folks could actually buy.But let's ignore the mechanicals, because look at this monstrous racer. The LC is already the best looking car to wear Lexus' polarizing design language, but the aggressive cuts, angles, and oddly shaped headlights look great when paired with a Super GT car's aerodynamic appendages. Monstrous, flared wheel arches, a mammoth rear wing, and side skirts big enough to serve drinks on are just a few of the aero improvements for the LC 500 racer. Then, there's the really cool stuff, like the exhaust exit in the passenger side door. All cars should have side-exit exhausts in the door.According to Toyota and Gazoo's Google Translated website, the new LC 500 Super GT500 will campaign in the 2017 season. We can't wait to see it hit the track.'ssaves the day at '' last night. � Changmin, EXO's D.O., and SHINee's Taemin performed the song "You Needed Me" together during a joint stage at the concert. Unfortunately, midway through the song a large pop dropped from the ceiling almost hitting both Taemin and D.O. Thankfully, thanks to the lightening fast reflexes of Changmin neither idol was injured.� Just as the stage prop was about to hit D.O, Changmin gently pulled him away from harm, but was also quick enough to move under the enormous prop and push Taemin out of the way as well. He then zips from under the structure just in time for it to continue to descend to the floor.� You can watch Changmin's cat-like reflexes in the fancam of the incident above!Everyone loves a good story, especially Saab Story. That’s why we created My Saab blog catagory, to bring some of our favourite moments you have shared with us to the larger SAAB community. Just one such Saab story came to us in the mailbox from former president of Saab Turbo club of Sweden – Mr. Johan Sonesson. He sent us his fantastic of his beuatiful Saab 9-3 Convertible. Its year model 2006, but facelifted whit Griffin bumper/list, with some Hirsch performance elements. You probably are wondering – which color is this? This fantastic color is named “Sunset Orange effect” and is very good in this car. If you like this Saab, you can follow the instagram of her owner @aerosone69 Each and every Saab is associated with individual experiences. Here you can find out more about other people’s SAAB stories. Or become part of this special driving pleasure and tell us about your own personal Saab story.As a public database, the blockchain can store information about individual pieces of content, including who created it, while sharing it within a network. As such, it has the potential to totally transform the creative industry and rights management for intellectual property (IP) and artistic works in manifold ways. Digital rights management (DRM) in the music industry through the years has become incredibly complex. Determining who has written a song and who owns a recording can be nearly impossible, with zero transparency and no central database to rely on. More importantly, determining rights, ownership, payment as well as enforcement and validation in the absence of transparency and database validation is often a fool's errand for the licensor. When it comes to music, nobody has real incentive to address the lack of transparency. Data is siloed in databases at record companies, publishers and collecting societies. This is the where technology can remove the darkness and complexity. Rights Protection The blockchain functions as a digitized distributed ledger, providing a perfect audit trail of all goods and transactions on the network. This has direct applications for individual content, which can be timestamped and stored with a unique identification. Once this information is saved, it's immutable, unlike most pieces of digital content that, once downloaded, can be modified, mashed up and used for a host of other purposes. Transparency is thus one of the biggest benefits of this system. The rights to a particular piece of content can be seen by everyone participating on the blockchain network, rather than stored on a standalone server owned by a label or copyrights collection society. For instance, SingularDTV is a company that is looking to build a decentralized platform on Ethereum - a blockchain-based developer ecosystem - to help content creators produce, protect, monetize and manage their creations from development to distribution. Monetization Blockchain transactions are based on smart contracts - code-based contracts that are activated by a given procedure or behavior and validated by all other computers on the network. Content owners are able to program a set of smart contracts around different usage policies for their creations. When another user wants to consume or repurpose this content, they select the appropriate usage policy for them and then instantly reward the creator through the smart contract they've selected. Because digital currency is a central application of the blockchain, these micropayments are dispensed automatically, instantaneously and at a near-zero cost to the content owner. Re-Empowering Creators Blockchain will create a direct consumer-to-creator network, in which consumers interact directly with creators and have immediate access to their content. This may in fact remove subscription video on demand (SVOD) or transactional video on demand (TVOD) intermediaries like Netflix from the content distribution and rights management process. Shifting all of the financial upside to creators is the moonshot this use case creates. On certain music streaming and purchasing platforms, artists currently share 10 to 15 percent of revenue on each album they sell. On the blockchain, all purchases would be a direct transaction. The use of digital currency also upends a third-party payment processors, which usually collect a 4 to 6 percent transaction fee. Micro-payments present a potential gamechanger for how creators are reimbursed for their content, but the method is not feasible with traditional credit structures. The blockchain could change that as well. Content Creation Creators are able to tag content with specific metadata (data about data) which, on top of acting as additional copyright information, can improve the discoverability and shareability of that piece of content and open the door for other creators to build on top of that work. In the music space, dotBlockchain Music Project recently announced four key industry partnerships to help in their mission of changing the music rights clearance process with an open system based on blockchain technology. Projects like these make the possibilities endless. "One of the things that I think blockchain will do is create a public and readable layer of value so people can actually see who owns these files," Benji Rogers, the founder and CEO of dotBlockchain Music, told International Business Times. "Then you can bring all these thousands of inoperable databases together into one decentralised database and you're in a far better place to begin commerce with [the files]." Blockchain technology has the promise of simplifying much of the complexity around ownership and rights, with the potential outcome of re-empowering the world's dynamic content creators.LOUISVILLE, Ky. — When James Comer’s phone buzzed Monday night, he had just finished tangling with the three Republicans angling to crush him in next week’s Kentucky GOP gubernatorial primary. The campaign had hit its ugly zenith a week earlier, when Comer’s ex-girlfriend accused him of hitting her decades earlier when they were in college together. The message on his phone, though, was an uplifting one: Hang in there. And it came from an unlikely source: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Story Continued Below “Basically, he tells me to keep my head up,” Comer told POLITICO after a local Republican Party function here on Thursday night. Comer began to explain that Paul himself had been “a victim” of similar controversies before an aide ended the interview. Paul’s communication, during one of the nastiest Republican-on-Republican brawls in recent memory, was remarkable because the first-term senator, who announced a bid for president last month, has remained neutral in the four-way primary, despite close ties to Comer in the past. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, also from Kentucky, has declined to intervene in the race as well. Their silence has been noticeable in a contest that has otherwise tested and frayed Republican allegiances in the close-knit state, featured a hail of super PAC spending and a host of personal attacks. Both senators also have a political stake in the outcome. Paul needs the state’s next governor to help drive legal changes that will allow him to run for his Senate seat next year while he seeks the White House. And McConnell is standing by as the man who tried to unseat him last year — conservative businessman Matt Bevin — inches closer to the nomination. Bevin, Comer and Louisville businessman Hal Heiner are locked in a three-way tie just days from next Tuesday’s primary, according to recent polls. All three candidates shrug off the significance of endorsements. “I’ve pretty much been on my own in the race, but I’m proud of what I’ve done,” said Comer, the state’s agriculture commissioner. But in a race this close, the smallest shift of the needle could affect the outcome. The winner will take on the all-but-certain Democratic nominee, Attorney General Jack Conway. Democrats have held Kentucky’s governorship for 36 of the last 40 years, a startling reality in a state that votes reliably Republican in federal elections. The race features whispers of the familiar ideological divide within the Republican Party. Comer and Bevin have close ties to Paul’s more conservative wing of the party. Heiner, who narrowly lost a 2010 race for mayor of Democratic-leaning Louisville, has closer ties to the McConnell-led Republican establishment. But it’s the personal stakes for Kentucky’s senators, both national GOP leaders, that make their silence curious. If Bevin wins the nod for governor a year after McConnell spent millions to fend off his Senate challenge, forces loyal to the majority leader are signaling that they may not go to the mat for him. “Kentucky Republicans have a way of working through primary battles to reunite in the general election. Of course, there are certainly some candidates who are easier to reunite behind than others,” said Josh Holmes, a former McConnell chief of staff and senior political adviser. Many former McConnell hands have fanned out to the Comer and Heiner camps throughout the primary. Bevin said that if fellow Republicans fail to line up behind him in the general election, it would reflect “pettiness and divisiveness driven by things that are not in the best interests of the party.” Reminded that he declined to endorse McConnell last year after their ugly primary, Bevin argued that he supported McConnell in deed, rather than word. He doesn’t want McConnell’s endorsement, he said, just his support. “What you want is people that are supportive of — and not working against — the mission,” he said. Bevin seems to relish his ability to poke doubters in the eye. “I’m like a zombie to some people,” Bevin said at a campaign stop in Lexington. “When I show up there’s a look of terror, like, ‘My gosh, I mean, was $20 million not enough to destroy that guy?’” He also is girding for an all out assault on his candidacy in the final days of the race. “I’ve had nothing but the hammer coming down on me for two years. I don’t mind it. I’m hammer-proof at this point,” he said. Though McConnell allies have been critical of Bevin throughout the primary, they’ve given no indication that there’s any concerted effort to beat Bevin back. And McConnell has given no indication that he’ll do anything but support the GOP nominee, even if it’s Bevin. “Mitch is a loyal Republican. He will handle it better than a lot of us. He will treat Bevin a hell of a lot better than Bevin treated him,” said Bill Stone, former chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party. Paul’s role in the gubernatorial primary is more complicated. He needs the next governor’s help to push Republicans to embrace a caucus system that would let him run for Senate and president simultaneously. But he also has a longstanding friendship with Comer. Comer was one of Paul’s earliest supporters in the 2010 Senate race, endorsing the political newcomer while establishment forces — including McConnell — lined up behind then-Secretary of State Trey Grayson. Comer allies generally forgive Paul for declining to return the favor, but they often note quietly that they think Paul is in their corner. “I think everybody knows that Rand Paul is endorsing Jamie,” said former Rep. Anne Northup (R-Ky.), a Comer supporter. Told that Paul hadn’t made a formal endorsement, Northup said she thought he had offered support and then noted that Comer had secured the backing of more elected officials than any of his opponents. Comer said he wouldn’t mind the senator’s support but isn’t holding his breath. “It wouldn’t hurt anything,” he said. “I understand that he’s running for president. I understand where the governor’s race is on the food chain with respect to him right now. But he made the decision to stay out of it and I respect his decision.” Kentucky Republicans generally say Paul and McConnell’s silence is their shrewdest course. Picking a losing candidate could dent their image as influential leaders and present a distraction from their national endeavors. McConnell learned that lesson the hard way when his endorsement of Grayson backfired. “Any of the three serious candidates in this race will beat Jack Conway,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who predicted a Comer win on Tuesday. “The last time I checked, Rand Paul’s running for president,” added Massie, a Paul ally. “Personally, I don’t think endorsements matter a whole lot, and they’re going to matter even less in the last week,” he said. The candidates, for their part, say they haven’t discerned any behind-the-scenes work from Paul or McConnell either. “They’ve said consistently, right from Day One, that they would stay out of the primary,” Heiner said Thursday after appearing with his adversaries at a forum on energy costs. “From what I can tell, they have lived up to that pledge and statement. This is about the Republican family deciding who can best take on Jack Conway in the fall.”But it’s not just the money – it’s the connections. The taxi industry around the nation has specialised in ingratiating itself with both sides of politics. As a small public example, the industry’s heavyweight champion, Reg Kermode’s Cabcharge, donated generous six-figure amounts to Labor and Liberal alike, as has the Taxi Council. Cabcharge board and management appointments have had the occasional government flavour - Neville Wran the most obvious when he became a director with a gift of 250,000 shares. Coincidentally, Cabcharge has received gifts of effectively free taxi plates from the NSW government. Left behind... Uber's evolution is showing up the taxi industry. Credit:Louie Douvis Interestingly, there’s family history for Premier Baird in those free Cabcharge plates. When his father, Bruce Baird, was Transport Minister in the Greiner government, he refused a department recommendation to gift the plates. When the Carr government was elected, they were handed over with all the attendant windfall profit. Uber’s model of internet-enabled “ride sharing” threatens a lot of investment. Cabcharge’s share price has already been on the slide thanks to the snail’s-pace change to its 10 per cent surcharge on credit cards. (Another example of the industry’s power? The card companies – Visa, Mastercard, American Express – haven’t been game to take action over that unjustified surcharge after the Reserve Bank of Australia empowered them to do so.) It’s predictable that the first reaction is to have taxi drivers complaining about unfair competition, but as various studies, such as Professor Alan Fels’ Victorian review have shown, the drivers are people most exploited by the industry structure. If there was greater clarity about where Uber intends to take its system, there’s every chance taxi drivers would be better off outside a system that’s constructed primarily to justify the price of the artificially created and maintained government licences. Someone briefly wanting to hire a driver with a car should be a simple and reasonable basis for a business transaction, but it’s been turned into an inflated monster. I’m sure Deloitte’s effort for the Taxi Council didn’t mean to paint a picture of stuffed system, but try this: “The NSW taxi industry operates under a co-regulatory model, where the NSW Government sets the standards, stipulates maximum fares, and issues licences and accreditations. The networks monitor and assist the Government in enforcing industry standards for operators, drivers and vehicles. The NSW Government also has a team of inspectors in the field monitoring compliance.” And the government decides how many plates are issued, in consultation with the industry, of course. Cabcharge and others who have taken the risk of investing in licences and a market that exists at the whim of government are far from alone. Google is one of the investors in Uber, putting US$250 million into the company last year as part of a transaction that valued it at US$3.6 billion. Google of course has played a major role in disrupting another old industry – newspapers. New technologies do that – but newspaper publishers can’t go running to governments demanding protection from that change. Cutting out the layers of middlemen and women in the personal transport business would represent a considerable productivity gain. Those gains would come at the cost of the incumbents. Stopping Uber’s evolution would come at everyone else’s cost. Standby for sob stories about people who have bought taxi plates and now risk losing some of their capital due to competition and new technology. If anyone cares, there are sob stories about people who invested in video rental shops, in lawn mower repair businesses, in newspapers. Anyone expecting to make a profit from an investment has to accept that there is a risk that they won’t. The industry claims there are risks for drivers and passengers stepping outside its stranglehold, but there are risks staying in it. So what’s the call, Mike Baird? Make a stand on free market principles and what’s best for the state and consumers, resisting the power of the taxi industry as your father did – or serve the vested interests of a powerful minority? Loading The comments piling up beneath Ben Grubb’s story appear a reasonable reflection of what the electorate thinks. Michael Pascoe is a BusinessDay contributing editorNuclear power – uninsurable, cannot exist in private market system the question is not whether government should ban nuclear power. The question is whether it should stop propping it up. How to “Ban” Nuclear Power, by Kevin Carson, Mar 17, 2011 “……….the actual problem is that governments worldwide have been actively intervening for decades to prevent the market from banning nuclear power. Precisely because the stakes are so high and there’s so much room for unforeseen things to go wrong, nuclear power is uninsurable on the private market. So, under the terms of the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, the US nuclear industry bears the cost of insuring itself against liability only up to a small fraction of the damages that could result from a disaster like that currently underway in Japan. Above that amount the taxpayers are required to assume liability up to a higher level — which is still far less than the harm which could result from a full-scale meltdown. So if a reactor melts down, blanketing a thousand square miles around a major city with fallout and causing hundreds of billions in damages, the victims are pretty much S.O.L. (simply out of luck). Legislative caps on liability far, far below the actual damages that would likely result … sound familiar? Here’s a hint: It starts with B, and ends with P. In fact the liability issue is only one facet of a much larger theme: Nuclear power is a virtual creature of the government. The nuclear industry grew directly out of the US “Defense” Department’s nuclear weapons programs, and the first reactors were built as an offshoot of military production. A major portion of the cost of just about every single step in the nuclear power production chain, from the federal government providing preferential access to government land and building access roads at taxpayer expense for uranium mines, to the above-mentioned assumption and capping of liability, to taxpayer-funded storage of nuclear waste,
File, bool bForceReload) { FILE* hFile = NULL; char* pszScript = NULL, * pszFormattedScript = NULL; .... while (pszScript[iSrcBufPos]!='' && .... pszScript[iSrcBufPos]!= '=' && pszScript[iSrcBufPos]!= '==' && // <= pszScript[iSrcBufPos]!= '' && pszScript[iSrcBufPos]!= '+' && pszScript[iSrcBufPos]!= '/' && pszScript[iSrcBufPos]!= '~' && pszScript[iSrcBufPos]!= '"') {} .... } A large conditional expression contains a subexpression that is always true. The ‘==’ literal will have typeint and correspond to the value 15677. The pszScript array consists of elements of type char, and a value of type char can’t be equal to 15677, so the pszScript[iSrcBufPos]!= ‘==’ expression is always true. V734 An excessive expression. Examine the substrings “_ddn” and “_ddna”. texture.cpp 4212 void CTexture::PrepareLowResSystemCopy(byte pTexData,....) { .... // make sure we skip non diffuse textures if (strstr(GetName(), "_ddn") // <= \|\| strstr(GetName(), "_ddna") // <= \|\| strstr(GetName(), "_mask") \|\| strstr(GetName(), "_spec.") \|\| strstr(GetName(), "_gloss") \|\| strstr(GetName(), "_displ") \|\| strstr(GetName(), "characters") \|\| strstr(GetName(), "$") ) return; .... } The strstr() function looks for the first occurrence of the specified substring within another string and returns either a pointer to the first occurrence or an empty pointer. The string “_ddn” is the first to be searched, and “_ddna” is the second, which means that the condition will be true if the shorter string is found. This code might not work as expected; or perhaps this expression is redundant and could be simplified by removing the extra check. V590 Consider inspecting this expression. The expression is excessive or contains a misprint. goalop_crysis2.cpp 3779 void COPCrysis2FlightFireWeapons::ParseParam(....) { .... else if (!paused && (m_State == eFP_PAUSED) && // <= (m_State!= eFP_PAUSED_OVERRIDE)) // <= .... } The conditional expression in the ParseParam() function is written in such a way that its result does not depend on the (m_State!= eFP_PAUSED_OVERRIDE) subexpression. Here’s a simpler example: if ( err == code1 && err!= code2) { .... } The result of the whole conditional expression does not depend on the result of the (err!= code2)subexpression, which can be clearly seen from the truth table for this example (see Figure 4) Figure 4 — Truth table for a logical expression Comparing unsigned values with zero When scanning projects, we often come across comparisons of unsigned values with zero, which produce either true or false every time. Such code does not always contain a critical bug; it is often a result of too much caution or changing a variable’s type from signed to unsigned. Anyway, such comparisons need to be checked. V547 Expression ‘m_socket < 0’ is always false. Unsigned type value is never < 0. servicenetwork.cpp 585 typedef SOCKET CRYSOCKET; // Internal socket data CRYSOCKET m_socket; bool CServiceNetworkConnection::TryReconnect() { .... // Create new socket if needed if (m_socket == 0) { m_socket = CrySock::socketinet(); if (m_socket < 0) { .... return false; } } .... } I’d like to elaborate on the SOCKET type. It can be both signed and unsigned depending on the platforms, so it is strongly recommended that you use special macros and constants specified in the standard headers when working with this type. In cross-platform projects, comparisons with 0 or -1 are common that result in misinterpretation of error codes. CryEngine V project is no exception, although some checks are done correctly, for example: if (m_socket == CRY_INVALID_SOCKET) Nevertheless, many parts of the code use different versions of these checks. See the file CryEngine5_V547.txt for other 47 suspicious comparisons of unsigned variables with zero. The code authors need to check these warnings. Dangerous pointers Diagnostic V595 detects pointers that are tested for null after they have been dereferenced. In practice, this diagnostic catches very tough bugs. On rare occasions, it issues false positives, which is explained by the fact that pointers are checked indirectly, i.e. through one or several other variables, but figuring such code out isn’t an easy task for a human either, is it? Three code samples are given below that trigger this diagnostic and look especially surprising, as it’s not clear why they work at all. For the other warnings of this type see the file CryEngine5_V595.txt. Example 1 V595 The ‘m_pPartManager’ pointer was utilized before it was verified against nullptr. Check lines: 1441, 1442. 3denginerender.cpp 1441 void C3DEngine::RenderInternal(....) { .... m_pPartManager->GetLightProfileCounts().ResetFrameTicks(); if (passInfo.IsGeneralPass() && m_pPartManager) m_pPartManager->Update(); .... } The m_pPartManager pointer is dereferenced and then checked. Example 2 V595 The ‘gEnv->p3DEngine’ pointer was utilized before it was verified against nullptr. Check lines: 1477, 1480. gameserialize.cpp 1477 bool CGameSerialize::LoadLevel(....) { .... // can quick-load if (!gEnv->p3DEngine->RestoreTerrainFromDisk()) return false; if (gEnv->p3DEngine) { gEnv->p3DEngine->ResetPostEffects(); } .... } The gEnv->p3DEngine pointer is dereferenced and then checked. Example 3 V595 The ‘pSpline’ pointer was utilized before it was verified against nullptr. Check lines: 158, 161. facechannelkeycleanup.cpp 158 void FaceChannel::CleanupKeys(....) { CFacialAnimChannelInterpolator backupSpline(pSpline); // Create the key entries array. int numKeys = (pSpline? pSpline->num_keys() : 0); .... } The pSpline pointer is dereferenced and then checked. Miscellaneous V622 Consider inspecting the ‘switch’ statement. It’s possible that the first ‘case’ operator is missing. mergedmeshrendernode.cpp 999 static inline void ExtractSphereSet(....) { .... switch (statusPos.pGeom->GetType()) { if (false) { case GEOM_CAPSULE: statusPos.pGeom->GetPrimitive(0, &cylinder); } if (false) { case GEOM_CYLINDER: statusPos.pGeom->GetPrimitive(0, &cylinder); } for (int i = 0; i < 2 &&....; ++i) { .... } break; .... } This fragment is probably the strangest of all found in CryEngine V. Whether or not the case label will be selected does not depend on the if statement, even in case of if (false). In the switch statement, an unconditional jump to the label occurs if the condition of the switch statement is met. Without the breakstatement, one could use such code to “bypass” irrelevant statements, but, again, maintaining such obscure code isn’t easy. One more question is, why does the same code execute when jumping to the labels GEOM_CAPSULE and GEOM_CYLINDER? V510 The ‘LogError’ function is not expected to receive class-type variable as second actual argument. behaviortreenodes_action.cpp 143 typedef CryStringT<char> string; // The actual fragment name. string m_fragName; //! cast to C string. const value_type c_str() const { return m_str; } const value_type* data() const { return m_str; }; void LogError(const char* format,...) const {.... } void QueueAction(const UpdateContext& context) { .... ErrorReporter(this, context).LogError("....'%s'", m_fragName); .... } When it is impossible to specify the number and types of all acceptable parameters to a function, one puts ellipsis (…) at the end of the list of parameters in the function declaration, which means “and perhaps a few more”. Only POD (Plain Old Data) types can be used as actual parameters to the ellipsis. If an object of a class is passed as an argument to a function’s ellipsis, it almost always signals the presence of a bug. In the code above, it is the contents of the object that get to the stack, not the pointer to a string. Such code results in forming “gibberish” in the buffer or a crash. The code of CryEngine V uses a string class of its own, and it already has an appropriate method, c_str(). The fixed version: LogError("....'%s'", m_fragName.c_str(); A few more suspicious fragments: V510 The ‘LogError’ function is not expected to receive class-type variable as second actual argument. behaviortreenodes_core.cpp 1339 V510 The ‘Format’ function is not expected to receive class-type variable as second actual argument. behaviortreenodes_core.cpp 2648 V510 The ‘CryWarning’ function is not expected to receive class-type variable as sixth actual argument. crypak.cpp 3324 V510 The ‘CryWarning’ function is not expected to receive class-type variable as fifth actual argument. crypak.cpp 3333 V510 The ‘CryWarning’ function is not expected to receive class-type variable as fifth actual argument. shaderfxparsebin.cpp 4864 V510 The ‘CryWarning’ function is not expected to receive class-type variable as fifth actual argument. shaderfxparsebin.cpp 4931 V510 The ‘Format’ function is not expected to receive class-type variable as third actual argument. featuretester.cpp 1727 V529 Odd semicolon ‘;’ after ‘for’ operator. boolean3d.cpp 1314 int CTriMesh::Slice(....) { .... bop_meshupdate pmd = new bop_meshupdate, pmd0; pmd->pMesh[0]=pmd->pMesh[1] = this; AddRef();AddRef(); for(pmd0=m_pMeshUpdate; pmd0->next; pmd0=pmd0->next); // <= pmd0->next = pmd; .... } This code is very strange. The programmer put a semicolon after the for loop, while the code formatting suggests that it should have a body. V535 The variable ‘j’ is being used for this loop and for the outer loop. Check lines: 3447, 3490. physicalworld.cpp 3490 void CPhysicalWorld::SimulateExplosion(....) { .... for(j=0;j<pmd->nIslands;j++) // <= line 3447 { .... for(j=0;j<pcontacts[ncont].nborderpt;j++) // <= line 3490 { .... } The project’s code is full of other unsafe fragments; for example, there are cases of using one counter for both nested and outer loops. Large source files contain code with intricate formatting and fragments where the same variables are changed in different parts of the code — you just can’t do without static analysis there! A few more strange loops: V535 The variable ‘i’ is being used for this loop and for the outer loop. Check lines: 1630, 1683. entity.cpp 1683 V535 The variable ‘i1’ is being used for this loop and for the outer loop. Check lines: 1521, 1576. softentity.cpp 1576 V535 The variable ‘i’ is being used for this loop and for the outer loop. Check lines: 2315, 2316. physicalentity.cpp 2316 V535 The variable ‘i’ is being used for this loop and for the outer loop. Check lines: 1288, 1303. shadercache.cpp 1303 V539 Consider inspecting iterators which are being passed as arguments to function ‘erase’. frameprofilerender.cpp 1090 float CFrameProfileSystem::RenderPeaks() { .... std::vector<SPeakRecord>& rPeaks = m_peaks; // Go through all peaks. for (int i = 0; i < (int)rPeaks.size(); i++) { .... if (age > fHotToColdTime) { rPeaks.erase(m_peaks.begin() + i); // <= i--; } .... } The analyzer suspected that the function handling a container would receive an iterator from another container. It’s a wrong assumption, and there is no error here: the rPeaks variable is a reference tom_peaks. This code, however, may confuse not only the analyzer, but also other programmers who will maintain it. One shouldn’t write code in a way like that. V713 The pointer pCollision was utilized in the logical expression before it was verified against nullptr in the same logical expression. actiongame.cpp 4235 int CActionGame::OnCollisionImmediate(const EventPhys pEvent) { .... else if (pMat->GetBreakability() == 2 && pCollision->idmat[0]!= pCollision->idmat[1] && (energy = pMat->GetBreakEnergy()) > 0 && pCollision->mass[0] * 2 > energy && .... pMat->GetHitpoints() <= FtoI(min(1E6f, hitenergy / energy)) && pCollision) // <= return 0; .... } The if statement includes a rather lengthy conditional expression where the pCollision pointer is used multiple times. What is wrong about this code is that the pointer is tested for null at the very end, i.e. after multiple dereference operations. V758 The ‘commandList’ reference becomes invalid when smart pointer returned by a function is destroyed. renderitemdrawer.cpp 274 typedef std::shared_ptr<....> CDeviceGraphicsCommandListPtr; CDeviceGraphicsCommandListPtr CDeviceObjectFactory::GetCoreGraphicsCommandList() const { return m_pCoreCommandList; } void CRenderItemDrawer::DrawCompiledRenderItems(....) const { .... { auto& RESTRICT_REFERENCE commandList = *CCryDeviceWrapper:: GetObjectFactory().GetCoreGraphicsCommandList(); passContext....->PrepareRenderPassForUse(commandList); } .... } The commandList variable receives a reference to the value stored in a smart pointer. When this pointer destroys the object, the reference will become invalid. A few more issues of this type: V758 The ‘commandList’ reference becomes invalid when smart pointer returned by a function is destroyed. renderitemdrawer.cpp 384 V758 The ‘commandList’ reference becomes invalid when smart pointer returned by a function is destroyed. renderitemdrawer.cpp 368 V758 The ‘commandList’ reference becomes invalid when smart pointer returned by a function is destroyed. renderitemdrawer.cpp 485 V758 The ‘commandList’ reference becomes invalid when smart pointer returned by a function is destroyed. renderitemdrawer.cpp 553 Conclusion It costs almost nothing to fix bugs caught during the coding phase unlike those that get to the testers, while fixing bugs that have made it to the end users involves huge expenses. No matter what analyzer you use, the static analysis technology itself has long proved to be an extremely effective and efficient means to control the quality of program code and software products in general. Our collaboration with Epic Games has shown very well how integration of our analyzer into Unreal Engine 4 has benefited the project. We helped the developers in every aspect of analyzer integration and even fixed the bugs found in the project so that the developer team could continue scanning new code regularly on their own. It’s this kind of collaboration that we would like to try with Crytek. Welcome to try PVS-Studio on your C/C++/C# project. By Svyatoslav RazmyslovSOME residents ran from their homes in Sierra Leone to avoid being trapped during a three-day lockdown to contain the Ebola outbreak, a health worker said Saturday, a minor setback on the second day of a massive effort to confine 6 million people to their homes. Nearly 30,000 volunteers and health care workers fanned out across the country on Friday and Saturday to distribute soap and information on how to prevent Ebola, which the World Health Organisation says has killed more than 560 people in Sierra Leone and more than 2600 in the region. The outreach campaign coincided with the sweeping three-day lockdown so that volunteers could conduct house-to-house searches to identify sick people reluctant or unable to seek treatment for Ebola. Aid workers killed by villagers Virus ‘spiraling out of control’ Marathon runner Idrissa Kargbo, 23, is back in Sierra Leone to help the volunteers. As a boy, Kargbo sprinted through the villages of Sierra Leone on errands for his grandmother and later as a coffee courier. Now his times have qualified him for races on three continents. In an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday, Kargbo said the Freetown residents he’d visited were grateful for whatever information they could get. “Some people are still denying, but now when you go to almost any house they say, ‘Come inside, come and teach us what we need to do to prevent,”’ Kargbo said. “Nobody is annoyed by us.” For Kargbo, spreading Ebola awareness was a welcome break from idleness after the outbreak cut off all opportunities for him to train and compete. He had been planning to run the Liberia Marathon in August, having placed second in the race last year, but it was postponed until at least early 2015 as the outbreak in that country spiralled out of control. The stadium where he normally trains in Freetown has also been closed, he said, and his work as a coffee courier was put on hold because most of the clients — international NGO workers — have fled the country. “Most of those NGO people are going out,” Kargbo said. “Right now, I don’t have the chance to go anywhere. I don’t have the chance to train.” Sierra Leone’s government is clearly hoping the lockdown will help turn the tide against the disease. In a speech before it began, President Ernest Bai Koroma said “the survival and dignity of each and every Sierra Leonean” was at stake. The strategy is controversial, however. After it was announced earlier this month, Médecins Sans Frontières warned it would be “extremely difficult for health workers to accurately identify cases through door-to-door screening.” Even if suspected cases are identified during the lockdown, the group said Sierra Leone wouldn’t have enough beds for them. In northern Sierra Leone, health worker Lamin Unisa Camara said Saturday he had received some reports that residents had run away from their homes to avoid being trapped during the lockdown. “I was informed that people were running from their houses to the bush. Without wasting time, I informed the chief in charge of the area to call his people,” said Mr Camara, who was working in the town of Kambia. Several health care workers and volunteers complained that supply kits were delivered late, preventing their teams from starting on time. The kits contain bars of soap, cards listing Ebola symptoms, stickers to mark houses visited and a tally sheet to record suspected cases. Kargbo, however, said his team got to work on time and was on track to meet its goal of visiting 60 households by the end of the lockdown Sunday. He said the effort would be worth it if the outbreak is shortened even a little. Once it’s over, he is looking forward to getting back to a running career that has taken him to races in London and New York in the last year. “I want this to be finished so I can have the chance to train and go to other countries,” he said. “That’s why I volunteered to do it.”21st Century Fox executives Lachlan and James Murdoch on Monday addressed employees about President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration. In a memo to employees, which was obtained by Business Insider, the duo declared "immigration is an essential part of America's strength" and said the company's priority was to determine the effect of the order's "broad implications" on its employees. See more related to this story: 14 PHOTOS Trump advocates show support for travel ban See Gallery Trump advocates show support for travel ban Demonstrators in support of the immigration rules implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, rally at Los Angeles international airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 4, 2017. (REUTERS/Ringo Chiu) Pro-Trump demonstrators yell slogans during protest against the travel ban imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order, at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 29, 2017. REUTERS/Ted Soqui A counter demonstrator holds a sign up as protesters gather in Battery Park and march to the offices of Customs and Border Patrol in Manhattan to protest President Trump's Executive order imposing controls on travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, January 29, 2017 in New York. / AFP / Bryan R. Smith (Photo credit should read BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images) Demonstrators watch from an overpass as a counter-protester holds a sign outside Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order blocking visitors from seven predominantly Muslim nations in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017. Court decisions temporarily blocked the U.S. administration from enforcing parts of Trump's order after a day in which students, refugees and dual citizens were stuck overseas or detained and some businesses warned employees from those countries not to risk leaving the United States. Photographer: Dania Maxwell/Bloomberg via Getty Images A counter-protester, right, holds a sign and chants in front of other demonstrators outside Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) protesting against U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order blocking visitors from seven predominantly Muslim nations in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017. Court decisions temporarily blocked the U.S. administration from enforcing parts of Trump's order after a day in which students, refugees and dual citizens were stuck overseas or detained and some businesses warned employees from those countries not to risk leaving the United States. Photographer: Dania Maxwell/Bloomberg via Getty Images Demonstrators in support of the immigration rules implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, rally at Los Angeles international airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 4, 2017. (REUTERS/Ringo Chiu) Demonstrators in support of the immigration rules implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, rally at Los Angeles international airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 4, 2017. (REUTERS/Ringo Chiu) Demonstrators in support of the immigration rules implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, rally at Los Angeles international airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 4, 2017. (REUTERS/Ringo Chiu) A demonstrator in support of the immigration rules implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, rallies at Los Angeles international airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 4, 2017. (REUTERS/Ringo Chiu) Police officers stand guard as demonstrators in support of the immigration rules implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, rally at Los Angeles international airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 4, 2017. (REUTERS/Ringo Chiu) Demonstrators in support of the immigration rules implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, rally at Los Angeles international airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 4, 2017. (REUTERS/Ringo Chiu) Trump supporters demonstrate against a ruling by a federal judge in Seattle that grants a nationwide temporary restraining order against the presidential order to ban travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries, at Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport on February 4, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) Arriving international travelers pass through a line of Trump supporters demonstrating against a ruling by a federal judge in Seattle that grants a nationwide temporary restraining order against the presidential order to ban travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries, at Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport on February 4, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) Trump supporters argue with a man (R) who supports a ruling by a federal judge in Seattle that grants a nationwide temporary restraining order against the presidential order to ban travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries, at Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport on February 4, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE The pair, sons of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, noted that the "global" company was founded by immigrants. They said they were monitoring what they still believed to be a "fluid situation." Read the full memo below: Colleagues, With the recent changes to the U.S.'s immigration policies, we know this is a time of real uncertainty for many of our colleagues around the world. First of all, we want to assure you that we're doing what we can to assist impacted colleagues and their families. While details of the new policy remain in flux in many instances, we do know it has broad implications. The new restrictions impact business travelers and current employees from seven countries for an initial period of 90 days. The current restrictions are not limited to visa holders, but also extend to permanent residents who are citizens of those countries. Our immediate focus is on identifying and reaching out to people who may be affected. We are providing them with a range of support, including legal advice and assistance. If you have any questions about how you and your family may be impacted, please contact your business unit HR manager. 21CF is a global company, proudly headquartered in the U.S., founded by – and comprising at all levels of the business – immigrants. We deeply value diversity and believe immigration is an essential part of America's strength. Moreover, as a company that is driven by creativity and innovation, we recognize the unique perspective offered by our many people who came to the U.S. in search of the opportunity for unfettered self-expression. We will continue to monitor developments in what is still a fluid situation. We will keep you informed as we learn more. In the meantime, please know that the well-being of our colleagues is our top priority. NOW WATCH: Here's how President Obama starts every morning See Also: SEE ALSO: Economist Stephen Moore jumps from Fox News to CNN More from : Foxconn CEO says investment for display plant in U.S. would exceed $7 bln You can now tell Alexa to place your Starbucks order for in-store pickup Airbnb lets users open their homes to refugeesCounter-terror chiefs have taken steps to prevent a banned organisation - which once praised the 9/11 attacks - circumvent the law by changing its name. Alternative names for proscribed organisation Al-Muhajiroun, which once held a conference called The Magnificent 19 to praise the terrorists who attacked the Twin Towers in New York in 2001, have been covered by a new banning order. More recently, it emerged Michael Adebolajo, the man convicted of murdering Fusilier Lee Rigby in a broad daylight attack in Woolwich, attended Al-Muhajiroun meetings and demonstrations. Need4Khilafah, The Shariah Project and The Islamic Dawah Association are now banned as aliases for the group, which is also known under already-banned names Al Ghurabaa and The Saved Sect. Islam4UK, which was led by radical preacher Anjem Choudary, is also covered by the order. Immigration and Security Minister James Brokenshire said: "Terrorist organisations should not be allowed to escape proscription simply by acting under a different name. "That is why we have today laid an order which will, from tomorrow, recognise the Need4Khilafah, the Shariah Project and the Islamic Dawah Association as aliases of the group already proscribed as both Al Ghurabaa and The Saved Sect. "The group is also known as Al Muhajiroun. This means being a member of or supporting the organisation is a criminal offence. "Al Muhajiroun remains of significant concern to the UK and the international community, and this order will ensure that that it cannot operate in the UK as Need4Khilafah, the Shariah Project and the Islamic Dawah Association." The effect of this Order is that being a member of or supporting any group operating under these names will be a criminal offence as to do so will amount to being a member of or supporting the group contrary to sections 11 and 12 of the Terrorism Act.On her show Thursday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow explained that the attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya appeared to be the work of an organized jihadist group rather than the act of an angry mob. She noted that Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who was killed along with three other Americans, wrote a diplomatic cable in 2008 regarding Libya that was later released by WikiLeaks. The cable described Derna, a city not far from Benghazi where Stevens was killed, as a hotbed of al Qaeda activity. “One Libyan interlocutor likened young men in Derna to Bruce Willis’ character in the action picture ‘Die Hard,’ who stubbornly refused to die quietly,” Stevens wrote. “For them, resistance against coalition forces in Iraq is an important act of ‘jihad’ and a last act of defiance against the Qadhafi regime.” Initial reports claimed the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was the result of Muslim anger over a crude anti-Islam film produced in the United States. But additional reports of the incident suggest the consulate faced an organized assault from heavily-armed militants sympathetic to al Qaeda. “Anybody who tells you that what happened to our ambassador and our consulate was the result of a protest over an offensive movie, you should ask them why they think that,” Maddow said. “I mean, that was the first version of events we heard, that does not seem to explain what happened that night. It does not seem to be born out by the facts the more facts we get.” Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below: Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyThey usually cross through the forests along the border to Hungary in groups of 12-15, routinely arriving on the narrow asphalt road leading to Asotthalom. Locals have grown accustomed to scenes of young men, women and children, walking with backpacks along the roadside. They've also become used to the sight of Hungarian police officers, prepared to take the people into custody. More than 2,000 migrants - mostly refugees from Afghanistan, Syria and Sub-Saharan Africa - make this journey every day. As a new group arrives, policemen keep watch over a dozen people from Senegal, South Sudan and Mauritania next to a farmhouse fence by the road. The Africans are eager to explain that they have fled from Greece, where some of them spent more than a year as illegal workers. "There is no humanity in Greece," says a middle-aged man in a yellow, green and red cap in French. "And racism is everywhere. They attack migrants on a daily basis, black or Middle Eastern, it does not matter to them. We just wanted to be out of there." By the end of August, the average daily number of migrants arrested rose to around 2,000 Most of the refugees say their destination is Germany, where they hope to secure a safe haven as well as a decent living. But they fear that due to compulsory registration in the first EU member state they set foot in, they will be unable to apply for asylum elsewhere. Little confidence in Budapest The right-wing populist government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban certainly does not want them here. In July, Budapest began building a four-meter fence along 175 kilometers of the border to Serbia to keep migrants out. His plan means that by August 31, a so-called "preparatory fence" (shorter in height but covered in barbed wire) should be finished along most of the border area. Laszlo Toroczkai, a well-known far-right figure and mayor of the village of Asotthalom, shares some of the government's ideas, though he is not confident they will work. Toroczkai was the first to demand a physical barrier on Hungary's southern border "I have been calling for a border fence ever since last autumn," he told DW. "I do not think the physical barrier will be able to tackle immigration to Western Europe, yet it will divert it from this village. Honestly, we tried to save Western Europe from the end it faces with this immigration wave; they did not care about us. Now, I am only interested in saving my village from these people." The mayor admits that no violent crimes have been committed by the hundreds of migrants passing through Asotthalom. He is, though, concerned that they could bring epidemics of "exotic illnesses" to the village. This is partly why he ordered his own village auxiliaries, "field guards," to track and catch migrants around the outskirts of Asotthalom and hand them over to the police. "The traditional job of field guards is to keep private property safe. As these migrants often eat all the fruit and destroy fields, it is only natural that these people prevent them from doing so. One of the members of Asotthalom's de facto militia regularly observes law enforcement procedures at the border The mayor has been accused of welcoming "Outlaws' Army," a small extreme-right militia with close relations to the xenophobic Jobbik party, a backer of Prime Minister Orban. Toroczkai denied the vigilantes were at large at the border, but said they had "paid a visit" to Asotthalom, adding that many local civilians were patrolling the border out of a sense of patriotic duty. "Illegally crossing a border is now only a minor violation, but hopefully it will soon constitute a major crime," he said and asserted that if the government does not live up to its promise to man the border around the clock, "my field guards and many volunteers are prepared to do this job." Relief at the station "Over here! Food, water, no money!" A young man calls a busload of confused refugees over to a wooden shed in front of the grandiose yellow-brick edifice of the train station in the southern Hungarian border town of Szeged. The man is one of the many who do not share Toroczkai's views. He is a volunteer at MigSzol (migrant solidarity) Szeged, a group organized on Facebook to offer direct assistance to refugees. When the 60 or so mostly Afghan and Syrian people cross the tramline to get to the small square, the surroundings are already bustling with local helpers. Some guide the tired newcomers to outdoor facilities where they can shave and wash their faces, others distribute halal sandwiches, fruit and bottled water to those queuing. Many of the migrants struggle to believe what they are seeing. A Syrian man in his twenties tries to pay for the food and drinks he receives and puts his wallet away once it sinks in that the volunteers' assistance comes free of charge. The food, drinks, shoes and clothes here are donations from Hungarians across the country in response to Facebook appeals from volunteers. For many migrants, this is the first opportunity in a long time to use hygiene facilities Refugees typically spend 40-50 minutes at the station resting or trying to make calls once they've been able to recharge their phones in outlets near the shed. Many take advantage of the free Wi-Fi which, in addition to portable toilets and water taps, the Szeged city council has made available. The migrants are regularly dropped off here by buses operated by the local police. Local law enforcement catches the vast majority of those who are detained at the border. The refugees are then collected in the nearby police detention centers in Röszke and Nagyfa, where they typically wait two to three days for their asylum requests to be registered and to be issued registration papers. Next, the migrants receive a placement in one of the distant refugee camps and a document entitling them to a free train trip there. Local aid MigSzol Szeged volunteers know the routine well. The group deals with around four to eight buses per day, each carrying 60-80 migrants, MigSzol organizer Balazs Szalai told DW. The activists took action after Szalai discovered in mid-June that some of the buses drop off the refugees after the last train of the day departs, leaving them stranded. In addition, migrants are not allowed to sleep on the station premises. A Facebook group was founded in solidarity with MigSzol, a Budapest-based NGO, which started to gather donations as well as volunteers to try to make the situation at least bearable for refugees. More than 2,000 people have joined the group as well as around 200 regular and irregular volunteers. The donations they receive barely fit in the lofty storage room the group uses in a nearby homeless shelter. The helpers are a diverse lot, both in terms of age and worldview, from an atheist anarchist activist to a Lutheran preacher. Maria Volkov, a student at the University of Szeged, has been working at the station as a volunteer almost every day of her summer vacation. She got wind of the group on Facebook and was driven to take part after seeing news reports about helpless migrants left to sleep on the streets. "It is mostly university students who join, as the news of the groups spread amongst us rather quickly," she says. "Most of us are either students or pensioners," commented an elderly woman who was giving out readymade sandwiches in the shed. "We have enough free time on our hands, but others join us irregularly too.” Volunteers see off refugees at the station Back at the square, the call for the next train rings out, and volunteers gather those refugees intending to resume their journeys and see them off at the platform. From Szeged, migrants may carry on to refugee camps in Bicske and Debrecen via the express train to Budapest. Many, however, see the trip as the next leg on their route north, and
. More importantly, the two are achieving their shared personal aim for the project: fun. “For me, it’s all about fun,” Jennifer says. “It’s neat to be doing this on our own. We can make all of our own decisions.” “If we fail, it’s 100% us. If we succeed, it’s us. I like that.” Note: Create your own infographics at Zanifesto.com. Photography by Chris EnnisYour browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF A few months ago, the Internet was obsessed with Invisible Girlfriend/Boyfriend, a new start-up that allows users to "build" a significant other with whom they can exchange text messages. The founders said they created it for people who wanted "social proof" they were in a relationship, i.e., for people who wanted to pretend they were getting some when they weren't. It found takers: People created over 70,000 invisible baes. When people started chatting with their newly acquired invisible lovers, they initially assumed it was a chat bot, but after a few messages, they realized they were talking to a human being, or rather several human beings. The service is powered by thousands of crowd-sourced workers. Lots of journalists wrote about dating an Invisible. But I wanted to do the opposite and be inside the Invisible machine. What was it like to drop into conversations and virtually seduce strangers? How much would I find out about the people I wooed? So I tried out being an Invisible Girlfriend (and Boyfriend) for a month. It was equal parts fun, disturbing, and distressingly low-paid. It was surprisingly easy to get a job with Crowdsource, the St. Louis-based start-up that provides Invisible BFs and GFs. I just had to give them my name, address, and the ability to make deposits into my PayPal account. Bam. Hired. Crowdsource has over 200,000 "micro-workers" around the world who do tiny tasks for tiny amounts of money. Most of the jobs I saw there involved writing product descriptions and doing Google searches for a few cents. To qualify for the “Be the Boyfriend” and “Be the Girlfriend” jobs, though, I had to take a 40-minute copywriting test, which checked my understanding of basic grammar. (Crowdsource's spokesperson had given me permission to sign up for the service for journalistic purposes, but they did not otherwise help me out.) Advertisement There are no awkward first dates to woo your partner when you're an Invisible. A sound grasp of noun-verb agreement is all you need to prove you're a good virtual lover. (I'm a wordsmith by trade so I managed to pass it.) Once I started playing the role of Invisible s.o., it was strange and, due to a five-minute timer on every message, stressful. After just a few conversations, it became clear to me that people weren't just using this as "social cover." A fifty-something guy from southern California really wanted to tell me about the fact that he narrowly missed killing someone with his car that day, or maybe even dying himself. He said he was telling everyone he knew. And I wondered how many people he had to tell besides this cheerful 25-year-old bottle service waitress from Vegas that he'd created. (We were, by the way, not dating exclusively so I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t invite me over to comfort him.) I texted, "Sleep well! Hope you manage to have some soothing dreams after your dramatic day." Advertisement With each job, I would see the person’s first name, last initial and hometown; "how we met;" and my own assigned name, age, and which of six personality types they'd given their Invisible. Now I’m adventurous and fun. Now I’m cheerful and outgoing. There were 3 major rules: I was always supposed to be upbeat in my messages. I’m not supposed to break character. No sexting. (Photos are blocked on the service.) I’d get the story of how we met and the last 10 messages we’d exchanged. This setup is designed to create the illusion of continuity; ideally, an Invisible Boyfriend would seem like a steady, stable presence in a user’s life, instead of what it really is: a rotating cast of men and women. And it is both: a woman who works for the service previously told me she prefers playing the role of boyfriend because she knows what a woman wants to hear. Advertisement Some of the conversations were confusing, and it wasn’t clear if they were serious or trying to break me. A teenager told her 18-year-old invisible boyfriend that she was pregnant. The Invisibles before me said, “I don’t know what to say to that LOL," followed by a joke about the offspring of an Invisible-human pairing: “That would make for an interesting looking baby.” And she seemed to actually get upset. Maybe she was just screwing around, or maybe she was actually pregnant and wanted to tell someone, or maybe she was practicing for a real conversation with her boyfriend. I responded more seriously to her, texting, "Sorry, this is no time for jokes. Are you really pregnant?" But then I never matched with her again. Advertisement Though I tried to track down the actual people on the other side of these conversations, I wasn't able to. Having them provide only their first names and their hometowns was sufficiently anonymizing. Over all, the number of users who seemed to really want companionship outnumbered the skeptics. The founders say one user told them she was going through chemotherapy and that her real-life boyfriend had dumped her. So her invisible boyfriend had become a serious emotional support while she fought cancer. Advertisement I didn't encounter anyone like that. Instead, I met a guy in his late 20s who wanted to have an extended conversation with his "lovingly nerdy, best-friend-turned-girlfriend" about taxidermy. He said that if he were a taxidermist, he would sew a cat to a dog. I texted, "Would you put a cat head on a dog body or a dog head on a cat body?" But I didn’t get to see his response, nor find out if the conversation was about to go to a darker place that might warrant alerting authorities. It’s hard to put a price on love. But Crowdsource did. It’s worth a whopping five cents. That’s how much I got paid to write each of these texts. If I spent an hour answering texts, and took the full five minutes to write each one, I'd be making 60 cents an hour, far below the minimum wage. This is legal because all the workers on the platform are classified as independent contractors rather than employees. "Contributors have a tremendous amount of control over their decisions—for example, when to perform a task, when to complete it, and even if they want to complete it at all," said Jeffrey H. Newhouse, an employment lawyer at Hirschler Fleischer, by email. "That means the contributor isn’t an employee and, as a result, employee protections like the minimum wage don’t apply." Advertisement I can see why the Nation called crowdsourced workers "the most exploited workforce of all time" in an article that laid out the serious downsides for the workers, including low pay. By the time I answered 100 texts, I would make $5. Meanwhile, Invisible Girlfriend was charging $15 to $25 for 100 texts, so I can see why this is a good business for them. After my experiment was over, I talked to Kyle Tabor, one of the Invisible Girlfriend founders. He had emailed with an Invisible writer before but never talked to one of the phone. (Because he was so excited to hear about my experience working for the company, it felt like he was interviewing me, rather than the other way around.) Advertisement Users who pay for "premium" Invisible others also get voicemails and postcards from the person they've created. I asked Tabor who leaves the voicemails and writes the postcards, as I never saw those jobs as work on the Crowdsource platform. "We handle that through our company. We have a small team of creative writers, three full-time employees," he said. "To leave voicemails and write postcards, you need to have access to the entire conversation history, but you get into privacy issues with that. I know my employees and I trust them." I don’t know how long Invisible Boyfriend will last. I only sent a few texts — in part because the jobs got snatched up so fast when they appeared on Crowdsource. People seemed to really enjoy playing the part. I could see the appeal. I liked the role-playing. I liked the voyeurism of getting a peek at strangers’ emotional needs. It was fun dropping into conversations that other people had started and that other people would finish. And it was a lot more fun than the other boring micro-tasks available on the platform, such as doing Google searches. But I also found it stressful: you only have 5 minutes to answer and each time, I was trying to come up with something that was snappy, witty and engaging enough to convince the person on the other end that I wasn't a bot. Advertisement And I felt like I wasn't making enough to be an emotional escort. If I’m going to prostitute my text witticisms, I’d like to be paid more than a nickel for them. Tabor didn't actually know how much Invisibles got paid when I first talked to him; he explained that Crowdsource sets the payment. (Crowdsource didn't get back to me when I reached out.) I assumed that, when artificial intelligence is good enough, Invisible would just cut the crowdsourced humans out of the equation and use chat bots, which you don't have to pay per message, instead. No, he said. "Having humans in the flow is the key to the service," said Tabor. "There are things that only humans can respond to and understand, like inside jokes." Advertisement Tabor says the company thinks it's discovered something really novel in having humans crowdsource conversations, and that it hopes to use it in other applications, like customer service or life coaching. Maybe it'll work. Judging from the success of Invisible Girlfriend, there are plenty of people out there who want to talk to a figment of their imagination brought to life by crowdsourced actors, and plenty of workers who are willing to play the part. Related Meet a man who has been dating a crowdsourced Internet girlfriend for the last three months Tech companies are sending your secrets to crowdsourced armies of low-paid workers A version of this piece was presented live on stage in Los Angeles on July 8, 2015 at our very first Real Future Fair.In his recent town meeting on race relations in Akron, Ohio, President Clinton engaged in an exchange about the Army ''affirmative action program'' that led to the promotion of Colin Powell to brigadier general. As the session wound down, the writer Abigail Thernstrom challenged the President. ''Americans believe in affirmative action,'' she charged. ''They don't believe in preferences.'' The President then walked toward Ms. Thernstrom, stood over her and asked: ''Abigail, do you favor the U.S. Army abolishing the affirmative action program that produced Colin Powell? Yes or no? Yes or no?'' The President and Ms. Thernstrom did not know what they were talking about. There was no affirmative action program that prompted Colin Powell's promotion to brigadier general in 1978. Mr. Powell and several other black colonels received their first stars while I was Secretary of the Army, from 1977 to 1981. All of those black men, and one black woman, were as qualified to move up the chain of command as their white colleagues. They all served their nation with distinction. I did not promote these black people to the rank of general officer through an Army- or Cliff Alexander-invented affirmative action plan. But those promotions, including Colin Powell's, did not just happen. At an early point in my tenure as Secretary, I held up a list of proposed general officers because no black colonels had been promoted, even though many had achieved that rank and served with distinction. I met with the General Officer Board, and other boards subsequent to the first one, and gave them a series of instructions. Advertisement Continue reading the main story They were told to look back at the early records of the eligible black colonels to see if their ratings in past years had been in any way influenced by the prejudices of the rating officers or if they had received lesser assignments or had been kept out of command positions because of the racial predisposition of any assigning superior officer. If such inconsistency was found, the board was instructed to eliminate the unfair rating and judge the people, both black and white, only by fair and equitable criteria. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. The boards followed my directives, and the result was equity and fairness. Black people with sterling records emerged on those lists. Yes, Colin Powell was like his white fellow generals -- no better, no worse. He did not get anything extra -- but more important, his white colleagues did not get anything extra either. Affirmative action plans are tools to create a more inclusive workplace, and they should not be confused with preference programs. The rise of Colin Powell through the ranks of the United States Army to brigadier general had to do with his performance as a soldier -- by any fair comparison, he carried out his assignments with skill and courage. Fortunately, if the general officer boards that evaluated him found any differences in ratings based on race, they were stricken.After weeks of highlighting negative aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), media outlets have largely underreported the law's success in helping slow the growth of health care costs. Council Of Economic Advisers Reveals Slower Growth In Health Care Cost After Implementation Of The Affordable Care Act Jason Furman: "ACA Is Contributing To The Recent Slow Growth In Health Care Prices." In a November 20 report, economist Jason Furman, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), highlighted several positive impacts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). According to Furman, the ACA has already helped reduce waste and overpayment in Medicare that is "contributing to the recent slow growth in health care prices and spending." Furman argues that reduced spending in Medicare is having an effect across the health care sector: Accounting for "spillover effects" of the ACA's reductions in Medicare overpayments suggests that the ACA has reduced health care price inflation by 0.5 percent per year since 2010, which represents a substantial fraction of the recent slowdown in health care price growth. [WhiteHouse.gov, 11/20/13] Council Of Economic Advisors: ACA Is Contributing To Lower Spending, May Be Raising Employment. Citing trends since the first implementation of the ACA in 2010, the Council of Economic Advisers concluded that the law has had positive impacts on the economy in general, as well as the health care sector in particular: The evidence is clear that recent trends in health care spending and price growth reflect, at least in part, ongoing structural changes in the health care sector. The slowdown may be raising employment today, and, if continued, will substantially raise living standards in the years ahead. The evidence also suggests that the ACA is already contributing to lower spending and price growth and that these effects will grow in the years ahead, bringing lower cost, higher quality care to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and to the health system as a whole. [Executive Office of the President, Council of Economic Advisers, November 2013] [Source: Executive Office of the President, Council of Economic Advisers, "Trends in Health Care Cost Growth and the Role of the Affordable Care Act", November 2013] Economists Agree: ACA Is Partly Responsible For Slowing Of Health Care Cost Growth David Cutler: "Slowing Down Medical Costs" A Success Story Of Obamacare. In a Washington Post op-ed, Harvard economist and former Obama health care adviser David Cutler explained how the law is already succeeding at controlling the rise of health care costs, stating "[t]he Affordable Care Act is a key to the underlying change": Even as coverage efforts are sputtering, success on the cost front is becoming more noticeable. Since 2010, the average rate of health-care cost increases has been less than half the average in the prior 40 years. The first wave of the cost slowdown emerged just after the recession and was attributed to the economic hangover. Three years later, the economy is growing, and costs show no sign of rising. Something deeper is at work. [The Washington Post, 11/8/13] Paul Krugman: "The Biggest Complaint Against Obamacare Was Completely Wrong." Writing for his New York Times blog, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman noted that while the CEA was careful not to claim that the ACA was solely responsible for health care cost control, "there [is] pretty good evidence that the ACA has played an important role in the cost slowdown." [The New York Times,11/21/13] Jonathan Gruber: Low Health Care Cost Growth Rates "Quite Striking." In an interview with USA Today, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber said that the continued low growth rate of health care costs was "quite striking." On the CEA's claim that the ACA is responsible for this cost containment, Gruber stated "obviously [the White House] has a point they want to push, but I think they've got it right." [USA Today, 11/20/13] Dean Baker: The ACA "Probably Does Deserve Some Of The Credit." In an op-ed published by Truthout.org, economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research noted that while the ACA is not the only factor contributing to lower costs, the health reform law "deserves some of the credit": In short, by Washington standards Obama could easily take credit for the sharp slowdown in health care costs over the last five years. In reality, the ACA probably does deserve some of the credit, but regardless of the cause the slowdown is a really big deal. As a result, health care is much more affordable than would otherwise be the case. [Truthout.org, 11/25/13] Print And Broadcast Media Largely Silent On Slowed Health Care Costs Print Media Devote Only Five Stories To ACA's Role In Slowed Costs. Since the release of the CEA report on November 20, the five top newspapers in the United States - The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and USA Today - issued only five articles that mentioned the ACA's role in slowing the growth of health care costs. In the same time period, all print outlets combined issued 67 stories focusing on other aspects of the ACA rollout, including issues with the Healthcare.gov website and cancellations of individual policies. Only two outlets -- USA Today and The New York Times -- issued front page stories mentioning the CEA report. Broadcast Media Silent On CEA Report. Between November 20 and November 25, broadcast morning, evening, and Sunday shows provided no airtime to the CEA report, instead dedicating over 20 minutes to other aspects of the ACA rollout. Methodology Media Matters conducted Nexis and Factiva searches of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Los Angeles Times from November 21 (the day after the release of the CEA report) to November 25 using the following search terms: health care or health insurance or health reform or Affordable Care Act or ACA or Obamacare or Obama care. We did not include online-only articles and letters to the editor. Media Matters also reviewed evening news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC from November 20 through November 25. We reviewed morning and Sunday show programs from November 21 through November 25. The programs analyzed were: CBS This Morning, Good Morning America, Today, CBS Evening News, Nightly News, World News, Face the Nation, and This Week. Meet the Press was not included because it did not air on November 24. We defined articles and television segments that mention the role of ACA in slowing the growth of health care costs as those that directly mention the CEA report or comments from economists on the subject. We defined articles and television segments that mention other aspects of the ACA rollout as those that mention any aspect of the ACA other than its role in slowing health care costs, including glitches in the Healthcare.gov website and individual policy cancellations.The Strain has always been at its best when it’s about two things: hunting down vampires and letting Corey Stoll’s Ephraim swill gallons of hard liquor to either numb his exhaustion or give him the nerve to continue the hunt. Based on the first three episodes of the third season, which begins airing on FX Sunday night, this may be the most boozy, vampire-y season yet, and therefore possibly its best. The show — co-created by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, based on their source novels — is cunningly structured to unfold in a TV version of real time: We’re now 26 episodes in at the start of the new season, yet only a few weeks have elapsed since the vampires (known most often here as the “strigoi” or, more frequently in the new season, “munchers”) started attacking, turning humans into long-tongued bloodsuckers. Thus the main characters, led primarily by Stoll’s Eph and David Bradley’s Professor Setrakian, are still coming to terms with the threat, still trying to figure out possible solutions and counterattacks. The effect is to place the characters on the same learning curve as the viewing audience, which creates a strong narrative bond. Related: ‘The Strain’ Catch-Up Guide: 6 Things to Remember About Season 2 In previous seasons, I was regularly bored whenever the action slowed down and a bunch of scientists started gassing on about how the spreading infection could be contained. By now, however, del Toro, Hogan, and producer Carlton Cuse have streamlined the show, and the new episodes do a lot more storytelling through action. In this, the third season is helped greatly by the expanded role of Rupert Penry-Jones’s Quinlan, a half-vampire who operates as almost a superhero in the fight to find and defeat the big bad villain, the Master (Robin Atkin Downes). There’s little I can say about the plot of the first couple of episodes without spoiling last season’s cliffhangers, but I will note that Eph’s young son Zach (Ben Hyland) plays an important role. One substantial advantage The Strain has over other monster-invasion series — I’m (not) looking at you, Walking Dead franchise — is that Hogan, before his del Toro team-up, was a superb writer of thriller novels (Prince of Thieves, The Standoff), and he carries that swift storytelling skill over into the scripts he writes or co-writes here. Even the third episode, which is loaded with a lot of backstory origin material about Quinlan’s past, doesn’t get bogged down. When it’s good, The Strain moves as quickly as those long, creepy tongues that burst out of the strigoi’s mouths to suck your blood. The Strain airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on FX.The winners have been announced! Big congratulations to all the winners! And thanks to all the contributions to the contest, you're constantly pushing the level of creativity forward :) Three weeks until halloween and Robocraft Garage is launching this year's Halloween contest! So dig out your creepiest cubes and start building the most epic halloween robot for a chance to win a Steam Gift Card! What do I build? It's simple! Create a creative and/or practical robot, capture some nice screenshots and submit the robot to the website. You should keep the halloween theme obvious for a higher chance of winning, because robots that we think are unrelated to halloween will be ignored. There are absolutely no requirements for it to be functional, so all-in creative is totally fine! How do I join? In order to join you must be a registered user. As a registered user you simply add a robot project with the contest tag "halloween2015" as found in the upper right corner or below this paragraph. Only non-published robots can be assigned to the contest, so make sure you save the contest tag before you publish your robot. A robot does not have to be published to be part of the contest, but will automatically get published if it is part of the top 10. You may add as many robots to the contest as you want, but only 1 of your robots may get into the top 10. halloween2015 Judgement The judgement is divided into 2 phases; Robocraft Garage judging and Community voting. This phase starts when the submission time has ended and ends depending on when the judgement is done (about 11th - 15th November). Robocraft Garage will pick the robots which we think deserve to be in the top 10 and these robots will be used in the next phase. This phase starts when the Robocraft Garage judging has ended and the community have 1 week to place their votes. The top 10 robots will be displayed in a random order to all community members and everyone gets five votes to pick their favorite robots (owners won't be able to vote for themselves). The amount of votes per robot won't be visible to anyone. The robot with the most community votes wins. The top 5 winners will be announced as soon as possible after the community voting has ended.You may think you know what you're getting when you buy fish, but research shows that a full third of them are mislabeled. That's why scientists in London are developing a device that will scan your fish and tell you exactly what species it is. The team, comprised of developers Yassine Santissi and Sam Mbale, created an infrared spectrometer to scan a fish at the molecular level, along with software that identifies patterns in the infrared waves that can be used to uniquely identify a fish species. This type of software is also used in the popular music app Shazam, leading the developers to call their product Fishazam, because of course they did. Mislabeling of fish is a big problem and not just because the result is people paying more for crappy fish. It also makes tracking global fish populations harder because agencies can't rely on sales data to determine whether a certain population is healthy, and it makes it easier to sell poached seafood. As a result, a fish could be threatened or endangered without governments even being aware of the problem. The developers hope that Fishazam will bring a much-needed tool to a fish market with little accountability. The team is planning to build a database of spectrographic analyses of fish species for use by governments and retailers, and provide a referral service that recommends trustworthy fish markets. Fishazam is a finalist in the Fishackathon, an event run by the US Department of State that encourages developers to create tools to promote sustainable fishing. The grand prize is $10,000, and the winner will be announced tomorrow. Source: Hakai MagazineBy Pam Benson The House Intelligence Committee has overwhelmingly passed a new cybersecurity bill that would enhance data sharing between the government and private industry to protect computer networks and intellectual property from cyber attacks. By a vote of 18-2, the panel on Wednesday approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The measure sets up a voluntary system for companies to share threat information on their networks with the government in exchange for some liability protections. The bill also allows the government to share intelligence and other cyber threat information with industry. A similar bill died in the Senate last year after a number of Republicans argued that proposed cybersecurity standards allowed for too much government regulation. The White House had threatened to veto that bill over privacy concerns. The Intelligence Committee revised the legislation this time to address some of those issues. The proposal strikes a provision that would have allowed law enforcement and other government agencies to use cyber data it receives from companies for broader national security purposes. The private sector is restricted from using cyber security information for marketing or any other commercial purposes. Companies would have no legal protection if they hack other companies to retrieve data they believe was stolen from them. The bill requires the government to establish procedures that would minimize the acquisition and retention of personal information it might receive from a company. These might include addresses and phone numbers, which are not relevant to a cyber threat. Finally, it would strengthen oversight to ensure civil liberties and privacy are protected. Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, who co-sponsored the bill with ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, said it does not create a surveillance program as some critics have charged. "It does not allow any government agency, the NSA or the CIA, to monitor domestic internet content in any way, shape or form," Rogers said. "We think we struck the right balance. It's 100 percent voluntary. There are no big mandates in this bill, and industry says under these conditions they think they can share back, and the government can give them information that might protect them," he added. Rogers said they consulted the White House while drafting the bill, but the Obama administration has not indicated whether it will support it. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Caitlin Hayden. said that while changes made to the bill "reflect a good faith effort to incorporate some of the administration's important substantive concerns... we do not believe these changes have addressed some outstanding fundamental priorities." And the changes are not enough to satisfy the concerns of some privacy groups and the two members of the committee who voted against it. Adam Schiff, D-California, and Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, said they will push to amend the bill when its debated on the House floor later this month. They think it should require companies to remove personal data not associated with cybersecurity before they share information with the government. And they argue a civil agency like the Department of Homeland Security should be in charge of information sharing with industry. They fear the National Security Agency and the military will have access to American's personal information. Rogers and Ruppersberger expect the full house will adopt the measure. Then it will be up to the Senate to pass its own version. If that happens, a House-Senate negotiating committee would attempt to hammer out a final bill.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 27) — Joint Philippine and Chinese operatives seized ₱3 billion worth of shabu in Valenzuela City, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said on Saturday. It was the first time the two countries worked together for an anti-drug operation as part of the protocol on cooperation signed during President Rodrigo Duterte's state visit to China in October 2016. Authorities on Friday recovered 604 kilos of shabu from two different warehouses in Paso de Blas and Brgy. Ugong in Valenzuela City. Officials said it was among the biggest hauls for this year. "We can say that it can be for nationwide distribution," said Wilkins Villanueva, Metro Manila regional director of PDEA. Investigation began as early as February. "There were a series of meetings. Pumunta dito counterparts natin (Our counterparts went here) and they started working with us," Villanueva said. Authorities admit it is difficult to detect illegal shipments now that drug syndicates use high-tech concealment processes. But "with the help of the Chinese counterpart then we have a better chance of addressing the drug problem," Villanueva said. Two Taiwanese nationals who were leasing the warehouse remain at large. Authorities mull issuing a hold departure order against them. The consignee, Fidel Dee, was arrested. But he denied involvement in the illegal drug trade, saying he is just the caretaker of the warehouse. He said he was made to believe the shipments were machineries. Dee and the Taiwanese suspects will be charged for violations of Republic Act 9165, or the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.Pakistan's ambassador to the United States has stepped down following claims he appealed for Washington's help in reining in Pakistan's powerful military. Ambassador Hussain Haqqani resigned Tuesday following a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and army and intelligence officials in Islamabad. The prime minister's spokesman said Haqqani was asked to step down so that an investigation can be properly carried out. Haqqani has denied drafting a memo calling for U.S. help in preventing a military coup in Pakistan following the American raid that killed former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The letter was sent in May to Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military official at the time. The controversy exposed the long-running power struggle between Pakistan's civilian government and the military, which has ruled the country in the past. Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz described the memo in an opinion piece published last month in the Financial Times newspaper. In return for U.S. help in preventing a military coup in Pakistan, the memo said a new national security team would conduct a full inquiry into allegations that Pakistan harbored bin Laden. The new team would also hand over top al-Qaida members and ensure that Pakistan's military spy agency cuts ties to the Taliban, the Haqqani network and other groups. Ambassador Haqqani said Tuesday that he was resigning to bring closure to the "meaningless controversy threatening our fledging democracy." He added on Twitter that he has "much to contribute to building a new Pakistan free of bigotry and intolerance. Haqqani had been Pakistan's envoy to the United States since 2008 and was well-regarded in Washington. He is a close ally of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. It is unclear who will replace Haqqani as ambassador. Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.MINSK (Reuters) - Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday a tax on those not in full-time employment should not be enforced this year, after widespread public opposition to the levy led to the biggest protests in years. Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko speaks during a news conference in Minsk, Belarus February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Nikolai Petrov/BelTA/Pool Popularly known as the “law against social parasites” it requires those who work less than 183 days per year to pay the government $250 in compensation for lost taxes. It has gone down badly with the Belarussian public at a time when many are struggling to make ends meet after more than two years of economic recession. A protest against the tax in Minsk last month drew around 2,000 people, the largest demonstration in the country for six years. Similar protests have since been held beyond the capital and more were planned by the opposition for March. “We will not collect this money for 2016 from those who were meant to pay it,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by state news agency Belta in a rare concession to public outcry. Lukashenko, who once described himself as the “last dictator in Europe,” has run the Belarussian economy along Soviet-style command lines since 1994. He said the authorities could make amendments to the tax, but would not scrap it entirely. Seeking to improve ties with the European Union and lessen Belarus’s dependence on Russia, Lukashenko has over the past year heeded calls from the West to show greater lenience towards political opposition. Lukashenko said those who have already paid the ‘parasite’ tax for 2016 would be reimbursed if they find a job in 2017. According to the last tax inspection, 470,000 people should have paid the tax, but only 50,000 have done so, generating just $8 million in extra revenue for the government. The country has been in recession since 2015 due to a slump in oil prices and contagion from an economic crisis in neighboring Russia, with which its economy is closely tied and where many Belarussians work in order to send money home. The average monthly salary has fallen from an all-time high of $630 in mid-2014 to $380 as of the start of 2017.Cpl. Glen Kirkland is hoping it's all just a coincidence. After testifying last week at a Parliamentary committee hearing into the care of Canada's ill and injured soldiers, Kirkland was issued release papers from the military on Friday. Canadian Forces members can be released for a variety of reasons, including reductions in strength, completion of service or being unsuited for future service. "I wasn't expecting it," Kirkland said Monday. "I am not technically being punished, but I feel like I am." Kirkland said he has been told in the past to watch what he says about the military. Glen Kirkland, in wheelchair, was one of five soldiers injured in a direct fire explosion in September, 2008. Cpl. Kirkland, seen attending a ramp ceremony that month for fallen soldiers in Khandahar, Afghanistan, testified before a Parliamentary committee last week. (Tobi Cohen/Canadian Press) In spite of this, the 29-year-old soldier spoke emotionally about surviving a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan five years ago. Three of the five soldiers travelling with him were killed. Kirkland suffered hearing loss, vision problems and a brain injury that left him dependent on insulin. He also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He told the Standing Committee on National Defence last Wednesday, "I can't handle the anxiety of being around crowds. Survivor's guilt haunts me every day. When I was in the hospital in Afghanistan, I spoke to my father on the phone. My dad said, 'Don't worry. Canada will take care of you. You stepped up like we always have and you did your part, and Canada will do its part. It's only fair. Everything will work out.' My dad was wrong. I am broken and can't be a productive, useful soldier." After speaking in Ottawa, he said he received hundreds of messages of support and was praised for his conduct when he showed up at CFB Shilo, his base in Manitoba. But the timing of the release papers, which would mean Kirkland's military career would end in six months, have left him with lots of questions. Kirkland said if he is released from the military he doesn't know what will happen to him or his medical bills. "I have complex medical issues. I have all these question marks that haven't been answered. No one has told me what happens when you get released or how my medical costs will be covered," Kirkland said. Raised in the House In the House of Commons Monday, Liberal defence critic John McKay asked the Minister of National Defence whether he would protect Kirkland's career in the military in light of the release documents. Peter Mackay told the House any veteran injured in
Hyundai 4x4 crashed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before hurtling towards the gates of Parliament Police officers enter the property on Hagley Road in Birmingham. Witnesses in the area said three people had been detained The road, which has a number of takeaways and restaurants, is said to have been closed at 11pm and reopened by 2am West Midlands Police gave a short statement which read: 'There is an ongoing police operation, no further details are being given at this stage' Speaking this morning, Mark Rowley, the Met's senior anti-terror officer, said: 'Hundreds of detectives have been working through the night and during that time I can confirm we have searched six addresses - and made seven arrests. 'The inquiries in Birmingham, London and other parts of the country continue. It is still our belief - which continues to be borne out by our investigation - that this attacker acted alone yesterday and was inspired by international terrorism. 'To be explicit - at this stage, we have no specific information about further threats to the public. 'Clearly our investigation is ongoing - developing all the time - and is focused on his motivation, his preparation and associates. 'The large and complicated crime scene remains in place and our work there continues - I would like to thank everyone for their support and patience as we finish this work.' The scene in Whitehall this morning, where a number of streets are closed off while investigators examine the scene Forensics experts have been scouring Westminster Bridge for clues following the horrific events of yesterday Victims: What we know about the four dead and 29 injured Four people - excluding the attacker - were murdered. 29 are injured. Seven critically. Theresa May revealed today that among the injured there were 12 Britons, three French, two Romanians, four South Koreans, one German, one Chinese, one Irish, one Italian and two Greeks. The foreign victims are likely to all have been tourists. This is what we know: Husband and father Pc Keith Palmer, 48, was stabbed to death by terrorist at gates of Parliament Aysha Frade, 43, was on her way to meet her two children, aged eight and 11, when she was killed on Westminster Bridge Kurt Cochran, 54, from Utah was knocked off bridge and died A 75-year-old man died tonight Three French school children are in a critical condition last night. The students are believed to be 15 or 16 and attend the private Lycée Saint-Joseph in Brittany. The attacker also targeted 13 students from Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, Lancashire. The university said four were hurt. One had head injuries, another wrist injuries, while two were walking wounded. A Romanian couple on holiday are also thought to be among the injured. Andrei Burnaz, an engineer in his mid-20s, and Andreea Cristea, his girlfriend, 29, were caught up in the attack. Five Korean tourists were also reported to be among the injured, one seriously. A Portuguese man was also hurt in the rampaged Italian woman was hit by the bumper of the car and had to have an operation to her left leg Chinese tourist was also hospitalised after being hit by the speeding vehicle and had bone fracture near the shoulder and numerous bruises Pc Keith Palmer, a member of the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Squad, was killed as he tried to stop Masood at around 2.30pm on Wednesday. The other confirmed victims are American tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, Aysha Frade, 43, a Spanish teacher who had been on a school run, and a 75-year-old man who has not yet been named. Masood, who was armed with two knives, injured around 40 people as he mowed down pedestrians with a car on Westminster Bridge before crashing at the railings in front of Parliament. Bursting through the gate to the Palace of Westminster, he stabbed Pc Palmer before being shot dead by armed officers. Theresa May visited some of the 29 victims, seven of whom are in a critical condition, in hospital today. The Prime Minister had earlier led tributes to PC Palmer, a 48-year-old father. In the House of Commons today she saluted the heroism of police as well as the bravery of ordinary people in the British capital who simply went about their lives in the aftermath of the attack. She said: 'As I speak, millions will be boarding trains and airplanes to travel to London, and to see for themselves the greatest city on Earth. 'It is in these actions - millions of acts of normality - that we find the best response to terrorism. A response that denies our enemies their victory, that refuses to let them win, that shows we will never give in.' This evening, multi-faith leaders, residents, tourists, police and politicians gathered at the candlelit vigil in London's Trafalgar Square, which was led by mayor Sadiq Khan. Crowds were told the 'evil and twisted acts of terrorism will be defeated.' In a statement yesterday Pc Palmer's family said he was a 'wonderful dad and husband, a loving son, brother and uncle' who would be 'deeply missed'. They said the avid Charlton FC supporter was 'dedicated to his job and proud to be a police officer, brave and courageous'. Paying tribute to Pc Palmer, who had served the police for 15 years, Mr Rowley said: 'In Westminster we saw tragic events unfold, and our thoughts are with those who lost loved ones, those who were injured and all those affected by this attack. 'One of those who died today was a police officer, Pc Keith Palmer, a member of our parliamentary and diplomatic protection command. Keith, aged 48, had 15 years' service and was a husband and father. 'He was someone who left for work today expecting to return home at the end of his shift, and he had every right to expect that would happen.' Donald Trump was among world leaders to offer their support. Shortly after 1.30am UK time, the US president tweeted: 'Spoke to UK Prime Minister Theresa May today to offer condolences on the terrorist attack in London. She is strong and doing very well.' The attack came exactly a year after the Brussels airport atrocity and a day after restrictions were announced on air travel from six countries because of the terror threat. Multi-faith leaders, residents, tourists, police and politicians gathered at the candlelit vigil in London's Trafalgar Square, which was led by mayor Sadiq Khan Should ALL officers be armed? Questions over security at landmarks after unarmed officer is killed and it emerges the attacker was shot by a minister's guard The attack in Westminster has raised questions over whether all police protecting landmark buildings should be armed. Pc Keith Palmer, who was stabbed and died outside the Houses of Parliament, did not have a weapon and it was other armed officers who shot and killed the attacker. The policeman who shot the attacker on the parliamentary estate is believed to have been a close protection officer for Defence Secretary Michael Fallon rather than a member of the gate team. Mr Fallon's ministerial car was parked in New Palace Yard as a vote was taking place in the Commons at the time. It has also been reported that the gate was open because Acting Police Commissioner Craig Mackey was leaving the Houses of Parliament. Luckily, Mr Mackey was not injured and is now being treated as a witness. The Hyundai, said the have been rented in Birmingham, crashed in at least 40 pedestrians before crashing into Parliament After stabbing and killing unarmed PC Keith Palmer in Parliament grounds, he was shot by an armed officer and later died It is understood the attacker was shot by a bodyguard of Defence Secretary Michael Fallon rather than Parliament police Former Met firearms officer Roger Gay said Britain may need to move away from the idea of 'traditional' unarmed policeman in important locations. He told Sky News today: 'In my opinion, I would have all of them in that location, I think, should be armed. What you have there, and I hate to use the term, is perhaps a sacrificial pawn. 'But one wonders if he had a sidearm, would he have been able to react that quickly and, if he had been carrying a carbine then he would be less of the traditional policeman. Perhaps we should let go of that and ratchet it up one notch.' Speaking on Radio 4 this morning, Defence Secretary Mr Fallon confirmed Parliament's security would now be reviewed. He said of the attacker: 'They did not get into Parliament. They only got as far as the gate. They did not breach the security of the House of Commons and he gave his life to protect the security of our democracy. 'Parliament cannot be hermetically sealed. People are coming and going all the time. 'There was a division going on at the time, people arriving through the gates either by car or foot, to vote. This is something that will now be reviewed by the House authorities.' Armed police in Westminster today. The death of unarmed officer has raised questions all police in such locations should have guns Former Met firearms officer Roger Gay (left) suggested all police around Parliament should be armed. Security expert Raffaello Pantucci (right) said low tech lone wolf attacks are extremely difficult to prevent Security experts have pointed out that 'low-tech' lone wolf attacks are extremely difficult to prevent. Raffaello Pantucci, Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said: 'It's always been the case that going out and getting a car or a knife is far easier than building a device like a bomb. 'Incidents such as Lee Rigby are examples of this. Other terrorists could be inspired by this and it's becoming the acceptable way of doing things. It's certainly something that could be copied.' He added: 'If you haven't told anyone what you are doing, police are going to find it harder to stop you. 'But what is worrying is a trend of lone wolves who carry out the attacks alone, but gain ideas or weapons from other terrorists before they do so.' Just days ago a suspected terrorist was shot dead at Orly airport in Paris after trying to grab a gun from a security official. Forensic officers search the road on their knees next to Westminster Abbey this morning as investigations continue Police officers paying their respects to fallen colleague Keith Palmer at the National Police Memorial today Mr Pantucci said: 'Obviously we are on high alert, but we have been on high alert for some time. What has been happening with banning laptops on planes makes that clear.' Reflecting on the reaction of the police, Mr Pantucci said: 'From what we have seen it appears the police shut down the operation very quickly. 'It could be that more bollards are placed outside Parliament to prevent this sort of thing happening again, but is is difficult to know when to stop putting bollards in.' Theresa Villiers, the former Northern Ireland secretary, suggested the issue of whether police who patrol areas 'known to be of interest to terrorists' should carry a weapon for personal protection should now be examined. Ms Villiers said: 'As we reflect on what happened, is it time to consider whether the police who guard sensitive sites known to be of interest to terrorists like Parliament or like airports should routinely carry personal protection weapons, even when those officers are not part of the units formally tasked with armed response?'The Museum of Natural History has made it so: the traveling exhibit Out of This World: Extraordinary Costumes from Film and Television will open Friday, May 18. To complement the exhibit, Gus-Con, a comic book-style convention will take place at the museum from June 1 to 3. The convention is named after Gus, the museum's gopher tortoise who will celebrate his 90th birthday in August. "Based on the positive response from our social media campaign, it's looking as if the exhibit is going to be quite popular," said David Wilson, Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage. "We're pleased that the museum is able to combine this kind of exhibit with the new space programs it will introduce in the Our Amazing World gallery." The Out of This World exhibit complements the Kids in Space program which will focus on the planets and moons in the solar system. A separate, more-in-depth program will be geared toward older visitors. The Out of This World exhibit will feature more than 40 costumes and objects from science fiction films and television programs such as Star Wars, Blade Runner, Terminator, Star Trek and Batman. Visitors will be able to learn how costume design uses colour, style, scale and cultural and traditional cues to help performers and audiences engage with the characters. The exhibit runs until Aug. 26. Gus-Con will feature science fiction lectures, presentations, panels and a costume gala. "The buzz around this exhibit is huge! Not since Hal-Con have I seen the geek and nerd community so excited to participate in a genre event like this," said Jennifer Lambe, co-chair, director of guest relations and sponsorships for Hal-Con. "It's a huge score for the museum to bring an exhibit of this caliber to our community in Halifax. People are already planning two to three trips to make sure they see everything." Hal-Con organizers will deliver a presentation at Gus-Con. Andrew Hebda, curator of zoology, will also do a presentation on bats; Marian Munro, curator of botany, will have a presentation on poison plants; and Deborah Skilliter, curator of geology, will speak on the film Jurassic Park. Tickets for Gus-Con go on sale at the museum May 18 at 8 a.m. The $29 price includes admission to all events during the three-day conference. For information on the exhibit and the conference visit the Museum of Natural History website at http://nature.museum.gov.ns.ca.Image caption Syrian activists say government fighter planes hit a market Syrian government air strikes have killed at least 40 people in and around the city of Aleppo, activists say. In one attack, warplanes are reported to have targeted rebel positions in Aleppo itself, but missed and hit a vegetable market instead, killing 15. State TV said fighter aircraft targeted "gatherings of terrorists" in the city, killing many. There are also reports that the government's reconciliation minister has survived an assassination attempt. There were several deadly airstrikes on Saturday, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says. The deadliest was reported from al-Bab, north of Aleppo, where 22 people died, according to the group. Fighter jets also bombed two rebel-held districts of Aleppo, Syria's largest city - in the Halwaniyeh and Karam el-Beik districts, the head of the Observatory, Rami Abdelrahman, said adding that were "heavy civilian casualties". Neither account of events could be independently verified. Assassination attempt The activist group also said that Islamist rebels, some with links to al-Qaeda, had seized Syria's largest oil field, potentially cutting off President Bashar al-Assad's access to almost all local crude reserves. There was no immediate comment from the government about the reported loss of the Omar oil field in Deir Ezzor. Meanwhile, Syrian state television reported that National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar escaped an attempt to kill him. Mr Haidar was not in the car at the time of the shooting but his driver was killed, the report added. Since the start of unrest in March 2011, more than 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the conflict. More than two million Syrians have fled the country, according to the UN.Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. The Intercept has a story about young Jared Kushner and his catastrophically bad 2007 purchase of a New York skyscraper. Kushner has basically lost his entire $500 million investment, and the only way to turn things around is to demolish the building and put up a bigger, more valuable one in its place. But that requires a huge amount of money, and it turns out that Kushner was hoping to get a big chunk of it from a Qatari zillionaire: Not long before a major crisis ripped through the Middle East, pitting the United States and a bloc of Gulf countries against Qatar, Jared Kushner’s real estate company had unsuccessfully sought a critical half-billion-dollar investment from one of the richest and most influential men in the tiny nation, according to three well-placed sources with knowledge of the near transaction Qatar is facing an ongoing blockade led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and joined by Egypt and Bahrain, which President Trump has taken credit for sparking. Kushner, meanwhile, has reportedly played a key behind-the-scenes role in hardening the U.S. posture toward the embattled nation. ….The revelation of the half-billion-dollar deal raises thorny and unprecedented ethical questions. If the deal is not entirely dead, that means Jared Kushner is, on the one hand, pushing to use the power of American diplomacy to pummel a small nation, while on the other, his firm is hoping to extract an extraordinary amount of capital from there for a failing investment. If, however, the deal is entirely dead, the pummeling may be seen as intimidating to other investors on the end of a Kushner Companies pitch. There’s no way to know what’s really going on based solely on the information in the story. The problem is a very broad one: Jared Kushner runs a company that routinely needs to raise large sums of money, and one of the most common sources for large sums of money is foreign investors in places like China, the Middle East, and Russia. At the same time, Kushner is also a close advisor to the president of the United States, who routinely conducts foreign policy in places like China, the Middle East, and Russia. Conflicts of interest would be inevitable even if everyone involved were as pure as Caesar’s wife. Is Trump helping out his son-in-law by putting pressure on Qatar? Is Trump being played by Kushner? Or are the blockade and the real estate deal completely unrelated? We have at least 42 months left of questions like this popping up constantly.Advocates of greater government transparency say secret lawmaking is undemocratic. Transparency advocates gathered Monday to denounce secret lawmaking and restricted access to everything from municipal bicycle rules to documents supporting the targeted killing of Americans. The Advisory Committee on Transparency, which works with the Congressional Transparency Caucus – headed by Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Mike Quigley, D-Ill. – hosted the event in the Rayburn House Office Building. “Unfortunately, today, more law is locked behind doors than ever before,” said Matt Rumsey of the Sunlight Foundation, who moderated a panel discussion. Gabe Rottman, legislative counsel and policy adviser in the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office, said there are three significant pitfalls to secret lawmaking at the federal level: Selective leaks that reinforce the government’s position, flawed decisions and a lack of legitimacy. “With the targeted killing program, the [Obama] administration has repeatedly leaked information” to the press, Rottman said, “while at the same time fighting disclosure.” Selective leaks, he said, give the public access to only one side of an issue. The targeted killing program was authorized by opinions from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. A partially redacted 2010 document authorizing the assassination of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was released by a court in June after years of controversy. Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org, objected to the Department of Justice’s decision to withhold Office of Legal Counsel opinions sought in Freedom of Information Act requests on the basis that they are merely legal opinions, not binding laws. “We all know that OLC opinions are binding and confer immunity,” Rottman said. Daniel Schuman, policy director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said 39 percent of Office of Legal Counsel opinions issued between 1998 and 2012 are not available to the public. In addition to secret opinions offered to the president, the transparency advocates took issue with the reinterpretation of laws by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which unbeknownst to sponsors of the Patriot Act interpreted that 2001 law as authorizing the bulk collection of all American phone records. “With secret lawmaking, you can engage in very aggressive legal interpretation without having to pay the piper,” Rottman observed. Though the policy advocates urged greater transparency from the surveillance court and administration, they offered more specific recommendations for enhancing public access to laws that aren’t actually secret, but might as well be because they’re so inaccessible. Schuman said the text of many laws passed by Congress from Reconstruction through the early 1900s aren't posted online, but should be. Present-day federal court decisions, all agreed, are too difficult for the public to come by. McDermott urged Congress to intervene to make free of charge court documents currently available for payment via the online Public Access to Court Electronic Records – or PACER – database, a tool primarily used by legal professionals and reporters. “The courts are public bodies and that information belongs to us, but you wouldn’t know that,” she said. Schuman and McDermott also pointed out some laws – including building codes and local regulations – feature “incorporation by reference.” Often, they said, people need to pay for access to standards set by a nongovernmental entity that are referenced in laws. Editorial Cartoons on Barack Obama View All 286 Images V. David Zvenyach, general counsel to the D.C. Council and the only government worker on the panel, shared his experience improving online access to local laws. He was inspired when a resident unsuccessfully sought a link to bike regulations, and he's now working with a five-city initiative to improve access to laws. Zvenyach said it’s concerning that even the Supreme Court’s website has dead links.The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is seeking an investigation of alleged war crimes committed in the war in Afghanistan, an unprecedented probe that could involve US troops. Fatou Bensouda said in a statement that a preliminary examination found “a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity” were committed in Afghanistan after US-led troops moved in following the September 11 attacks in 2001. Once the prosecutor submits her investigation request to the court, based in the Dutch city of The Hague, it is up to the tribunal’s judges to decide whether to open one. Ms Bensouda’s office said her request will be filed publicly “in the days to come”. An Afghanistan probe would be exceptional because until now most ICC trials have dealt with events in Africa. The only case currently under investigation outside Africa is in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Human Rights Watch welcomed the announcement as a step towards ending impunity for crimes in Afghanistan. “Thousands and thousands of Afghans have suffered horrendous human rights abuses and war crimes over the years and there has been no accountability,” said Richard Dicker of the group’s international justice programme. “The announcement today by the prosecutor opens the door to the possibility that for the first time there may be some justice possible for the victims.” Ms Bensouda said in a report last year that US forces and CIA agents may have committed war crimes by torturing detainees in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2014. That opens the possibility that Americans could be among those investigated for possible prosecution, even though the US is not among the court’s more than 120 members. Taliban and Afghan government forces may also have used torture and committed other atrocities in Afghanistan’s long and bitter conflict, the report said. Ms Bensouda said in a statement that if judges approve an investigation, her office “will investigate, within its mandate and means, in an independent, impartial and objective way, crimes within the court’s jurisdiction allegedly committed by any party to the armed conflict”. Americans could face prosecution if their alleged crimes took place in a country that is an ICC member, such as Afghanistan, and if they were not prosecuted at home. However, legal experts say the chances of American service members being charged and sent to face justice at the ICC are remote. Katherine Gallagher, senior staff attorney at US rights organization the Centre for Constitutional Rights, said the possibility that Americans could be charged sends a “long overdue message that no one is above the law”. Established in 2002, the ICC is the world’s first permanent court set up to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. As president Bill Clinton signed the Rome treaty that established the court, but George W Bush renounced the signature, citing fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons. Ms Bensouda’s 2016 report said the alleged US war crimes “were not the abuses of a few isolated individuals. Rather, they appear to have been committed as part of approved interrogation techniques in an attempt to extract ‘actionable intelligence’ from detainees”. The prosecutor’s report noted that US authorities have conducted dozens of investigations and court martial cases.Fox News figures celebrated the anniversary of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden by attacking President Obama for not giving the military personnel that carried out the mission "the credit that's due to them." But Obama has repeatedly praised and thanked the Navy SEALs and other military and intelligence individuals who participated in the mission. Fox Figures Claim Obama Is Denying Military "The Credit That's Due To Them" For Bin Laden Mission Bolling Thanks "SEAL Team 6" Because Obama "Failed To Mention" Them. On the May 1 edition of Fox News' The Five, co-host Eric Bolling played clips of Obama and former President Clinton discussing the raid that killed Bin Laden and responded by claiming Obama "failed to mention the Navy SEALs" and said, "I'll do it for you, Mr. President. Thank you SEAL Team 6." From Fox News' The Five: BOLLING: Presidents Clinton and Obama failed to mention the Navy SEALs who executed the target, the CIA who gleaned the intel to pull off the mission and most importantly the reason that we were ever in a position to kill bin Laden, namely the declared "War on Terror" by the Bush administration. So I guess I'll do it for you, Mr. President. Thank you, SEAL Team 6, thank you CIA intelligence gatherers, and thank you George Bush and Dick Cheney. [Fox News, The Five, 5/1/12] Rove: "President Obama Doesn't Want To Give Credit To Anybody But His Own Brilliance." On the May 2 edition of Fox News' Hannity, Fox News contributor Karl Rove claimed that "the SEAL team, the logistics people, the pilots, all of those who planned and executed this mission have sort of gone back into the shadows as President Obama's put a big Klieg light on himself for the purpose of launching a partisan attack against his presumptive Republican opponent." Later in the segment, Rove said, "I know President Obama doesn't want to give credit to anybody but his own brilliance," but that the "president would make himself look bigger if he made" the Navy SEALs "look bigger by giving them the credit that's due to them." [Fox News, Hannity, 5/2/12] Krauthammer: Obama Said, "It's All About Me," But "What About The Guys Out There Who Did It?" On the May 3 edition of Fox News' Special Report, Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer claimed that Obama used bin Laden's death "inappropriately for himself" and asked, "What about the guys out there who did it and who risked their lives?" From Special Report: KRAUTHAMMER: It isn't just that Obama has managed to turn a positive, something he did well, into a negative by attacking, using it as a partisan weapon which diminishes him. Also, it diminishes the solemnity of the event, which was a national event, and he used it inappropriately for himself. It is the narcissism -- and that is the deeper issue here -- how they quote Obama again and again, using the first personal pronoun in his announcement of the event. It's all about me, I commander-in-chief, I ordered it, I did this. What about the guys out there who did it and who risked their lives? And secondly, this idea that what was at stake was the political fortunes of the president if the lives of his own soldiers whom he ordered into battle were lost. That is devastating, because I think it speaks to an underlying issue with Obama, of the self-regard and the narcissism that is implicit in a lot of what he does, but involved in an event of this kind where soldiers are at risk, I think it really hits hard. And if -- if this ad were to play around the country, I think it would have a devastating effect. [Fox News, Special Report, 5/3/12] Bolling: "Nowhere Do You Hear" Obama Say "Thank You SEAL Team 6." On the May 3 edition of Fox News' Hannity, host Sean Hannity responded to an NBC News interview with Obama about the raid that killed bin Laden by claiming, "The president insists on gloating one year after the heroic raid by our Navy SEALs." Later in the program, Fox News' The Five co-host Eric Bolling claimed, "Nowhere do you hear, anywhere do you hear, 'thank you Navy... Thank you SEAL Team 6." From Hannity: KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE (Fox News host): It's almost unbelievable. You think, how does he get away with this? And wouldn't you be embarrassed and a little ashamed to be gloating and taking one successive victory lap after another -- HANNITY: He's not. GUILFOYLE: Why does he even need a campaign or a team, because he's got the mainstream media. He has NBC throwing this all out for him. Unbelievable. HANNITY: Somebody's got to file a complaint with the [FCC]. You can't buy that type of free coverage on a -- BOLLING: I can't imagine how much they would have to pay if they were going to buy that coverage. This is a full hour of "what, look what I did, look what we did. I, me, I, we, we, me. Nowhere, anywhere do you hear thank you Navy -- HANNITY: "I, we, I, me." GUILFOYLE: Yeah. BOLLING: -- "Thank you SEAL Team 6, thank you CIA enhanced interrogation group" that got the intel that led to the kill shot that President Obama may or may not have actually taken himself. We don't really know exactly how that went down. [Fox News, Hannity, 5/3/12] In Fact, Obama Has Repeatedly Thanked And Praised Military Personnel That Executed The Mission Obama: "We Give Thanks For The Men Who Carried Out This Operation, For They Exemplify The Professionalism, Patriotism, And Unparalleled Courage Of Those Who Serve Our Country." In his May 2, 2011, address announcing the operation that killed bin Laden, Obama gave "thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country." From the White House: Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body. [...] Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who've worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice. We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day. [WhiteHouse.gov, 5/2/11] Obama: Navy SEALs "Deserve Credit For One Of The Greatest Intelligence Military Operations In Our Nation's History." In a May 6, 2011, speech to troops stationed at Fort Campbell, Obama said the troops involved in the mission "deserve credit for one of the greatest intelligence military operations in our nation's history." He also stated: "Thanks to the incredible skill and courage of countless individuals -- intelligence, military -- over many years, the terrorist leader who struck our nation on 9/11 will never threaten America again." From the White House: Thanks to the incredible skill and courage of countless individuals intelligence, military over many years, the terrorist leader who struck our nation on 9/11 will never threaten America again. [...] And today, here at Fort Campbell, I had the privilege of meeting the extraordinary Special Ops folks who honored that promise. It was a chance for me to say on behalf of all Americans and people around the world "Job well done." Job well done. (Applause.) They're America's "quiet professionals" -- because success demands secrecy. But I will say this. Like all of you, they could have chosen a life of ease. But like you, they volunteered. They chose to serve in a time of war, knowing they could be sent into harm's way. They trained for years. They're battle-hardened. They practiced tirelessly for this mission. And when I gave the order, they were ready. Now, in recent days, the whole world has learned just how ready they were. These Americans deserve credit for one of the greatest intelligence military operations in our nation's history. But so does every person who wears America's uniform, the finest military the world has ever known. (Applause.) And that includes all of you men and women of 101st. (Applause.) [WhiteHouse.gov, 5/6/11] Obama Privately Thanked Navy SEAL Team That Killed Bin Laden. A May 5, 2011, ABC News article reported that Obama "privately thanked the Navy SEALs who cornered and killed Osama bin Laden, congratulating them for a 'job well done.'" From ABC News: President Obama today privately thanked the Navy SEALs who cornered and killed Osama bin Laden, congratulating them for a "job well done." The president met the elite Team 6 squad on the same day that bin Laden's terror network, al Qaeda, admitted that its leader was dead. Al Qaeda vowed that it would try to make America pay for his death. Among the team members the president met was the SEAL who fired the shot that killed bin Laden, though he was not told which one it was, according to administration sources. [ABC News, 5/6/11] Obama Awarded Military Units Involved In Mission With Highest Possible Honor That Can Be Given To A Military Unit. A May 6, 2011, CNN article reported that Obama "awarded Presidential Unit Citations to the units involved in the Pakistan mission... the highest such honor that can be given to a military unit." From CNN: Obama and Biden thanked the commandos and were briefed on the operation by the unit members who conducted it, according to a White House official. Obama awarded Presidential Unit Citations to the units involved in the Pakistan mission, the official said. The citation is the highest such honor that can be given to a military unit. "They practiced tirelessly for this mission, and when I gave the order they were ready," the president told the troops. "They're America's quiet professionals." [CNN, 5/6/11] Obama: Bin Laden's Death Is "A Mark Of The Excellence Of Our Intelligence Teams And Our Military Teams." In an April 30 press conference, Obama called the operation "a mark of the excellence of our intelligence teams and our military teams." From the White House: OBAMA: I think that people -- the American people rightly remember what we as a country accomplished in bringing to justice somebody who killed over 3,000 of our citizens. And it's a mark of the excellence of our intelligence teams and our military teams; a political process that worked. And I think for us to use that time for some reflection to give thanks to those who participated is entirely appropriate, and that's what's been taking place. [WhiteHouse.gov, 4/30/12] Obama: "[B]ecause Of The Sacrifices Now Of A Decade, And A New Greatest Generation... We Were Able To Finally Bring Osama Bin Laden To Justice." From Obama's May 1 remarks to troops in Afghanistan: THE PRESIDENT: We don't go looking for a fight. But when we see our homeland violated, when we see our fellow citizens killed, then we understand what we have to do. And because of the sacrifices now of a decade, and a new Greatest Generation, not only were we able to blunt the Taliban momentum, not only were we able to drive al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, but slowly and systematically we have been able to decimate the ranks of al Qaeda, and a year ago we were able to finally bring Osama bin Laden to justice. TROOPS: Hooah! (Applause.) THE PRESIDENT: That could have only happened because each and every one of you, in your own way, were doing your jobs. Each and every one of you -- without a lot of fanfare, without a lot of fuss -- you did your jobs. No matter how small or how big, you were faithful to the oath that you took to protect this nation. And your families did their job -- supporting you and loving you and remembering you and being there for you. [WhiteHouse.gov, 5/1/12] Obama Says That Flag Presented To Him By SEAL Team "Will Probably Be The Most Important Possession That I Leave With From This Presidency." On the May 2 edition of NBC News' Rock Center, host Brian Williams interviewed Obama about the bin Laden operation. During the interview, Obama said the flag presented to him by Navy SEAL Team 6 will "probably be the most important possession that I leave with from this presidency." From NBC News:As noted in NEST HQ’s Best of 2016: Who To Watch list, New Zealand’s QUIX is one of a handful of producers poised to level up in a large way in 2017. If you’re unfamiliar with his name, you’re probably not with his music, as his weighty releases on Mad Decent, NEST, Fool’s Gold, and Dim Mak have been supported by nearly every bass-playing DJ — from Skrillex and A-Trak to RL Grime and Baauer. His scratchy, hollow lead synth used across many of his most popular records has become instantly recognizable within the trap domain; an impressive feat for a producer operating in such an overloaded sector of the dance music space. Now, after months of asserting himself from across the world strictly through streaming sites, QUIX will be making his debut trek to North America this spring, notching up over a dozen dates from February to May in his inaugural tour of the United States. Ahead of the first phase of the QUIX FIX tour, we wanted to catch up with Jono about his recent rise and increasingly signature sound as well as some info about a new Boombox Cartel collaboration
's second goal against MK Dons MK Dons' relegation from the Championship was confirmed when they were comfortably beaten by Brentford. The Dons, who needed a win to keep alive faint hopes of survival in their first season in the second tier, were ahead when Nicky Maynard stabbed in. But just three minutes later Sergi Canos curled in a superb equaliser. Brentford's Lasse Vibe, Ryan Woods and Jake Bidwell struck in the second half to condemn Karl Robinson's side to League One football next year. To have any hope of staying in the division, the Dons also needed at least one of Blackburn, Nottingham Forest, Fulham, Rotherham and Bristol City not to pick up a point on Saturday. However, even when Maynard turned in a driven cross from the impressive Josh Murphy early on, they could not hold on to the lead for long. Canos was allowed too much space on the edge of the area and struck past Cody Cropper, who has yet to record a clean sheet in 12 games this season. Cropper was taken off at half-time with a shoulder injury, but replacement Charlie Burns - making only his second professional appearance - was beaten by Vibe and a superb strike from Ryan Woods. MK Dons felt aggrieved when a late penalty claim was dismissed when Maynard appeared to be tugged back by Harlee Dean in the area, but soon after Bidwell whipped in a free-kick that evaded everyone to round off proceedings. Robinson said at the start of the season that the Dons had a budget in the bottom three of the division, and, with only nine league wins, they join Charlton and Bolton in dropping to the third tier next term. Meanwhile, Dean Smith's Bees have won five of their past six Championship matches as they move up to 10th in the table. MK Dons manager Karl Robinson: "I'm sick really. If I'm being honest, we've not been good enough all year, "Some of them today have made my mind up for me for different reasons - I have learnt a lot that's for sure. "It's a difficult one for us all to take and I want to say thank you to the fans, but the most honest thing for all of us is the league table. "In terms of the football club we have to look at what we could have done differently in lots of areas of the football club. "There will be a lot of talking going on in the next seven days for obvious reasons, but certain people will not be here next season." Brentford manager Dean Smith: "I thought the result was more satisfactory than the performance - I think we can play better than that really. "But we have to credit MK Dons a little bit as well, they kept us honest defensively but I think the difference was that we scored the goals at the right times. "We came here with a game plan and wanted to back up the rest of our performances in previous weeks. "I've got a lot of respect for Karl Robinson and I think you can see the supporters here have respect for him too. He got a worthy round of applause at the end and it just shows the public here like him and they like the way his teams play." MK Dons winger Josh Murphy falls to the ground after the final whistleIn 1995, Renault built something truly mad. The Renault Espace F1 was more than just a family van with an engine swap, it was actually a one-off carbon fiber chassis fitted with a matching carbon version of the Espace’s bodywork, custom suspension work, carbon-ceramic brakes and the entire running gear from a 1993 Renault RS5 F1 car. The engine from the 1993 RS5 was a 3.5L, 40-valve naturally aspirated V10 which made around 700hp, however it was a couple of years old – so Renault thought they’d bring it back up to speed by tuning in a total of 800hp. It accelerated from 0-100km/h (62mph) in just 2.8 seconds, however it’s the almost race-car like handling which really grabs our attention. This video showcases Alain Prost putting the machine through it’s paces. Car companies were more fun back then! We’ve set the video up so it starts right from the action for you, however feel free to rewind the clip if you’d like to see an introduction to the car. See the best of Alain Prost here. Learn about Renault’s F1 legacy here.Will the Universe expand forever? The fate of the universe is determined by a struggle between the momentum of expansion and the pull of gravity. The rate of expansion is expressed by the Hubble Constant, H o, while the strength of gravity depends on the density and pressure of the matter in the universe. If the pressure of the matter is low, as is the case with most forms of matter of which we know, then the fate of the universe is governed by the density. If the density of the universe is less than the "critical density", which is proportional to the square of the Hubble constant, then the universe will expand forever. If the density of the universe is greater than the "critical density", then gravity will eventually win and the universe will collapse back on itself, the so called "Big Crunch". However, the results of the WMAP mission and observations of distant supernova have suggested that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating, which implies the existence of a form of matter with a strong negative pressure, such as the cosmological constant. This strange form of matter is also sometimes referred to as "dark energy". If dark energy in fact plays a significant role in the evolution of the universe, then in all likelihood the universe will continue to expand forever. INFINITE UNIVERSE? The density of the universe also determines its geometry. If the density of the universe exceeds the critical density, then the geometry of space is closed and positively curved like the surface of a sphere. This implies that initially parallel photon paths converge slowly, eventually cross, and return back to their starting point (if the universe lasts long enough). If the density of the universe is less than the critical density, then the geometry of space is open (infinite), and negatively curved like the surface of a saddle. If the density of the universe exactly equals the critical density, then the geometry of the universe is flat like a sheet of paper, and infinite in extent. The simplest version of the inflationary theory, an extension of the Big Bang theory, predicts that the density of the universe is very close to the critical density, and that the geometry of the universe is flat, like a sheet of paper. Measurements from WMAP The WMAP spacecraft can measure the basic parameters of the Big Bang theory including the geometry of the universe. If the universe were flat, the brightest microwave background fluctuations (or "spots") would be about one degree across. If the universe were open, the spots would be less than one degree across. If the universe were closed, the brightest spots would be greater than one degree across. Recent measurements (c. 2001) by a number of ground-based and balloon-based experiments, including MAT/TOCO, Boomerang, Maxima, and DASI, have shown that the brightest spots are about 1 degree across. Thus the universe was known to be flat to within about 15% accuracy prior to the WMAP results. WMAP has confirmed this result with very high accuracy and precision. We now know (as of 2013) that the universe is flat with only a 0.4% margin of error. This suggests that the Universe is infinite in extent; however, since the Universe has a finite age, we can only observe a finite volume of the Universe. All we can truly conclude is that the Universe is much larger than the volume we can directly observe.California lawmakers on Monday sent the governor a bill that would impose one of the strictest school vaccination laws in the country after a series of emotionally charged debates. The Senate reaffirmed the bill striking California's personal belief exemption for immunizations on a 24-14 vote. Mississippi and West Virginia are the only two states with such strict requirements in place. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown has not said if he would sign it. "The governor believes that vaccinations are profoundly important and a major public health benefit, and any bill that reaches his desk will be closely considered," governor's spokesman Evan Westrup has repeated in recent days. Democratic Sens. Richard Pan of Sacramento and Ben Allen of Santa Monica introduced the measure after an outbreak of measles at Disneyland in December infected over 100 people in the U.S. and Mexico. If the bill becomes law, medical exemptions would still be granted to children with serious health issues. Children whose parents refuse vaccination can try to obtain a medical exemption or be homeschooled. Otherwise, school-age children who currently claim a personal belief exemption will need to get fully vaccinated by kindergarten and seventh grade, the state's two vaccine checkpoints. The measure has prompted the most heated legislative debate of the year with thousands of parents taking to social media and flooding the Capitol in recent weeks to oppose the bill at legislative hearings. They and some lawmakers say that the state is eliminating informed consent and trampling on parental rights. Despite the opposition, the bill passed the Senate and the Assembly with bipartisan support, although not a two-thirds threshold that would be needed to override a veto. The Senate on Monday voted on changes made to the bill in the Assembly that make it easier to obtain medical exemptions. The amendment would allow doctors to use a family's medical history as an evaluating factor. The bill authors also agreed to establish a grandfather clause, allowing students who currently claim a personal belief exemption to maintain it until their next vaccine checkpoint. The Associated PressDiego "Quas Ruiz (R) and his teammate Christian "IWDominate" Rivera. YouTube/Rebirth Series Diego "Quas" Ruiz, 23, plays video games professionally for Team Liquid, where he specializes in League of Legends — the world's most popular competitive game. He also spends a chunk of time promoting products like Red Bull, HTC, and Alienware. Ruiz competes in the League Championship Series (LCS), the top professional league in North America, earning between $60,000 and $100,000 per year from his base salary, product sponsorships, and revenue from streaming on live-steaming video platform Twitch. When Ruiz was trying out for pro teams two years ago, he thought he knew what to expect from the lifestyle. He knew about the 60+ hours a week he'd be working, and that he'd be living in a cramped apartment with five other players. He even knew he'd have hundreds of thousands of adoring fans. There was one thing he didn't expect, however. "To be honest, I didn't expect how much sponsorship work that I would have to do," Ruiz told Business Insider. Unlike traditional sports, pro gaming is "highly dependent" on a handful of sponsors, according to Team Liquid co-owner Steve Arhancet. Pro gaming teams can't sell tickets to tournaments or earn money through broadcasting rights of their matches. In the case of League of Legends, those broadcasting rights go to Riot Games, which publishes and maintains the game. Sponsorships pay many of the bills, funding everything from housing to salaries and gaming equipment. Team Liquid's apartment in Santa Monica. Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider Sponsorship work adds up to 10 to 15 hours of extra work per week, according to Ruiz. That includes playing video games live on a brand's Twitch channel, filming promotional videos, doing special events, or having lunch or dinner with a sponsor. That might not sound like a lot. But consider that most players already practice up to 12 hours per day, six or even seven days a week. Ruiz isn't against sponsor work per se, and he described some of the experiences as "amazing." But it can have a detrimental impact on the team, he says. "The sponsors pay for everything," Ruiz said. "You have to do extra work and sometimes that cuts into your practice time and whatever else you want to do. It compromises your success … It's something you have to get used to." One recent morning in March, for example, Ruiz and the team had to travel to Red Bull's headquarters in nearby west Los Angeles to play video games live on Twitch for six hours early in the morning. The sponsorship gig left them too exhausted to practice afterward, which wasn't good since they were struggling to make the playoffs at the time. Finding a winning formula Team Liquid's League of Legends team was known as Team Curse until this past December. Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider Despite these drawbacks, sponsorships are a necessary evil. Team Liquid wouldn't be able to pay for the team's Santa Monica apartment or the nearby office space where they train if it weren't for their sponsorships. "There's a balance that you have to achieve between having enough money and providing the right resources for your players to stay competitive," Team Liquid co-owner Steve Arhancet told Business Insider. "That is funded by sponsors who support what we are doing. At the same time, winning drives sponsorships. You have to find this recipe for success," he added. "I've been trying to figure out [the recipe] for the last five years and I haven't gotten it right yet." Sponsorships haven't always been this important. Just a few years ago, players took a "part-time" attitude to the pursuit because many went to school or had a day job. Recently, though, sponsorships have furnished gaming teams with the cash to make playing video games a bona fide profession. What sponsors get in return Hundreds of spectators fill an exhibition hall to watch a round of the League of Legends championship series video game competition, Friday, Aug. 29, 2014, at the Penny Arcade Expo, a fan-centric celebration of gaming in Seattle. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren When pro-gaming was relatively niche, sponsors consisted of companies with deep roots in the gaming community, like gaming marketplace G2A. Now the industry is expanding, with last year's League of Legends World Finals netting a total viewership of 32 million people. That big audience — much of which consists of people in their 20s — has enticed big-name companies like HTC, Nissan, Coca Cola, and American Express to enter the pro-gaming space. "Outside of sports on TV, which is the only thing people watch live any more, eSports is the best way to reach Millennials," Russell Schwartz, the former president of theatrical marketing at Relativity EuropaCorp, told Fortune in 2014. "It's a live experience that people can interact with online," he added. "It's not that it's a huge business yet, but it's getting there. Television is so elusive these days, but with eSports we know it's where male gamers 14 to 35 are watching." Team sponsorship doesn't always look like traditional advertising. Team Liquid often produces videos along with their sponsors, including a "Team Liquid Reacts" series sponsored by Alienware, a tour of their house sponsored by HyperX, an unboxing video series sponsored by Lootcrate, and a documentary series on the team called Rebirth and sponsored by HTC. Team Liquid's Fenix and Xpecial in the team's December Loot Crate Unbox video. YouTube These videos feature "product placement"-style marketing, folding the names of products into the footage. The "Reacts" videos feature Team Liquid players watching League of Legends games on a prominently featured Alienware laptop. A December Lootcrate video shows players Alex "Xpecial" Chu and Kim "Fenix" JaeHoon opening Christmas presents from Lootcrate boxes. A recent episode of "Rebirth" saw Team Liquid players and Arhancet traveling up to San Francisco to try out HTC's new RE Vive virtual reality headset. Team Liquid's partnership with Red Bull features the team playing League of Legends live in the Red Bull studio and goofing off in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers online.Let’s be realistic. Alberta’s oil will not get to "tidewater" on either of Canada’s coasts, not for 10 or 20 years. Those who believe fossil fuels are part of the climate change problem are winning the political battles in Ottawa, Quebec and British Columbia. New or expanded pipeline proposals that need regulatory approvals will not get built. Environmental reviews, appeals, appeals of appeals – are now so time-consuming and so expensive as to make new pipeline construction near-impossible. The only way increased production of oil – mostly heavy or diluted bitumen oil from the oilsands – can be moved is through existing pre-approved pipelines and rail lines. There’s one realistic exception: New pipeline and new rail might be possible through friendly neighbouring jurisdictions. Canada currently exports 3.7 million barrels of oil per day (bpd). The currently transport system is keeping up, barely. Growth will still happen, slower than was predicted because of low oil prices, at an added 100,000 new barrels a day, per year, through 2030. So how do we get the stuff out of here? 1. Pipeline-ready heavy oil: Oilsand bitumen can be slightly upgraded in Alberta (much cheaper than full upgrading) so it will at least flow down pipelines without adding diluents. End result? Twenty per cent more oil could flow through the same pipes. 2. Rail, rail, and more rail: About 100,000 bpd of oil (two oil trains a day – 80 tank cars each, 700 barrels per tank car) leave the province daily. It would not be difficult, analysts say, to move up to 800,000 to 1,000,000 bpd by rail on existing tracks. The industry prefers pipelines for safety, reliability and less cost per barrel (about $8 less per barrel than rail). But, hey, if we can’t build pipelines, rail will do. And nobody can stop railroads from carrying oil on existing track. Oil could be shipped by CN from Edmonton to Prince Rupert. Just one wee problem. During the recent election now-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised no big oil tankers would be allowed to sail along the northern coasts of B.C. Who’d build a rail-to-ship transfer terminal in light of such a promise? 3. Rail to barely across the American border: The XL pipeline was vetoed by President Barack Obama because American federal government approval was needed to cross an international border. But everything else about that pipeline was approved. This scheme would see the XL pipeline (shipping oil south on one big, new pipeline to heavy-oil refineries of Texas and Louisiana) built right up to, but not across, the Canadian border. Nobody can stop Canadian oil coming into the USA by rail, then being transferred into pipeline on American soil. 4. North to Alaska! Remember the controversial Mackenzie Valley pipeline that was to carry natural gas from the Beaufort Sea, 1,200 kilometres south to Northern Alberta? By 2011, the $10 billion pipeline had been approved by governments and regulators. It wasn’t built because of low gas prices. The new idea is to build the pipeline sending Northern Alberta oil north rather than natural gas south. Our pipeline would hook into the under-utilized Alaska Pipeline that carries oil from Alaska’s North Slope 1,300 kilometres south to the Alaskan oil port of Valdez. There’s also a proposal to send our oil to Alaska by a new dedicated only-only railroad. But the cost would be sky-high and regulatory approvals needed. 5. North to Churchill, Manitoba! Alberta oil could go by existing pipelines to Manitoba, then be transferred by rail to the port of Churchill on Hudson Bay. At Churchill, winterized tanker ships would break through the ice or follow ice-breakers. This route is very problematic – the rail line would need upgrading, terminal facilities would have to be built, oil tankers built to withstand extreme winter conditions. Paradox is being piled upon paradox. All this complexity and cost is caused by the growing Canadian conviction that fossil fuels are part of the climate change problem. Yet ultra-low emission fossil fuels are part of the climate change solution!!!! Public opinion as reflected in government regulation, is forcing the oil industry to no longer build safe, quiet, reliable, cost-effective, hidden underground pipelines. New oil has to be shipped in not-as-safe, less reliable, more expensive, highly visible and noisy oil-tanker trains, only because nobody can stop those trains. Because the rest-of-Canada believes oil is bad for climate change, Alberta’s lifeblood is slowly being drained away. In a tough, low-price environment, huge new costs are being associated with exporting oil beyond our borders. It matters not that low-emission fossil fuels are part of the climate change solution, that oil sand extraction and refining is getting "greener" by the day. It matters not. Our fellow Canadians – our friends and relatives in B.C., Ontario, Quebec – are convinced our oil, their oil, is part of the problem. It is all so wrong. For all the wrong reasons, our golden goose has been killed and left to rot in the climate-change sun. It is to weep for the future of Alberta.There’s money to be made in esports, and that’s quickly catching on as high-profile athletes and others buy teams and invest in esports organizations. It’s a smart, forward-thinking strategy, but figures like Shaquille O’Neal and Rick Fox aren’t the first to dive in. Current LA Rams offensive guard Rodger Saffold co-founded his team, Rise Nation, in 2014 alongside long-time friend Khareem Horsley out of a mutual, genuine passion for competitive Call of Duty. Saffold surrounded himself with games early in life, playing classic titles like Star Fox, GoldenEye 007, and the Legend of Zelda throughout his childhood before developing something of an obsession with Call of Duty in college. His ventures into competitive gaming evolved organically from there. “It kind of found me,” Saffold told Inverse at the MLG Vegas tournament this past December. “I was getting more involved with Twitch. I was streaming content online, and I started to venture out and look at other games. Next thing you know, I was chatting about it with fans and when they asked us, ‘Why don’t you guys make your own team?’ Me and Khareem, we decided to build this from the ground up.” Rodger Saffold with Co-Manager Khareem Horsley. Things took off quickly after that. With the help of industry connections, Horsley and Saffold established a team that, within a year, would qualify for the Call of Duty championships. “With the help of some guys that work at the Rams, and just with the help from other guys who have already created teams, we were able to kind of figure it out,” Saffold continued. “In a year, we were at the CoD World Championships. I’ll never forget that first time that we walked into that tent and I saw our emblem on the stained glass. Every other time, all we did was see it on the computer, so it was just amazing to have all of that together.” Managing an esports team isn’t all glitz and glory, though. It’s also a full-time job, which can be tough when you’re playing football for a living. It’s definitely hard doing it day to day, but most of the time I’m usually more involved when it comes to the off season,” Saffold said. “Now that we have so many events in the winter and the fall, I definitely want to be a part of that, but that’s where Khareem comes in and helps me out with a bunch of that stuff. When it comes down to big decisions, of course, we always deliberate, but some of the things that are smaller, that take no time to handle, he takes care of it. It’s really good to have that.” Saffold watches Rise from the stands. Even with his busy schedule, Saffold hopes to foster the same skills necessary in physical team sports in his own Call of Duty team, despite the distinctly different mediums. “It’s all about the intangibles — the intangible skills. Leadership, mental toughness, drive, focus — all of those things go hand in hand with all team sports,” he explained. “With them, you know, they’re trying to move their thumbs as fast as humanly possible, pull the triggers, be able to see everything. With me, it’s just all about effort — physically trying to put people into the ground. That’s my MO. So it’s a little bit different in that aspect.” Saffold believes he and his team can learn a lot from each other to become better athletes. “All of the intangibles are all the same,” he continued, “so I think they feed off of me with that, and I feed off of them with that. A lot of times, I really like knowing that my teams are watching me play football games. I like to show, ‘this is how you work,’ so that you know how to do it in your own field.” At the same time, Saffold wants to keep his distance as coach and give Rise their independence. He wants to be a mentor, but he also understands that the team doesn’t need to be lectured. “We’re trying to let these guys be men. But when we do see anything that we need to pay certain attention to, we go in there and kind of nip it in the bud fast,” he said. Many of Rise Nation’s players are older veterans that pretty much have the gist of team life figured out, so problems common with younger players are a rarity. When the scarce problems do arise, Saffold is the one to put a stop to it, playing “bad cop” to Khareem’s softer side. “Sometimes it’s like, ‘Yo this is what’s going on,’ and I’ll shut that shit down,” Saffold said before laughing. “And then I’ll come in like the parent that just yelled at their kids. ‘Listen, I love y’all. Don’t make me do this again.’” Rise Nation celebrates after their big win at MLG Vegas in December. Fostering young talent is more of a blessing than anything else, though. “A couple of my players on Overwatch are barely 18, if that, so it’s good to help them grow up a little bit,” Saffold said. “They’ve never been flying out anywhere or hanging out at these events, so this is big for them.” In joining Rise, these young players are exposed to life-changing experiences they wouldn’t have had otherwise, and that’s immensely rewarding. On the outside, Saffold’s own teammates on the Rams are more curious than anything about his work in esports. Some expressed interest in buying a percentage of the team — an idea that Saffold was quick to turn down — but he is looking into ways to get his fellow Rams involved in Call of Duty esports. “There’s some people that I already have an idea to get involved that do a little streaming on their own,” Saffold said. “I won’t name them yet because we still gotta finish talks, but it’s nice to have people that know what you’re going through outside of esports to come in and know how to work with you.” While a good number of Saffold’s NFL compatriots play Call of Duty, Saffold is still working on convincing them that competitive Call of Duty takes some real talent. “A lot of them like to play Call of Duty Hardcore (a gameplay mode), which is beyond me. I don’t understand that. It’s literally like, you could accidentally press your trigger and kill somebody. There’s no skill at all. And they’re just like, ‘Ah, man. You need so much skill to play Hardcore.’ And I’m just like, ‘Ahh, see. Y’all honestly suck,’” he said with a grin. “They know it, they’ve played, and they don’t know how much skill goes into it until they’ve played really good people. They’re starting to understand that.” INVERSE LOOT DEALS Meet the Pod The first bed that learns the perfect temperature for your sleep, and dynamically warms or cools according to your needs. Buy Now Saffold on the field At the same time, other teammates lack any understanding of what he does, period. “They’re just like, ‘You playing a game, bro? You play for them?’ I’m like, ‘No! I don’t. I don’t play. I own them,’” Saffold said with a good-hearted laugh. “That sounds terrible, but, you know, they always think that I’m playing and I’m just like, ‘Dude. There’s no way that I have time to work as much as I do playing football and then come home and play.’ They play 12 to 16 hours a day. It’s nuts.” Apart from teaching his teammates about esports, Saffold hopes to interact more with his new community in Los Angeles. Afterall, he got his start in the Call of Duty World League with encouragement from fans. “I’m trying to actually get things started to where the new Call of Duty comes out that I get to play with fans and bring people that are around the area to come down to get those things started,” Saffold said. “But, you know, we’re in a new city so we have to start from scratch all over again. I used to do the same thing in St. Louis.” Getting in touch with fans is integral to building up the league itself. “This league is really led by the fans. You look at the NFL — there’s so many people watching already. It doesn’t even matter. People wanna support their city. Fans from back in the day want to come in and support their old towns in different cities, so it’s — that’s already taken care of itself,” Saffold explained, drawing the connection to football. “For esports, it’s growing, and most of it’s growing online, so once we start hitting the mainstream, it’s gonna have to be some educational things that go on to try to help this thing get bigger and better every year. But we’re on our way.” Seeing esports’ massive expansion over the past few years, it’s easy to grow impatient waiting to see when these games will break into the mainstream. But sports won’t become a household name overnight, and Saffold is well aware of that. ESPN has been making a serious push for esports. “It’s gonna take time. I mean, the NFL wasn’t the super power that it was all in one fell swoop. It wasn’t even the NFL,” Saffold noted. “It was split up between two different organizations, and then it adapted and changed, and over time they finally figured it out. With the E-League, with, like, as you said, seeing StarCraft, seeing World of Warcraft, League of Legends on ESPN, it’s gradually getting to where people want it to go, but people have been watching baseball since the 1900s and football since the ‘20s. It’s the same with esports. It’s gotta run its course first.” If you ask Saffold, the broader world of esports has a bright future ahead of it. Exciting things are underway. When asked about the future of the industry, he joked, “If I told you I’d have to kill ya,” before continuing in all seriousness, “But literally — I’ve seen it a million times. Something’s got to be going right if you’ve got so many influential people getting involved at once. I mean, there was a surge when Rick Fox decided to jump into esports. There was a surge. There were so many people that just started investing, period.” The rise in esports investment was no accident, either, according to Saffold. “As soon as [Fox] decided to catch on, it just spread like wildfire, which means they know something,” he explained. “The trend is definitely going up, and if you’ve got so much money backing it like that, it only has one place to go, and that’s up.” Saffold’s excited for the coming year for Rise Nation, especially after his Call of Duty team won the MLG Vegas tournament with a solid performance. But he’s also looking forward to developments in the Call of Duty World League and esports in general. “I think Call of Duty is seriously just inching towards being those top guys. Which, you know, people love those PC games,” he quipped. “I saw the StarCraft World Championships from 2006 in South Korea — 100,000 people watching one screen. What? Like what? Like, what does it look like now?” Indeed, trying to imagine the exponential rise of esports within just a decade is hard to even fathom. Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok is largely considered the best 'League of Legends' player in the world. “You just see this little kid — he’s got glasses on, just smiling all the time and he’s like a superstar,” Saffold said, citing some of the top Korean players in StarCraft and League of Legends who’ve become formidable, world-class players. Saffold wears his pride and passion for all things esports freely, as evidenced by his presence at live events and the Rise Nation decor plastered across his social media accounts. His anticipation for esports’ growth matched the overall feel of MLG Vegas. “I’m just excited for what’s next to come, man. I’m telling you. Watch, it’s gonna take some time, but eventually there’s gonna be like an esports channel that you can get on TV, like a package,” he predicted. “It will be awesome.”State Assemblyman George Amedore on Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012 in Colonie, NY. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) State Assemblyman George Amedore on Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012 in Colonie, NY. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) Photo: Paul Buckowski Photo: Paul Buckowski Image 1 of / 102 Caption Close Results of Senate vote await deadline 1 / 102 Back to Gallery The outcome of the nail-biter in the new 46th Senate District won't be known for at least two weeks because the deadline to receive absentee ballots doesn't hit until Nov. 19. But some boards of elections could start counting as early as Friday, as they had already scheduled to begin absentee ballot counting on that date. When all machine votes were counted Tuesday, Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk led Republican George Amedore by 139 votes. But the outcome will be decided by the absentee ballots. So far, 8,571 absentee ballots have been received by boards of elections in Montgomery, Schenectady, Albany, Greene and Ulster counties, said state Board of Elections spokesman John Conklin. Tkacyzk's camp says there are 226 more absentee ballots from enrolled Democrats than Republicans. The number will change daily as more absentees trickle in. The state Senate GOP carved out the new district for Amedore, an assemblyman who represents two counties in the new Senate district. But Tkaczyk, a former legislative aide to Senate Democrats who is vice president of the Duanesburg school board, put on a hard push in the last weeks, getting a $500,000 cash infusion from Democratic super PACs. The political action committees targeted certain state races. Amedore was slightly ahead for much of Tuesday night. But Ulster County results showed Tkaczyk had crushed Amedore there by 8,199 votes. Tkaczyk also took Albany County. Amedore won Montgomery, Schenectady and Greene counties. On Wednesday morning, Amedore's campaign filed a show-cause order in state Supreme Court in Montgomery County that calls for ballots to be secured before they are counted — a standard move made in close races. Conklin said the ballots most likely will be secured in their home counties. Conklin also said the counties could start counting on the day each originally scheduled for absentee tallies. In Schenectady, it's Friday. In Greene and Montgomery counties, it's Tuesday, and for Albany and Ulster, Wednesday. But they the boards cannot certify the vote until after Nov. 19. However, since Amedore has already filed an order in court, a judge could determine what the counting schedule will be. Amedore spokesman Kris Thompson said they believe the absentee ballots will shake out in favor of the GOP. "Our campaign team implemented an ambitious absentee program in the early stages of this race," Thompson said in a statement. "We firmly believe that once all the votes have been verified and counted, George Amedore will be the senator." Meanwhile, attorneys from the state Democratic conference were also huddling to see what their next move should be. "We're confident her victory will be confirmed and solidified," Tkaczyk spokesman Gary Ginsburg said. The state extended the deadline for absentee ballots by one week in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. Voters could also file affidavit ballots if they were displaced from their usual polling locations as a result of the storm. But those ballots will not count in the 46th race, because those affected by the storm could only vote in national and statewide elections. Confusion Tuesday at polling sites at the University at Albany might also have an impact on the 46th race. Albany County elections officials were sorting through piles of affidavit — or paper — ballots cast when hundreds of students arrived at the polls to find that their names were not in the poll books. Democratic Elections Commissioner Matthew Clyne and Republican Rachel Bledi said it's not clear how many paper ballots, which are not counted in the voting machines on election night, are from the one election district on the campus that is in Guilderland and is part of the 46th. Those votes would count because they are based on registration disputes, not the Superstorm Sandy displacements. Based on the machine count in that district, any valid affidavits could break in Tkaczyk's favor. Tkaczyk beat Amedore 310 to 59 there among regular voters. Staff writer Jordan Carleo-Evangelist contributed.Disgruntled Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Asante Samuel could find himself playing for a new team next season. Davis: Mock Draft 3.0 With the first three picks presumably set, Charles Davis says the With the first three picks presumably set,says the Browns can really shape next month's NFL draft. More... The team will try to trade Samuel before the NFL Draft begins on April 26, according to a Sunday report in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Samuel, 31, is set to make $8.4 million in base salary next season with a salary cap hit of $9.5 million as part of the contract he signed with the Eagles in 2008. The Eagles' desire to trade Samuel is nothing new. General manager Howie Roseman said in February that the team will listen to teams interested in a Samuel deal, and the team admitted it tried to deal the cornerback last offseason. Samuel was upset when the team acquired two high-profile cornerbacks last offseason, signing free-agent Nnamdi Asomugha and trading for Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. If he is traded, it won't be a surprise to the four-time Pro Bowl selection. Samuel asked his Twitter followers last month where they'd like
(in r0) @ \param den Denominator (in r1) @ \return r0= r0/r1, or INT_MAX/INT_MIN if r1 == 0 DivSafe: cmp r1, # 0 beq.Ldiv_bad @ Branch on r1 == 0 swi 0x060000 bx lr.Ldiv_bad: mvn r1, # 0x80000000 @ \ sub r0, r1, r0, asr # 31 @ - r0= r0>=0? INT_MAX : INT_MIN; bx lr The numerator and denominator will be in registers r0 and r1, respectively. The cmp checks whether the denominator is zero. If it's not, no branch is taken, the swi 6 is executed and the function returns afterwards. If it is zero, the beq will take the code to.Ldiv_bad. The two instructions there set r0 to either INT_MAX (231−1 = 0x7FFFFFFF) or INT_MIN (−231 = 0x80000000), depending on whether r0 is positive or negative. If it's a little hard to see that, mvn inverts bits, so the first line after.Ldiv_bad sets r0 to INT_MAX. The second line we've seen before: ‘ r0, asr #31 ’ does a sign-extension in to all other bits, giving 0 or −1 for positive and negative numbers, respectively, giving INT_MAX− −1 = INT_MIN for negative values of r0. Little optimizing tricks like these decide if you're fit to be an assembly programmer; if not you could just as well let the compiler do them, because it does know. (It's where I got the ‘ asr #31 ’ thing from in the first place.) Now in this case I used a branch, but in truth, it wasn't even necessary. The non-branch part consists of one instruction, and the branched part of two, so using conditional instructions throughout would have been both shorter and faster: @ Second version using conditionally executed code DivSafe: cmp r1, # 0 mvneq r1, # 0x80000000 subeq r0, r1, r0, asr # 31 swine 0x060000 bx lr If the denominator is not zero, the mvneq and subeq are essentially skipped. Actually, not so much skipped, but turned into nop : non-operations. So is swine (i.e., swi + ne, no piggies here) if it is zero. True, the division line has increased by a cycle, not taking the branch makes the exception line a little faster and the function itself has shrunk from 7 to 5 instructions. Symbol vs internal labels In the first DivSafe snippet, the internal branch destination used a.L prefix, while the function label did not. The.L prefix is used by GCC to indicate labels for the sake of labels, as opposed to symbol labels like DivSafe. While not required, it's a useful convention. Major and minor branches Any sort of branch will create a fork in the road and, depending on the conditions, one road will be taken more often. That would be the major branch. The other one would be the minor branch, probably some sort of exception. The branch instruction, b, represents a deviation from the normal road and is relatively costly, therefore it pays to have to branch to the exceptions. Consider these possibilities: // Basic if statement in C if (r0 == 0 ) { /* IF clause / }... @ === asm-if v1 : 'bus stop' branch === cmp r0, # 0 beq.Lif.Lrest:... bx lr @ function ends.Lif @ IF clause b.Lrest @ === asm-if v2 :'skip' branch === cmp r0, # 0 bne.Lrest @ IF clause.Lrest:... bx lr @ function ends The first version is more like the C version: it splits off for the IF-clause and the returns to the rest of the code. The flow branches twice if the conditions are met, but if they aren't the rest of the code doesn't branch at all. The second version branches if the conditions aren't met: it skips the IF-clause. Overall, the assembly code is simpler and shorter, but the fact that the branch-conditions are inverted with respect to the C version could take some getting used to. So which to use? Well, that depends actually. All things being equal, the second one is better because it's one instruction and label shorter. As far as I know, this is what GCC uses. The problem is that some things may be more equal than others. If the IF-clause is exceptional (i.e., the minor branch), it'd mean that the second version almost always takes the branch, while the first version would hardly ever branch, so on average the latter would be faster. Which one you chose is entirely up to you as you know your intentions best. I hope. For the remainder of this chapter I'll use the skip-branch because in demonstrations things usually are equal. Of course, if the clause is small enough you can just use conditional instructions and be done with it :). Common branching constructs Even though all you have now is b, it doesn't mean you can't implement branching construct found in HLLs in assembly. After all, the compiler seems to manage. Here's a couple of them. if-elseif The if-elseif is an extension of the normal if-else, and from it you can extend to longer if-elseif-else chains. In this case I want to look at a wrapping algorithm for keeping numbers within certain boundaries: the number x should stay within range [mn, mx〉, if it exceeds either boundary it should come out the other end. In C it looks like this: // wrap(int x, int mn, int mx), C version: int res; if (x >= mx) res= mn + x-mx; else if (x < mn) res= mx + x-mn; else res= x; The straightforward compilation would be: @ r0= x ; r1= mn ; r2= mx cmp r0, r2 blt.Lx_lt_mx @ if( x >= mx ) add r3, r0, r1 @ r0= mn + x-mx sub r0, r3, r2 b.Lend.Lx_lt_mx: cmp r0, r1 @ bge.Lend @ if( x < mn ) add r3, r0, r2 @ r0= mx + x-mn; sub r0, r3, r1.Lend:... This is what GCC gives, and it's pretty good. The ordering of the clauses remained, which means that the condition for the branches have to be inverted, so ‘ if(x >= mx) {} ’ becomes ‘skip if NOT x >= mx’. At the end of each clause, you'd need to skip all the others: branch to.Lend. The conditional branches mean ‘go to the next branch’. And now an optimized version. First, a cmp is equivalent to sub except that it doesn't put the result in a register. However, as we need the result later on anyway, we might as well combine the ‘ cmp ’ and ‘ sub ’. Secondly, the clauses are pretty small, so we can use conditional ops as well. The new version would be: @ Optimized wrapper subs r3, r0, r2 @ r3= x-mx addge r0, r3, r1 @ x= x-mx + mn bge.Lend subs r3, r0, r1 @ r3= x-mn addlt r0, r3, r2 @ r0= x-mn + mx;.Lend:... Cleans up nicely, wouldn't you say? Less branches, less code and it matches the C code more closely. We can even get rid of the last branch too because we can execute the subs conditionally as well. Because ge and lt are each others complements there won't be any interference. So the final version is: @ Optimized wrapper, version 2 subs r3, r0, r2 @ r3= x-mx addge r0, r3, r1 @ x= x-mx + mn sublts r3, r0, r1 @ r3= x-mn addlt r0, r3, r2 @ r0= x-mn + mx;... Of course, it isn't always possible to optimize to such an extent. However, if the clauses have small bodies conditional instructions may become attractive. Also, converting a compare to some form of data operation that you'd need later anyway is common and recommended. Compound logical expressions Higher languages often allow you to string multiple conditions together using logical AND ( && ) and logical OR ( \|\| ). What the books often won't say is that these are merely shorthand notations of a chain of if s. Here's what actually happens. // === if(x && y) { / clause / } === if (x) { if (y) { / clause / } } // === if(x \|\| y) { / clause / } === if (x) { / clause / } else if (y) { / clause / } The later terms in the AND are only evaluated if earlier expressions were true. If not, they're simply skipped. Much fun can be had if the second term happens to be a function with side effects. A logical OR is basically an if-else chain with identical clauses; this is just for show of course, in the final version there's one clause which is branched to. In assembly, these would look something like this. @ if(r0!= 0 && r1!= 0) { / clause / } cmp r0, #0 beq.Lrest cmp r1, #0 beq.Lrest @ clause.Lrest:... @ Alternative cmp r0, #0 cmpne r1, #0 beq.Lrest @ clause.Lrest:... @ if( r0!= 0 \|\| r1!= 0 ){ / clause / } cmp r0, #0 bne.Ltrue cmp r1, #0 beq.Lrest.Ltrue: @ clause.Lrest:... As always, alternative solutions will present themselves for your specific situation. Also note that you can transform ANDs into ORs using De Morgan's Laws. Loops One of the most important reasons to use assembly is speeding up oft-used code, which will probably involve loops because that's where most of the time will be spent. If you can remove one instruction in a non-loop situation, you'll have won one cycle. If you remove one from a loop, you'll have gained one for every iteration of the loop. For example, saving a cycle in a clear-screen function would save 240160 = 19200 cycles – more, actually, because of memory wait-states. That one cycle can mean the difference between smooth and choppy animation. In short, optimization is pretty much all about loops, especially inner loops. Interestingly, this is where GCC often misses the mark, because it adds more stuff than necessary. For example, in older versions (DKA and DKP r12, something like that) it often kept constructed memory addresses (VRAM, etc) inside the loop. Unfortunately, DKP r19 also has major issues with struct copies and ldm/stm pairs, which are now only give a small benefit over other methods. Now, before you blame GCC for slow loops, it's also often the C programmer that forces GCC to produce slow code. In the introduction, you could see the major difference that inlining makes, and in the profiling demo I showed how much difference using the wrong datatype makes. Anyway, loops in assembly. Making a loop is the easiest thing in the world: just branch to a previous label. The differences between for, do-while and while loops are a matter of where you increment and test. In C, you usually use a for-loop with an incrementing index. In assembly, it's customary to use a while-loop with a decrementing index. Here are two examples of a word-copy loop that should show you why. @ Asm equivalents of copying 16 words. @ u32 dst=..., src=..., ii // r0, r1, r2 @ --- Incrementing for-loop --- @ for(ii=0; ii<16; ii++) @ dst[ii]= src[ii]; mov r2, # 0.LabelF: ldr r3, [r1, r2, lsl # 2 ] str r3, [r0, r2, lsl # 2 ] add r2, r2, # 1 cmp r2, r2, # 16 blt.LabelF @ --- Decrementing while-loop --- @ ii= 16; @ while(ii--) @ dst++ = src++; mov r2, # 16.LabelW: ldr r3, [r1], # 4 str r3, [r0], # 4 subs r2, r2, # 1 bne.LabelW In an incrementing for-loop you need to increment and then compare against the limit. In the decrementing while loop you subtract and test for zero. Because the zero-test is already part of every instruction, you don't need to compare separately. True, it's not much faster, maybe 10% or so, but many 10 percents here and there do add up. There are actually many versions of this kind of loop, here's another one using block-transfers. The benefit of those is that they also work in THUMB: @ Yet another version, using ldm/stm add r2, r0, # 16.LabelW: ldmia r1!, {r3} stmia r0!, {r3} cmp r2, r0 bne.LabelW This is one of those occasions where knowing assembly can help you write efficient C. Using a decrementing counter and pointer arithmetic will usually be a little faster, but usually GCC willl do this for you anyway. Another point is using the right datatype. And with ‘right’ I mean int, of course. Non-ints require implicit casts ( lsl / lsr pairs) after every arithmetic operation. That's two instructions after every plus, minus or whatever. While GCC has become quite proficient in converting non-ints into ints where possible, this has not always been the case, and it may not always be possible. I've seen the loops above cost between 600% more because the index and pointer were u16, I shit you not. When dealing with loops, be extremely careful with how you start and stop the loop. It's very easy to come up with a loop that runs once too often or too little. I'm pretty sure these two versions are correct. The way I usually check it is to see how it runs when the count should be 1 or 2. If that works out, larger numbers will too. Merge comparisons with data instructions The Z status flag revolves around the number zero, so if you use 0 to compare to you can often combine the comparison with the data instruction that sets the flags. This is also true for testing individual bits. The N and C flags are effectively bits 31 and 32, respectively. If you can manipulate the algorithm to use those, you don't need a cmp or tst. “No, there is another” You probably know this already, but this is a good time to repeat the warning: watch out for off-by-one errors (also known as obi-wan errors). It is just way too easy to do one iteration too few or too many, so always check whether the code you have does the right thing. Goes for other programming languages too, of course. Function calls Function calls use a special kind of branching instruction, namely bl. It works exactly like the normal branch, except that it saves the address after the bl in the link register ( r14 or lr ) so that you know where to return to after the called function is finished. In principle, you can return with to the function using ‘ mov pc, lr ’, which points the program counter back to the calling function, but in practice you might be better off with bx (Branch and eXchange). The difference is that bx can also switch between ARM and THUMB states, which isn't possible with the mov return. Unlike b and bl, bx takes a register as its argument, instead of a label. This register will usually be lr, but the others are allowed as well. There's also the matter of passing parameters to the function and returning values from it. In principle you're free to use any system you like, it is recommended to ARM's own ARM Architecture Procedure Call Standard (AAPCS) for this. For the majority of the work this can be summarized like this. The first 4 arguments go into r0-r3. Later ones go on the stack, in order of appearance. The return value goes into r0. The scratch registers r0-r3 (and r12) are free to use without restriction in a function. As such, after calling a function they should be considered ‘dirty’. a function they should be considered ‘dirty’. The other registers must leave a function with the same values as they came in. Push them on the stack before use, and pop them when leaving the function. Note that another bl sets lr, so stack that one too in that case. Below is a real-world example of function calling, complete with parameter passing, stackwork and returning from the call. The function oamcpy() copies OBJ_ATTRs. The function uses the same argument order as memcpy(), and these need to be set by the calling function; before and after the call, lr is pushed and popped. These two things are part of what's called the function overhead, which can be disastrous for small functions, as we've already seen. Inside oamcpy() we either jump back immediately if the count was 0, or proceed with the copies and then return. Note that r4 is stacked here, because that's what the caller expects; if I hadn't and the caller used r4 as well, I'd be screwed and rightly so. I should probably point out that r12 is usually considered a scratch register as well, which I could have used here instead of r4, removing the need for stacking. @ Function calling example: oamcpy @ void oamcpy(OBJ_ATTR dst, const OBJ_ATTR src, u32 nn); @ Parameters: r0= dst; r1= src; r2= nn;. align 2 oamcpy: cmp r2, # 0 bxeq lr @ Nothing to do: return early push {r4} @ Put r4 on stack.Lcpyloop: ldmia r1!, {r3, r4} stmia r0!, {r3, r4} subs r2, # 1 bne.Lcpyloop pop {r4} @ Restore r4 to its original value bx lr @ Return to calling function @ Using oamcpy. @ Set arguments mov r0, # 0x07000000 ldr r1,=obj_buffer mov r2, # 128 push {lr} @ Save lr bl oamcpy @ Call oamcpy (clobbers lr; assumes clobbering of r0-r3,r12) pop {lr} @ Restore lr Use bx instead of mov pc,lr The bx instruction is what makes interworking between ARM and THUMB function possible. Interworking is good. Therefore, bx is good. This concludes the primary section on ARM assembly. There are more things like different processor states, and data-swap ( swp ) and co-processor instructions, but those are rare. If you need more information, look them up in the proper reference guides. The next two subsections cover instruction speeds and what an instruction actually looks like in binary, i.e., what the processor actually processes. Neither section is necessary in the strictest sense, but still informative. If you do not want to be informed, move on to the next section: the THUMB instruction set. Cycle counting Since the whole reason for coding in asm is speed (well, that and space efficiency), it is important to know how fast each instruction is so that you can decide on which one to use where. The term ‘cycle’ actually has two different meanings: there is the clock cycle, which measures the amount of clock ticks, and there's functional cycle (for lack of a better word), which indicates the number of stages in an instruction. In an ideal world these two would be equal. However, this is the real world, where we have to deal with waitstates and buswidths, which make functional cycles cost multiple clock cycles. A wait(state) is the added cost for accessing memory; memory might just not be as fast as the CPU itself. Memory also as a fixed buswidths, indicating the maximum number of bits that can be sent in one cycle: if the data you want to transfer is larger than the memory bus can handle, it has to be cut up into smaller sections and put through, costing additional cycles. For example, ROM has a 16bit bus which is fine for transferring bytes or halfwords, but words are transferred as two halfwords, costing two functional cycles instead of just one. If you hadn't guessed already, this is why THUMB code is recommended for ROM/EWRAM code. There are three types of functional cycles: the non-sequential (N), the sequential (S) and the internal (I) cycle. There is a fourth, the coprocessor cycle (C), but as the GBA doesn't have a coprocessor I'm leaving that one out. Anyway, the N- and S-cycles have to do with memory fetches: if the transfer of the current (functional) cycle is not related to the previous cycle, it is non-sequential; otherwise, it's sequential. Most instructions will be sequential (from the instruction fetch), but branches and loads/stores can have non-sequentials as they have to look up another address. Both sequential and non-sequential cycles are affected by section waitstates. The internal cycles is one where the CPU is already doing something else so that even though it's clear what the next action should be, it'll just have to wait. I-cycles do not suffer from waitstates. Table 23.7: Cycle times for the most important instructions. Instruction Cycles Data 1S ldr(type) 1N + 1N d + 1I str(type) 1N + 1N d ldm {n} 1N + 1N d + (n-1)S d + 1I stm {n} 1N + 1N d + (n-1)S d b/bl/bx/swi 2S + 1N THUMB bl 3S + 1N mul 1S + mI mla/mull 1S + (m+1)I mlal 1S + (m+2)I Table 23.8: Section default timing details. See also GBATek memory map. Section Bus Wait (N/S) Access 8/16/32 BIOS 32 0/0 1/1/1 EWRAM 16 2/2 3/3/6 IWRAM 32 0/0 1/1/1 IO 32 0/0 1/1/1 PAL 16 0/0 1/1/2 VRAM 16 0/0 1/1/2 OAM 32 0/0 1/1/1 ROM 16 4/2 5/5/8 Table 23.7 shows how much the instructions cost in terms of N/S/I cycles. How one can arrive to these cycle times is explained below. Table 23.8 lists the buswidths, the waitstates and the access times in clock cycles for each section. Note that these are the default wait states, which can be altered in REG_WAITCNT. The data presented here is just an overview of the most important items, for all the gory details you should look them up in GBATek or the official documents. The cost of an instruction begins with fetching it from memory, which is a 1S operation. For most instructions, it ends there as well. Memory instructions also have to get data from memory, which will cost 1N d ; I've added a subscript d here because this is an access to the section where the data is kept, whereas other waitstates are taken from the section where the code resides. This is an important distinction. Also, because the address of the next instruction won't be related to the current address, its timing will begin as a 1N instead of a 1S. This difference is encompassed in the transfer timing. Note however that most documentation list ldr as 1S+1N+1I, but this is false! If you actually test it, you'll see that it is really 1N+1N d +1I. Block transfer behave like normal transfers, except that all accesses after the first are S d -cycles. Branches need an extra 1N+1S for jumping to the new address and fetching the resetting the pipeline (I think). Anything that changes pc can be considered a branch. The THUMB bl is actually two instructions (or, rather, one instruction and an address), which is why that has an additional 1S. Register-shifted operations add 1I to the base cost because the value has to be read from the register before it can be applied. Multiplies are 1S operations, plus 1I for every significant byte of the second operand. Yes, this does mean that the cost is asymmetric in the operands. If you can estimate the ranges of values for the operands, try to put the lower one in the second operand. Another 1I is required for the add of mla, and one more for long multiplications. There is no 1S in loads! Official documentation gives 1S+1N d +1I as the timing of ldr, but this is not entirely accurate. It is actually 1N+1N d +1I. The difference is small and only visible for ROM instructions, but could be annoying if you're wondering why what you predicted and what you measured for your routine doesn't match exactly. This applies to ldm and perhaps swp too. See forum:9602 for a little more on the subject. 23.3.6. Anatomy of an addition As an example of how instructions are actually formatted, I invite you to an in-depth look at the add instruction. This will be the absolute rock bottom in terms of GBA programming, the lowest level of them all. Understanding this will go a long way in understanding the hows and whys (and why-nots!) of ARM assembly. Before I show the bits, I should point out that add (and in fact all data instructions) come in three forms, depending on the second operand. This can be an immediate field (numeric value), an immediate-shifted register or a register-shifted register. Bits 4 and 19h indicate the type of add, the lower 12 bits describe the second operand; the rest are the same for all add forms. Table 23.3.6.: The add instruction(s) 1F - 1C 1B 1A 19 18 - 15 14 13 - 10 F - C B - 8 7 6 5 4 3 - 0 add Rd, Rn, # cnd TA IF TB S Rn Rd IR IN add Rd, Rn, Rm Op # IS ST SF Rm add Rd, Rn, Rm Op Rs Rs 0 Top 20 bits for add ; denote instruction type, status/conditional flags and destination and first operand registers. bits name description C-F Rd Destination register. 10-13 Rn First operand register. 14 S Set Status bits (the -s affix). 15-18 TB Instruction-type field. Must be 4 for add. 19 IF Immediate flag. The second operand is an immediate value if set, and a (shifted) register if clear. 1A-1C TA Another instruction-type field. Is zero for all data instructions. 1D-1F cnd Condition field. Lower 12 bits for add ; these form the second operand. bits name description 0-7 IN Immediate Number field. The second operand is IN ror 2IR. 8-B IR Immediate Rotate field. This denotes the rotate-right amount applied to IN. 0-3 Rm Second operand register. 4 SF Shift-operand flag. If set, the shift is the immediate value in IS; if clear, the shift comes from register Rs. 5-6 ST Shift type. 0: lsl, 1: lsr 2: asr, 3: ror 7-B IS Immediate Shift value. Second operand is Rm Op IS. 8-B Rs Shift Register. Second operand is Rm Op Rs. These kinds of tables should feel familiar: yes, I've also used them for IO-registers throughout Tonc. The fact of the matter is that the instructions are coded in a very similar way. In this case, you have a 32bit value, with different bitfields describing the type of instruction ( TA =0 and TB =4 indicate is an add instruction), the registers to use ( Rd, Rd and maybe Rm and Rs too) and a few others. We have seen this thing a number of times by now, so there should be no real difficulty in understanding here. The assembly instructions are little more than the BUILD macros I've used a couple of times, only this time it's the assembler that turn them into raw numbers instead of the preprocessor. Having said that, it is possible to construct the instructions manually, even at run-time, but whether you really want to do such a thing is another matter. Now, the top 20 bits indicate the kind of instruction it is and which registers it uses. The bottom 12 are for Op2. If this involves a shifted register the bottom 4 bits indicate Rm. Bits 5 and 6 describe the type of shift-operation (shift-left, shift-right or rotate-right) and depending on bit 4, bits 7 to 11 form either the register to shift by ( Rs ) or a shift-value (5 bits for 0 to 31). And then there's the immediate operand … Sigh. Yes, here are the mere twelve bits you can use for an immediate operand, divided into a 4bit rotate part and 8bit immediate part. The allowable immediate values are given by IN ror 2IR. This seems like a small range, but interestingly enough you can get quite far with just these. It does mean that you can never load variable addresses into a register in one go; you have to get the address first with a PC-relative load and then load its value. @ Forming 511(0x1FF) mov r0, #511 @ Illegal instruction! D: mov r0, # 256 @ 256= 1 ror 24, so still valid add r0, # 255 @ 256+255 = 511 @ Load 511 from memory with ldr ldr r0,.L0 @ Load 511 from memory with special ldr @ NOTE: no '#'! ldr r0,= 511.L0:. word 511 Anyway, the bit patterns of table 23.9 is what the processor actually sees when you use an add instruction. You can see what the other instructions look like in the references I gave earlier, especially the quick references. The orthogonality of the whole instruction set shows itself in very similar formatting of a given class of instructions. For example, the data instructions only differ by the TB field: 4 for add, 2 for sub, et cetera. 23.4. THUMB assembly The THUMB instruction set is a subset of the full list of ARM instructions. The defining feature of THUMB instructions is that they're only 16 bits long. As a result a function in THUMB can be much shorter than in ARM, which can be beneficial if you don't have a lot of room to work with. Another point is that 16bit instructions will pass through a 16bit databus in one go and be executed immediately, whereas execution of 32bit instructions would have to wait for the second chunk to be fetched, effectively halving the instruction speed. Remember that ROM and EWEAM, the two main areas for code have 16bit buses, which is why THUMB instructions are advised for GBA programming. There are downsides, of course; you can't just cut the size of an instruction in half and expect to get away with it. Even though THUMB code uses many of the same mnemonics as ARM, functionality has been severely reduced. For example, the only instruction that can be conditional is the branch, b ; instructions can no longer make use of shifts and rotates (these are separate instructions now), and most instructions can only use the lower 8 registers ( r0-r7 ); the higher ones are still available, but you have to move things to the lower ones because you can use them. In short, writing efficient THUMB code is much more challenging. It's not exactly bondage-and-disciple programming, but if you're used to the full ARM set you might be in for a surprise now and then. THUMB uses most of ARM's mnemonics, but a lot of them are restricted in some way so learning how to code in THUMB basically comes down to what you can't do anymore. With that in mind, this section will cover the differences between ARM and THUMB, rather than the THUMB set itself. Removed instructions. A few instructions have been cut altogether. Of the various multiplication instructions only mul remains, reverse subtractions ( rsb, rsc ) are gone, as are the swapping and coprocessor instructions, but those are rare anyway. ‘New’ instructions. The mnemonics are new, but really, they're just special cases of conventional ARM instructions. THUMB has separate shift/rotate opcodes: lsl, lsr, asr and ror codes, which are functionally equivalent to ‘ mov Rd, Rm, Op2 ’. There is also a ‘ neg Rd,Rm ’ for Rd = 0− Rm, essentially an rsb. And I suppose you could call push and pop new, as they don't appear as ARM opcodes in some devkits. No conditionals. Except on branch. Hello, gratuitous labelling :\. The Set Status flag is always on. So in THUMB sub will always work as a subs, etc. No barrel shifter. Well, it still exist, of course; you just can't use it in conjunction with the instructions anymore. This is why there are separate bitshift/-rotate opcodes. Restricted register availability. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the instructions can only use r0-r7. The exceptions here are add, mov and cmp, which can at times use high-regs as operands. This restriction also applies to memory operations, with small exceptions: ldr/str can still use PC-or SP-relative stuff; push allows lr in its register list and pop allows pc. With these, you could return from functions quickly, but you should use bx for that anyway. Fortunately, bx also allows use of every register so you can still do ‘ bx lr ’. Little to no immediate or second operand support. In ARM-code, most instructions allowed for a second operand Op2, which was either an immediate value or a (shifted) register. Most THUMB data instructions are of the form ‘ ins Rd, Rm ’ and correspond to the C assignment operators like += and \|=. Note that Rm is a register, not an immediate. The only instructions that break this pattern are the shift-codes, add, sub, mov and cmp, which can have both immediate values and second operands. See the reference docs for more details. No write-back in memory instructions. That means you will have to use at least one extra register and extra instructions when traversing arrays. There is one exception to this, namely block-transfers. The only surviving versions are ldmia and stmia, and in both versions the write-back is actually required. Memory operations are tricky. Well, they are! ARM memory opcodes were identical in what they could do, but here you have to be on your toes. Some features are completely gone (write-back and shifted register offsets), and the others aren't always available to all types. Register-offset addressing is always available, but immediate offsets do not work for the signed loads ( ldrsh, ldrsb ). Remember that the registers can only be r0-r7, except for ldr/str : there you can also use PC and SP-relative stuff (with immediate offsets). Table 23.10 gives an overview. Table 23.10. THUMB addressing mode availability. [Rn,Rm] [Rn,#] [pc/sp,#] ldr/str + + + ldrh/strh + + - ldrb/strb + + - ldrsh/ldrsb + - - Actually, ‘ ldrh Rd,=X ’ also seem to work, but these are actually converted into ‘ ldr Rd,=X ’ internally. Is that it? Well no, but it's enough. Remember, THUMB is essentially ARM Lite: it looks similar, but it has lost a lot of substance. I'd suggest learning THUMB code in that way too: start with ARM then learn what you can't do anymore. This list gives most of the things you need to know; for the rest, just read at the assembler messages you will get from time to time and learn from the experience. 23.5. GAS: the GNU assembler The instructions are only part of functional assembly, you also need directives to tie code together, control sections and alignment, create data, etc. Somewhat fittingly, directives seem to be as unportable as assembly itself: directives for one assembler might not work under others. This section covers the main directives of the GNU assembler, GAS. Since we're already working with the GNU toolchain, the choice for this assembler is rather obvious. GAS is already part of the normal build sequence, so there is no real loss of functionality, and you can work together with C files just as easily as with other assembly; it's all the same to GCC. Another nice feature is that you can use the preprocessor so if you have header files with just preprocessor stuff (#include and #define only), you can use those here
by Gulen’s supporters to undermine his government and the investigation was later dropped. Cavusoglu said the two legal cases were “exactly the same”, and showed the extent to which Gulen had infiltrated American state institutions, including its judiciary. “Needless to say, those claims are ridiculous,” acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said last week. The case has been handled by career prosecutors concerned only with U.S. law, not Turkish politics, Kim said, adding: “They’re not Gulenists.” Gulen denies involvement in the failed 2016 coup or any other attempts to undermine Erdogan and his government. ECONOMIC HIT The Zarrab case is one of several festering disputes between Ankara and Washington, which disagree over U.S. support for Kurdish fighters in Syria and suspended visa services after the arrest of a locally employed U.S. consulate worker in Istanbul last month. In a speech on Wednesday, Yildirim highlighted the economic fallout from the court hearings, saying they had “come to the point of harming Turkey and our global economic ties”. Turkey’s bank regulator denied a report in Haberturk newspaper last month that six unnamed Turkish banks could face fines worth billions of dollars over Iran sanctions violations. Investors are nervous. Turkish bank shares have fallen more than 13 percent in November, nearly twice the decline of the broader Istanbul market. Jury selection is due to start on Monday, meaning the trial may begin as early as Tuesday.SEATTLE, WA - JANUARY 02: Wide receiver Brandon Gibson #11 of the St. Louis Rams makes a catch against the Seattle Seahawks during their game at Qwest Field on January 2, 2011 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images) SEATTLE, WA - JANUARY 02: Wide receiver Brandon Gibson #11 of the St. Louis Rams makes a catch against the Seattle Seahawks during their game at Qwest Field on January 2, 2011 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images) MIAMI (CBSMiami) – While it’s been assumed that Davone Bess would remain the Miami Dolphins’ slot receiver; that may or may not be the case. According to the New York Daily News, the Dolphins and Jets are currently pursuing wide receiver Brandon Gibson. Gibson has spent almost his entire career with the St. Louis Rams after being selected in the sixth round of the 2009 NFL Draft. While with the Rams, Gibson accumulated 174 catches for 2,090 yards and nine touchdowns. The 2012 season was Gibson’s best when it comes to pure numbers. He started the most games of his career (13) and played in all 16 while catching 51 passes for 691 yards and five touchdowns. Gibson, who is not a speed receiver, would fit perfectly into the mold of a slot receiver should the Dolphins end up signing him. That would put the Dolphins in the position of having to choose between Bess, who has been solid for the team, and Gibson, unless the Fins feature four wide receivers. Bess carries a cap number of $3.433 million in 2013 and would count $750,000 if the Dolphins released him. Bess caught 61 passes for 778 yards and one touchdown in 2012.In early December, I wrote an article on why investors should be paying attention to MobileGo (MGO). Exploding popularity of the gaming industry and an impressive partnership agreement with Xsolla led to a surge in MGO’s token price. In addition, the team of MobileGo created an application, called GShare, that has the potential to significantly increase MGO token adoption. What is GShare? GShare essentially allows users to rent the power of their computers to earn virtual coins. These coins can then be redeemed later for several gaming options including tournament entry fees. Through this platform, a user can control the amount of computer resources that are used throughout the process. Although GShare is currently only at the public beta testing stage, virtual coins can still be earned by making purchases for Xsolla products. But, according to Igor (the product owner of the GShare app), the goals are much more global than just Xsolla. Fortunately, I was able to land an interview with Igor and asked him about the goals, benefits and upcoming upgrades of the project. Interview What is the mission and vision of the project? Igor: Ok, the mission and vision are basically to enable anyone, with the focus group being gamers, to easily obtain free stuff. For example, for simply sharing their time and computing power, users can come away with games, in-game items, and eSports tournament tickets for free. What is the advantage of this application as compared to other earning tools in the gaming industry? Igor: The main advantage is simplicity. Thanks to the partnership with Xsolla, another important advantage is being able to use the virtual currency to buy games and make in-game purchases. In the future, I expect that users will be able to earn items directly within the application. While there are other programs available in the market that allow users to earn virtual currencies, typically users must spend a long time, sometimes up to a year, to earn enough virtual currency to purchase a basic product like a keyboard. The general idea of GN Gold (GShare currency) is that we will eventually have an entire ecosystem that will support it. In the future, we fully expect there to be a deep integration between game publishers and being able to use GShare directly to get different items – this is the first step to earing free items outside of the games. We hope to separate ourselves from competitors by forming more direct integration with the games themselves. What is the actual development status? As far I know it’s still in beta test mode. Igor: Yes, we can say it is a public beta test. But it is available. Anyone who registers in GShare can download and use it. The test mode is available for the first 500-1000 users of the platform. This will help our team to identify and fix the bugs. At present, our internal version is 0.9.17. If I remember correctly, there was a recent upgrade. Is that accurate? Igor: Yes, it actually happened a few days ago. Next week, we plan to upgrade the version by adding additional languages including English, Russian, Chinese and Korean. After that, the plan is to add Spanish and Japanese in the near future. Are there any other upgrades you are expecting soon, perhaps in the next couple of months? Igor: I think that the first noticeable change will be some type of boosting feature. After performing certain actions or tasks, users will see an increase in their GShare Gold earning rate. An example of a boost might include increased earning power for two hours. We expect to begin working on this feature on Monday although I don’t expect it to be completed until February at the earliest. How is GShare currently interconnected with other products? Are there any upcoming changes in this respect? Igor: Right now, there are no direct connections except that a user can spend GShare Gold on the competitive platform. A user’s GShare Gold is used as a participation fee. If a gamer wins a tournament, they will have the option to receive their prize in either MGO tokens or GShare Gold currency. As far as I know, both products (the earning app and competitive platform), use the same username and password. Is that true? Igor: Yes, they do. All products of the ecosystem will be easily accessed via a single user profile. So, we will focus mostly on integrating with games and allowing game-publishers to integrate with us. In this way, users can directly spend GShare Gold within the games or use the currency to get items directly. Okay, are there any technical requirements before someone can run the GShare App? Igor: I wouldn’t say there are any specific requirements. Since gaming already requires significant computing power, it’s fair to say that most gamers will already have the necessary hardware to run the app. I just want to clarify one thing. As I understood it, the eSports platform is now used mainly for casual games? Igor: Yes. The eSports platform now targets casual gamers while GShare is targeting more of a core gamer audience. What are the limitations and how can someone know whether they should use GShare? Igor: At the moment, that’s a very difficult question to answer given that we’ve only just launched the beta. During this test period, we hope to learn more about whether an average gaming machine with an average GPU will be enough to earn users some profit. Although I can say that even laptops with just CPU are able to earn something right now. It’s also important to remember that the boosting feature, in which development will begin shortly, will play a pivotal role here. What are the future goals for GShare? Igor: For me, the goals are like most other technology businesses – stability and scalability of the application. Certainly, we hope to make the experience as pleasurable for the users as possible. Avoiding bad experiences, like application crashes, are of paramount importance. Some of the team will be working constantly on improving the algorithms, stability and scalability, fixing bugs, and making small fixes in the background. In the near term, the priority is certainly to finish earning item features, testing it, and getting as many game publishers as possible. The boosting feature is also very important. Does GShare have the potential to change the gaming industry in the long-term? Igor: Well, the company’s long-term goal is to do good things. We hope that all these products and GShare will be able to support the community and create strong social values. Users can choose to interact within the framework of a thematic platform. An example of that would focus on how a gamer’s view is changing. This is not just about gaming but allowing people to use their computer for many things while not having to make any effort to go outside. …. and what’s the scope of the project? Igor: Well, for me personally, the scope is to provide as much profit for users as possible. It would be great if people could run the application overnight while earning a few dollars. That would really be something. What are you doing to increase awareness of the GShare Application? Igor: Our team is working on that right now. In January, we expect to begin introducing the app to the Chinese and Korean markets. In addition, we are negotiating with partners. Word of mouth among gamers will also play a big role. That, of course, will depend on the quality and success of the beta. This will be my final question. What role do you play in this project? Igor: Well, when I came to the company, they wanted me to lead the core. Prior to joining, I was a product manager for the core team in my previous role. The previous role afforded me a lot of experience but, for me, it had become a bit tiresome and uninteresting. It was really about the things that the ordinary user doesn’t see, and I was dealing with all the back-end. This project is different. It sounds like “Oh, we haven’t go these” – now you do! Right now, I’m trying to figure out ways to give the end users as many benefits as possible. I spend a lot of my time ensuring a good user experience. Chris: Igor, thanks so much for taking the time to give me an interview. Igor: You’re welcome. Feel free to contact me anytime if you have more questions. Although GShare is still in the initial stage of development, the potential is certainly there for a bright and meaningful relationship between gamers and publishers. As awareness increases, there is a strong possibility that adoption of MobileGo (MGO) tokens will also increase. Disclosure: Chris is long MGO tokens.by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon When Barack Obama leaves the White House in January 2017, what will black America, his earliest and most consistent supporters, have to show for making his political career possible. We'll have the T-shirts and buttons and posters, the souvenirs. That will be the good news. The bad news is what else we'll have.... and not. The Obama Legacy, Pt 1: Top Ten Things Black America Will Have To Show For 8 Years of President Obama by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon To hear our black political class tell it, the election of the first black US president was its ultimate achievement to date, a giant step toward fulfillment of a previous generation's insurgent agenda for social transformation. Is that real? Has the career of Barack Hussein Obama really advanced any of the historic goals of the Freedom Movement? Is the question even fair? With corporate media already speculating about next year's midterm elections, and the presidential contest of 2016, it's entirely appropriate to discuss the president's legacy. And fair is fair --- the black political class doesn't want its meager achievements compared to the agenda of those who fought for our freedom a half century ago, it probably ought to abandon its ceaseless self-promotion as the inheritors of that tradition. It was the overwhelming black and brown vote, along with the utter, unwavering and uncritical support of African America which made President Obama's career possible. When he leaves office in January 2017, what will be the top ten things we can say black America gained or lost from his two terms in the White House? 10. We'll still have Obamacare, the cynically misnamed “Affordable Care Act”. The problem is that Obamacare was written by a health insurance company lobbyist to prolong his employer's parasitic business model, not to make health care available or affordable. A third of the health care dollar goes to advertising, profits, fat executive salaries, lobbying and the paperwork occasioned by thousands of insurers who make more money denying care than providing it, instead of a single payer, like Canada, Medicare, or social security. As Physicians for a National Health Plan point out, Obamacare will not curb medical costs or stem the tide of bankruptcies caused by health care bills. It won't force most employers who now don't offer affordable coverage to offer it in the future, because the administration is allowing employers to write its enforcement regulations, and it will leave millions more, all poor and disproportionately people of color, uncovered altogether. Worst of all, Obamacare's 2016 effective date reveals it as a promise the administration never intended to keep. Back in 1965, when computers with less power than today's laptops were the size of boxcars, the Johnson administration passed Medicare and put it into effect the same year. That's the real comparison between the achievement of Obamacare and the effective results of a previous generation's struggle. 9. We'll probably have reductions in social security proposed and enacted by a Democrat, something no Republican could have initiated, that sets the stage for further reductions in benefit by either party. In the tradition of Democrat Bill Clinton, who did what Republicans tried and failed to do, “ending welfare as we know it” in the 1990s, Barack Obama has promised Wall Street that he would curb “entitlements” the code word for cutting Medicare, Medicaid and social security. With poverty at record levels, the ending of many defined benefit pension plans and the broken promise of retirement security from 401K plans looming black seniors will still be more dependent on social security than anybody, and the value of real benefits will be declining, if Barack's first negotiating offer to Republicans is any indication of his stance on this issue. 8. We'll have solidly in place a new tradition of bailing out banksters and speculators, and lots more immunity from prosecution for corporate scofflaws. The so-called “Bush bailout” was only accomplished when George W. Bush in the last weeks of his presidency, and opposed by Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress called candidate Barack Obama to Washington to persuade reluctant Democrats to vote for it. After failing to pass the first time, Obama swung half the black caucus and enough Democrats overall to secure the passage of the $3 trillion Bush bailout. Once Obama assumed office, the $3 trillion became $16 trillion, with a free pass for the Federal Reserve to shovel more public money at Wall Street at will. And for corporat lawbreakers, whether you were Goldman Sachs, knowingly peddling worthless securities to pension funds, or Bank of America, which foreclosing and evicting tens of thousands in cases where it couldn't prove actual ownership, a phone, cable or internet provider handing over access to billions of calls and emails, or British Petroleum, murdering its Gulf Coast ecosystems, livelihoods and its own workers, the Obama administration's Justice Department has come up with infinitesimal fines and immunity from prosecution for past and future crimes as the answer. 7. When Obama leaves office, we'll still have gentrification as the only model of urban economic development. To be fair, this isn't the exclusive failure of President Obama, it's the failure of vision of the entire black misleadership class, stretching over decades. But as the most powerful actor in the land, the man whose career is the crowning achievement so far of the black political class, Obama absolutely deserves to wear the jacket for leaving things as bad as or worse than the day he assumed office. 6. The day Barack Obama leaves the White House we'll still have the world's biggest prison state, with three quarters of its inmates black and brown, the insane 40 years War On Drugs, and a black person murdered by police, private security or vigilantes every day or so. The best the Obama administration and its allies in Congress could do to address the 100 to 1 cocaine to crack penalty disparity was cutting it to 18 to 1 without changing the sentence of a single person already serving unjust time. Hundreds of thousands of black and brown youth are still doing years for mere grams of crack or minute scraps of marijuana. The police and prison state will, as before, remain the nation's preferred means to address poverty, homelessness, mental illness, immigration and many other social, economic and medical conditions. 5. We'll have US troops in more than thirty African countries enforcing Western land grabs and the corporate neoliberal order, and keeping Africa barefoot, sick, hungry and afraid, but well-armed. And we'll have an even larger overall military budget with more troops and more overseas bases than under George Bush. During the Clinton and second Bush administrations, the US bankrolled, trained and supplied the armies of 52 out of 54 African nations to ensure that the continent remained the poorest and most war-torn on earth. Under its first black president, the US has stepped up the game with actual deployments of drones, mercenaries, special forces and other US military units in more than thirty African countries to enforce the neoliberal order in which Africa's wealth is diverted from its people into the economies and overseas bank accounts of the West and a handful of native kleptocrats. Martin Luther King told us decades ago that the number one purveyor of violence on this planet was the US government. Barack Obama, who many fancifully associate with King, hasn't changed that one iota. 4. When Obama leaves office, it will be legal and acceptable for US presidents to unilaterally murder with or without announcement of cause anybody, anyplace on the planet within the reach of US drones, special operators and mercenaries. When Obama assumed office the US was secretly imprisoning and torturing thousands in at least a dozen countries around the world. We are told now that torture and secret jails are used less often now, that the preferred expedient being simple murder via special ops team or drone. 3. The Obama administration will have closed and privatized more public schools than at any time in US history. This is already an accomplished fact. Under President Obama, the US Department of Education has extended the authority to certify school systems to private agencies controlled by champions of privatization like the Gates, Walton Family, and Eli Broad Foundations, and allowed the same actors to write its Race To The Top program, which allocates federal education dollars to the school systems that disband, privatize, and hand over their assets to private actors the quickest. 2. We can cherish the memory of 8 years of watching that pretty brown family in that big White House, along with unprecedented black unemployment, declining real wages, and the most drastic shrinkage of black family wealth since we began tracking and comparing black and white wealth. Who needs economic progress when millions can take down those old pictures of Martin, and the Kennedy boys, and replace them with the likeness of Barack and Michelle. 1. After 8 years of Barack Obama, black leadership and black America will have decisively lost and forgotten the habit, the inclination, even the example of standing against unjust and abusive power, and our former reputation around the world as a people of struggle. The height of the black Freedom Movement was only about 8 or 10 years, but it left an example of what it was to stand for justice and righteousness against bad laws and bad governance that inspired us and the rest of the world. Black youth who will reach maturity in the middle of this decade have no examples of struggle to look up to, only accommodations to power and excuses for inaction and ineffectiveness on every front. All in all, it's not an inspiring legacy. For Latinos, the Obama era will mark historic broken promises on a path to citizenship for the undocumented, and the largest number of deportations by far of any administration in history. For labor, the biggest single broken promises are the failure to push through laws that would make the organization of unions easier, or the renegotiation of NAFTA. For media activists, there are the broken promises on network neutrality and freedom of the internet. White America gets its card stamped as officially anti-racist ---- there are black CEOs, black admirals and generals, 40-some blacks in Congress and there's been a black president, after all. When the accounting is done, and Obama leaves the White House, everybody gets something.• Joint operation by French and Spanish police • Eta may be considering return to peace talks Police in France have captured the suspected military leader of the armed Basque separatist group Eta, Jurdan Martitegi. The move dealt a further blow to the group, which is reported to be considering a return to peace talks. The arrest of 28-year-old Martitegi in Perpignan, south-western France, came only four months after he allegedly took over responsibility for Eta's campaign of bomb and pistol attacks in Spain. He was detained along with two other Eta members, and his arrest was considered further proof of the group's decline during the last two years. He was the fourth alleged military leader of Eta to have been captured over the past year. Martitegi was arrested after a joint operation by Spanish and French police, who tailed another alleged Eta member from his home in Spain to a meeting with the group's military leader in Perpignan. The arrests in France triggered a police operation in northern Spain which saw six more people detained yesterday and early this morning. Eta's previous military leader, Aitzol Iriondo, was arrested in France in December, and Iriondo's predecessor, Garikoitz Apiazu, was caught only three weeks before that. Another military leader, Javier López Peña, was arrested last May. The group's military leaders are nominally in charge of running the group's armed units and organising bomb and pistol attacks. Their weight in Eta's political structure, which decides on strategy, has varied considerably over the four decades of its history. The four military leaders captured over the last year are believed to have led a hardline faction within the group that was responsible for calling off the last ceasefire. That decision ended months of secret negotiations with the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, over an end to Eta's violence. Analysts speculated that the arrest of Martitegi, which followed the detention last week of an Eta member caught in an armoury in the southern French town of Mézières-en-Brenne, would shift power within Eta away from the hardliners. Eta prisoners in Spanish jails have been increasingly critical of the current leadership in recent years. Some have called for a negotiated end to what has become a largely ineffectual terrorist campaign. The arrests coincided with a report in El País newspaper that Josu Urrutikoetxea, a veteran Eta member thought to be in favour of a return to peace talks, may have recently returned to the group's political leadership. Urrutikoetxea, alias Josu Ternera, was reportedly one of the negotiators who took part in talks with government representatives during the ceasefire. Zapatero's government, having been caught out by Eta's previous return to violence, is now less inclined to talk. During the last ceasefire, the government was ready to discuss the future of Eta prisoners now in Spanish jails, but was unwilling to concede to any of Eta's political demands. Zapatero's socialists are poised to take control of the Basque regional government, which has been in the hands of moderate Basque nationalists for the past 29 years, in the next few weeks. The new regional government comes after the March elections in the Basque country which saw the nationalists lose their grip on power. Parties deemed to be fronts for Eta, which usually win at least 10% of the Basque vote, were banned from those elections, meaning they no longer have any say in how Spain's northern Basque country is governed. A definitive end to Eta's violence would see those bans dropped. Eta last week contacted the Basque newspaper Gara saying it would make the new regional government ‑ which is due to be led by socialist Patxi López ‑ one of its priority targets.Layout of flat and samples of evidence taken from the crime scene, on display at Stockholm's Police Museum The Atlas Vampire was an unknown assailant who committed the unsolved "Vampire Murder" (also known as the Vampire Murder Case) in Stockholm, Sweden in 1932. On May 4, 1932, a 32-year-old sex worker, Lilly Lindeström, was found murdered in her small apartment in the Atlas area of Stockholm near Sankt Eriksplan. She had been dead for 2–3 days before police broke into her apartment; she had suffered blunt force trauma to her head. Lilly was found completely naked and face-down on her bed. According to reports, sexual activity had taken place, with a condom found to be still protruding from her anus. The detectives noted that a gravy ladle was found at the scene and on further inspection of the body, they realized her body had been drained of all of her blood. Police suspected the implement was used by the perpetrator to drink Lilly's blood. Various clients fell under suspicion but after a lengthy investigation, none were charged with her murder. The murder remains unsolved. References [ edit ]This talk will be an in-depth look at Okio—a tiny library for interacting with bytes—and a few of the libraries written on top of it: OkHttp, Retrofit, and a newcomer named Moshi. Okio evolved naturally inside of OkHttp before being split out into its own library. It wraps common patterns behind a friendly API for reading, writing, and processing data. We'll start with some fundamentals of the library and how it can enable you to work very close to raw data with ease. After an introduction to Okio, we will look at three libraries written with it: OkHttp, a modern HTTP client; Retrofit, a high-level HTTP wrapper; and Moshi, a brand new library for serialization. Not only are these libraries powerful on their own, but when combined their efficiency and performance dramatically increase. We'll conclude with demonstration of how to use them in your applications to great effect. Video: https://youtu.be/WvyScM_S88cIt's Time to Add Your Voice Since 1987, Physicians for a National Health Program has advocated for reform in the U.S. health care system. A large part of our work involves educating health professionals, and others, about the benefits of a single-payer system - including fewer administrative costs and providing comprehensive health insurance for all residents of the United States. PNHPWW February 25th Meeting “Structural Violence and Health Disparities” Edwin Lindo, JD Our speaker will be discussing the intersection of race, immigration, and other social determinants of health with our current healthcare system and how a Medicare for All system could help address some of these societal issues (and even how a Medicare for All system may exacerbate or complicate issues around race, immigration, etc in the healthcare system). Dr. Lindo has a law degree from UW and teaches in the Department of Family Medicine (for his very impressive CV - click here). Food will be provided for attendees. PNHPWW co-sponsored the forum and will serve as our regular February Monthly Meeting. You can watch the meeting on ZOOM on your computer beginning at 5:45pm - https://zoom.us/j/352046790 or listen on your phone - 1-669-900-6833 or 1-929-436-2866 PNHPWW January 26th Meeting “Winning Universal Health Care: Federal, State and Local Action” A Forum with our Legislators The Health Care is a Human Right - WA Coalition sponsored an important public forum on Saturday, Jan 26th, titled “Winning Universal Health Care - Federal, State and Local Action.” The forum looked at ways to move health care reform forward in 2019 and beyond. The panel was composed of lead sponsors of universal health care legislation at all levels. US Representative Pramila Jayapal, lead sponsor of Medicare for All was unable to attend due to the gov't shutdown but addressed us by video from DC. State Rep. Nicole Macri, State Sens. Bob Hasegawa, Joe Nguyen and David Frockt, lead sponsors of state legislation, Rod Dembowski, King County Council Chair, and Seattle Council Member Teresa Mosqueda participated. It was held the at the El Centro de la RazaCommunity Center on Beacon Hill. The meeting was lively and very well attended. Video was recorded so that watch the whole forum on our PNHPWW YouTube channel at - https://youtu.be/IlRjktDllmQ PNHPWW co-sponsored the forum that served as our regular January Monthly Meeting Of Note The PNHP National Board recently voted to endorse the new Improved Medicare for All bill to be introduced in early February by lead sponsor Rep. Pramila Jayapal, based on three members seeing the text of the bill and what is publicly known about it - with the caveat that PNHP will continue to educate about any changes it may like to see in the bill as it makes its way through Congress. The PNHPWW Board looks forward to seeing the full text of the legislation when it is introduced and will chart our advocacy strategy at that time. photo - Maria Kearney PNHPWW December 19th Monthly Meeting Swedish Medical Center/Cherry Hill Campus 7:30pm - James South East Conference Center, Room C “The Nuclear Arms Race versus Our Health ” Lilly Adams and Joe Berkson, MD Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility Coordinator, Nuclear Arms Abolition Campaign (Lilly) Organizers, Washington Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition The meeting was videotaped and is available on YouTube at https://youtu.be/qDWreJypU0E We had a great meeting with speakers Lilly Adams and Joe Berkson, MD, from WPSR as our speakers and discussion leaders. They are building a statewide coalition - Washington Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition to raise the awareness of what the nuclear arms race is doing to many issues of social justice, including the social determinants of health and access to care. How We Win - National Improved Medicare for All Health over Profits for Everyone (HOPE) describes an in-depth strategy analysis on how the single payer movement can win National Improved Medicare for All (NIMA). PDF; Word.docx HOPE recently sent a letter to Rep. Jayapal regarding the need for transparency in updating HR 676 before it is introduced in February. Some Important Recent Articles Medicare for All legislation in the House - HR 676 ("updated" version to be introduced in the 2019 Congress), Senate - S 1804, and "Faux Single Payer legislation." and what would be essential for a state single payer plan:: 1. HR 676 vs. S1804 - Analysis and Recommendations 2. Table of side-by-side Comparison of Medicare for All Public Plan Proposals 3. Aligning House And Senate Single-Payer Bills - Removing Medicare's Profiteering Incentives Is Key 4. Essential Elements of State Single Payer 5. Section by Section draft of Updated Medicare for All - Jayapal bill 6. Proposed Top Five Policy Improvements in Updated Medicare for All - Jayapal bill - Chart PNHPWW November 20th Meeting Report from the PNHP Annual Meeting in San Diego Meeting Attendees Reporting Seven PNHPWW and SNaHP-UW members attended the 2018 PNHP Annual Meeting in San Diego, Nov 8-11. The theme of the weekend was "Tearing Down the Barriers to Care." Materials from the meeting including slideshows, handouts, and some video is available at - http://pnhp.org/sandiego/ On Friday there was an educational session for folks new to single payer advocacy followed by a march/demonstration in support of immigrants in front of the San Diego ICE headquarters. Also, there was a meeting for people working on state-based universal health care legislation - summary here. For this PNHPWW meeting, attendees reported on the state organizing meeting, the plenary sessions and some workshops. A video of this meeting is available on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLoNM8dxU1s PNHPWW October 17th Meeting TrumpCare John Geyman, MD, joined us via the internet from his home in Friday Harbor to describe his just-released book "TrumpCare: Lies, Broken Promises, How It Is Failing, and What Should be Done." It's four goals are: 1) to describe TrumpCare; 2) show how it is failing patients, families, taxpayers, and the nation: 3) describe the growing crisis is health care in this country; and 4) to compare the only two real alternatives before us - continuance of TrumpCare or moving to single-payer Medicare for All. Also, John compared HR 676 and S 1804 and gave us his thoughts about their relative strengths and weaknesses. The meeting can be viewed on our YouTube channel at - https://youtu.be/gl1OKCxcUMs Copies of "TrumpCare" are available at cost for $15 plus shipping, while supplies last, at pnhp.westernwashington@comcast.net Dr. Geyman's recent books: Common Sense: US Health Care at a Crossroads in the 2018 Congress (pamphlet_ Crisis in US Health Care: Corporate Power vs. Tho Common Good looks at how, over the last 60 years, our health care system got to be where it is now - how it changed from a system devoted to patient care to one devoted to maximizing revenues. The Human Face of Obamacare - Promises vs. Reality and What Comes Next shows the human face of the ACA as the stories of real patients and their families best illustrate continuing problems of our health care system. It also shows how many of the promises made by the Obama administration have not been kept. How Obamacare is Unsustainable - Why we need a Single-Payer Solution for All Americans documents where the ACA fails and the fix we need. Health Care Wars - How Market Ideology and Corporate Power Are Killing Amercians examines how our market-based system benefits the 1% at the grave expense and suffering of the 99%. "Breaking Point - How the Primary Care Crisis Endangers the Lives of Americans" documents the crisis in primary care in the US and what we must do about it. John's Web Site PNHPWW September 19th Meeting "Updating HR 676 and S 1804 Keeping Single Payer in Medicare for All " Kip Sullivan, JD Video of PNHPWW September 19th Monthly Meeting - https://youtu.be/2ko9zIlb6fs PNHPWW August 15th Monthly Meeting "Community House Calls/Interpreter Services Harborview Medical Center" You can watch this very informative and moving video on YouTube - https://youtu.be/V_LQf-fqmyw PNHPWW June 20th Monthly Meeting " The State-Based Universal Health Care Act " Rachel Berkson CD7 District Director for Rep. Pramila Jayapl, described HR 6097 and led the discussion. David Loud, Jim McDermott's staff who worked on similar bill & helped with HR 6097 also lent his expertise to the discussion. HR 6097 would facilitate states to combine several federal health care funding streams if the state offers a comprehensive universal health care plan that guarantees all residents of their state are covered. The benefits provided by states have to be equal or greater than what beneficiaries receive now. You can watch the meeting on the PNHPWW YouTube channel PNHPWW May 24th Meeting " Moving Toward Single Payer " Community Town Hall The regular PNHPWW May Monthly Meeting was held in conjunction with a Town Hall programmed and sponsored by the Students for a National Health Program - UW Chapter (SNaHP-UW) and co-sponsored by PNHPWW and Health Care for All - WA. Panelists: 1) Aaron Katz, MPH, School of Public Health; 2) David McLanahan, MD, Co-founder and Coordinator of PNHPWW; 3) Anirban Basu, PhD, UW Professor of Health Economics; 4) Bevin McLeod, the Healthcare for All-WA Program Director; 5) Christopher Wong, MD UW Medical Center or Harborview You can watch the forum here on YouTubeSen. Bernie Sanders called a comment made from his rally's stage last night in New York City 'inappropriate and insensitive' after being criticized for it by Hillary Clinton's campaign. Healthcare activist Paul Song labeled those who chose to keep the current private healthcare system intact, like Hillary Clinton, instead of advocating for a Medicare-for-all plan, like Sanders, 'Democratic whores.' Sanders responded this morning with a tweet: 'Dr. Song's comment was inappropriate and insensitive. There's no room for language like that in our political discourse.' His wife Jane was also asked about the comment this morning on CNN and seemed miffed. 'I'm sorry, I didn't hear it at all,' Sanders said. 'It's a strange choice of words and I can't imagine anybody was speaking about Secretary Clinton that way.' Scroll down for video Jane Sanders appeared miffed when asked about comments made onstage at last night's Bernie Sanders rally when one speaker labeled Democrats holding Hillary Clinton's position on healthcare 'Democratic whores' Healthcare activist Paul Song tweeted out this statement after his comments at the Bernie Sanders rally started making waves Song had gotten ahead of the story by sending out a tweet last night apologizing for the remark. In full he had said, 'Medicare-for-all will never
13, 12, 10, 8. Since he'll be fighting in both melee and at a range those two stats should be high. We'll make Strength the 15 to show his strength gained from working the rough and tumble life of a lumberjack, and Dex can be the 14. Most lumberjacks were actually strong but wiry types, able to scurry up trees like squirrels and dodge falling limbs, so this fits nicely. Con is next up since he led such a tough life he needs to be hardy. The next choice is hard to make. A good Wisdom score is important to a hunter as it reflects his sharp senses and awareness of his environment, but intelligence is important too. But his free-wheeling lifestyle and thirst for revenge reflect self control issues, so perhaps his wisdom can be a bit sub-par. We'll make him a cunning hunter if not a particularly wary one: Intelligence will be 12, Wisdom will be 10. Finally that leaves us with a Charisma of 8, but that's just fine. He is, after all, a gruff and unforgiving sort. That means he probably doesn't get along well with others. Griff is going to be a human. He seems too gritty and tough to be an elf or halfling or gnome, but he lives in the forest and above ground, so that means he's probably not a dwarf. And despite his town's proximity to hostile orc territory, it doesn't make much sense for him to be a half-orc. That leaves human. As an added advantage, however, human gives him a bonus feat and skill point, which will help in fleshing him out more. For class, I think Ranger fits him best. Barbarian has a savage, wilderness flavor too, but he's not that uncontrolled...at least not right now. Perhaps in the future he'll get in touch with his wild side, but for now he's too cunning to be governed by blind rage. He's a skilled woodsman and probably hunted quite a bit. To me that suggests the path of the Ranger. The Ranger's two-weapon fighting ability certainly doesn't hurt things either. The image of a dark and gritty hunter stalking his humanoid prey out of revenge is a haunting and powerful one, to be sure. Since fighting with both axes in melee will be covered by second level, we should focus our two feats on the ranged side. After all, up until the village was attacked he was more of an athlete than a warrior, and his chosen sport was axe throwing. Since we said he can throw two axes at once we need a feat that can simulate that without two-weapon fighting. The natural choice seems to be rapid shot. If you have an axe in each hand and you have rapid shot then there's no reason why you can't throw them both. To get rapid shot, we need Point Blank Shot, which is fine since it further benefits our throwing ability, and makes sense since most axe throwing competitions would be at relatively close range. The ranger also offers skills that are good for him. Profession, of course, can reflect his lumberjack skills. Climb, Swim and Jump all reflect an athletic background. Survival shows he's able to live off the land and track his prey. Hide and Move Silently are invaluable skills to a hunter. It's all falling into place, and since we made him reasonably intelligent, he can take a few skills at decent levels. Later on the Ranger receives an animal companion. We're not sure right now how long he'll stay a ranger, but the image of him hunting his foes with his faithful hound baying at his side is a good one. So we'll get him a large dog (It says in the monster manual that the stats for the Riding Dog also reflect those of other large-breed working-class dogs, so we'll buy him one of those) and write it into his background. We'll say it's his faithful pet since his teenage years. Later on the dog can become his companion if that's how it ends up. We can also tweak his Character elements a little. Perhaps the dog is about the only being he respects or cares for who isn't a helpless bystander? You can easily extend his outrage at cruelty to those unable to fight for themselves to include cruelty to animals. I can already picture him growling out the phrase, "I can't abide a grown man who beats his wife or kicks his dog," as he faces down an abusive lout. It looks like this character is just about sorted out. EXECUTION Finally, after a bit of spit and polish and filling in the blank spots on the sheet we come to the end of character creation and the beginning of play. It's possible that I shouldn't bother covering this part since it's about building characters and we've already built ourselves one, but I think having a good character is more than just having a well-built one. Anyone can take a good character into a game, but you have to be able to play it for any of that work to matter, so here we go. Execution is how you actually play with the character you just now built. This involves all three of the core aspects of a good character; Story, Character and Mechanics. Your Story sets the stage for the beginning of your adventure, and if you do it right, it provides inspiration for future adventures. Don't forget where you came from, but keep one eye on what is ahead. Let his background color his choices by reflecting the experiences gained from it in our actions. If he was swindled by halfings in the past, he may be less inclined to trust them now, even if he's not the suspicious sort. Your Character aspects provide the flavor for your character and guide his choices. Never do something if you don't think your character would do it, and always do something if you think he would. If you're playing a warrior then crack out the oil and whetstone and start honing your weapons during downtime, your warrior wouldn't be caught dead with a dull weapon. If he's a chatty sort start telling stories when the chance pops up. If you're playing a brave character then don't back down from danger. Finally, Mechanics are how you do almost everything in the game. If your character isn't able to do what you want it to do then you need to pay more attention to your mechanics. Always try to fit the mechanics in with the other aspects of your character and vice versa. If you have a high diplomacy skill then be diplomatic. If you're a good fighter then make choices to enhance your fighting ability. Embrace Change The best thing about actually playing a character as opposed to writing one is that you have no idea what will happen from one day to the next. As such, your character is going to react in ways you hadn't originally planned. Maybe he reconciles his issues from his past over the course of play? Perhaps he is inspired to take a different path than the one he started on. Planning your character's future development is never a bad thing, so long as you realize you can't always stick to your plan. Maybe you wanted to give him a level of Fighter at third level, but he's developing a spiritual side now and Cleric might be a better choice. Deal with it, accept it, take it on. If you end up with the exact same person that you started out with, then you may be missing out. Time should do more than add levels and power onto a character, it should leave a mark on how he is played, and that mark will show in his Character and Mechanics, and maybe even his Story as perhaps he discovers things about himself or his past that he never knew and takes paths other than the one he had originally intended. Have Fun This is the most important part of execution. The game is all about fun. If you're not having fun then you shouldn't be playing. If things aren't going how you like then that's a problem for you to discuss with your DM, but remember the lesson above about change. Sometimes you just have to accept that things don't always turn out as you planned. But that's not always a bad thing. Just because you didn't end up how you once wanted doesn't mean you can't enjoy were you are now. Be Considerate Don't forget that it's not all about you. If your character is hogging the spotlight then you need to make room for the others, because if they're not having fun then there's a problem. If they want to get on with it while you're still playing out your conversation with the innkeeper then don't be afraid to cut yourself a little short. If your character is taking all the kills then maybe he should pull back a little and rest while the others take point. I know it's tempting to put the focus on your character and be utterly unbending in what he would and wouldn't do, but sometimes you just have to make sacrifices for the sake of the team. Just don't let that take away too much of your own fun. CONCLUSION Anyhow, I hope all this was worth the read, and I hope it helps people take a new look at the way they do things. Always try to keep the big picture in mind. Don't load yourself up with massive backgrounds or tons of quirks or massive stats if you're not focusing on anything else. Always try to keep all aspects of your character in view and change what needs to be changed to make it all fit together. No one aspect is better than the other; it's only when things are taken to extremes that problems arise. By creating a character that is balanced in Story, Character and Mechanics you can have a versatile champion that allows you to get the most enjoyment out of the game. You can chat up the barmaid, lament your lost family and still kick some butt, whatever the situation demands you can deliver.For financial institutions mining of big data provides a huge opportunity to stand out from the competition. The data landscape for financial institutions is changing fast. It is not enough to leverage institutional data. This has to be augmented with open data like social to enhance decision making. By using data science and machine learning to gather and analyze big data, financial institutions can reinvent their businesses. Financial Institutions are becoming aware of the potential of these technologies and are beginning to explore how data science and machine learning could enable them to streamline operations, improve product offerings, and enhance customer experiences. Given our experience in Ideas2IT, implementing complex use cases for the financial industry, here we break down the top use cases of machine learning and data science in finance. Catch stock market cheaters Market surveillance depends on algorithms to identify patterns in trading data that might indicate manipulation and alert staff to investigate. But the huge volumes of data can cause an enormous number of alerts, many of which are false alarms. FINRA monitors roughly 50 billion events every day, including stock orders, modifications, cancellations, and trades. It looks for patterns in the events to uncover potential rule violations. But, most of the alerts received are false. To tackle this issue, FINRA is developing a machine learning software that can look beyond the patterns and understand which situations truly deserve to be mentioned as red flags. In other words, the machine learning software will learn which trading patterns lead to legal charges, to classify the right ones. FINRA is planning to test its machine learning software alongside its existing system to compare the results. It has also moved its market surveillance system to AWS cloud, giving it more computing power to analyze data quickly. Detect phone fraudsters Customers contact their financial institutions over the phone to check account balances, open new lines of credit, change account information. Mostly, a call centre agent facilitates the customer’s request. However, the agents have few ways to determine whether the person they are speaking to on the phone is the actual customer, and this poses a serious threat to that customer’s information. In recent years, the scope of call center fraud has become truly staggering. In 2015, one in every 2,000 calls was fraudulent. In 2016, that number jumped to 1 in 937, an increase of 113%. To solve this problem, Lloyds banking group partnered with Pindrop, an AI startup, to detect fraudulent phone calls. Pindrop can identify 147 features of a voice from a phone call or a Skype call which can help a person identify information like the caller’s location. The software will be integrated into Lloyd’s customer service offices. The banking agents will get an alert if the call is fraudulent so that they can pass the call to fraud specialists. Lloyds banking group will introduce the software across the Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands early next year. Understand customers better Today banks are using big data to create a 360-degree view of each customer based on how everyone individually uses mobile or online banking, branch banking or other channels. A good example of this is Danske bank. The bank wanted to predict the needs of their customers and understand them on a more personal level. So, they created an in-house startup, advanced analytics, to transform business units using machine learning and AI. The team analyzed large volumes of data to identify their customer’s preferred means of communication, such as phone, email, or social media. This valuable information has increased the hit rate of their marketing campaigns four times. They also built a machine learning model to study the online behavior of their customers and discover situations where customers needed financial advice. Streamline client payment processing Reconciling payments is costly and time-consuming. Especially, when there are large quantities involved. Bank of America Merrill Lynch developed a new solution in August 2017 called Intelligent Receivables (IR) to help companies drastically improve their straight-through reconciliation (STR) of incoming payments. Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Intelligent Receivables, powered by High Radius’s leading-edge machine learning technology, will help their corporate clients to accelerate the adoption of electronic payments from their end-customers. IR is a well-suited solution for firms that manage lots of payments where the remittance information is either missing or received separately from the payment. Reduce financial crimes and parse commercial loan agreements The Singapore based OCBC bank revealed plans to use artificial intelligence and machine learning as a part of its efforts to curb financial crimes. The bank plans to use these technologies to monitor anti-money laundering and to improve the accuracy in detecting suspicious transactions. OCBC Bank along with ThetaRay, a fintech company, conducted a proof of concept (POC) at the starting of this year. Now, the bank plans to start an extended POC and pre-implementation phase. The algorithm will detect anomalies in transaction behavior by accessing different features such as products, customers, and risks. In the POC stage, the technology was deployed to analyze OCBC’s one-year transaction data, and it decreased the number of alerts, that did not needed further review, by 35%. Interpreting legal and financial documents is a mind-numbing job for legal teams in financial institutions. JP Morgan Chase & Co built a machine learning program called COIN(contract intelligence) to analyze financial deals. Before the project went live in June 2016, lawyers and legal teams spent 360,000 hours parsing commercial documents. Whereas, now, the software can review documents in seconds, and makes fewer errors. The bank also plans to use COIN for other types of complex legal filings such as credit-default swaps and custody agreements.In many respects, last Wednesday night may turn out to be the single most important event in the history of American law enforcement in a generation. For most of the week, the images flooding out of Ferguson, Mo., and onto social media resembled nothing so much as a military occupation. Officers from the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Department patrolled the streets in full body armor while toting machine guns, as millions of Americans started to suddenly wonder why law enforcement officials were outfitted as if they were going into a war zone. When all you have is riot gear, even peaceful protests start to look like riots. By giving police officers the tools to use overwhelming force and military-style tactics at every opportunity, it creates a situation that may be safer for individual police officers, but is significantly more dangerous for society as a whole. The St. Louis County Police Department, which was initially responsible for maintaining order in the city, was relieved of its responsibility by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who put the state’s Highway Patrol in charge. With this change in leadership also came a change in strategy—dispensing with the military-style hardware and tactics in favor of a softer model of policing. The difference was immediate and impossible to ignore. Protests the day after the switch were calm, respectful, and virtually free of voilence. At this time at night on Monday, residents were in real fear for their lives. Tonight they’re taking selfies with cops. — Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 15, 2014 Whether this calm will hold permanently is difficult to say, but the pictures and videos of the Ferguson protests triggered a national wind that started to blow against the trend of police militarization, which has taken place across the country over the past few decades. Blowing in with this wind is a cadre of politicians from across the political spectrum, who have come out in favor of creating a future where it will impossible to confuse a photograph of a police officer in Missouri with one of an Army sniper in Afghanistan. This picture isn’t from Iraq or Afghanistan, it’s from Ferguson, Missouri. This should never, ever happen here. pic.twitter.com/B1YSh0Ehtb — Traveller (@cityrider49) August 14, 2014 The most substantial effort to fundamentally alter the way police departments operate post-Ferguson comes from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), who plans to introduce the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act, which is aimed at putting controls on a Department of Defense program that provides surplus military equipment, from armored vehicles to assault rifles, to domestic law enforcement agencies for free. This DoD program gave half a billion dollars worth of military-grade hardware to police departments across the country in 2011 alone. “Our main streets should be a place for business, families, and relaxation, not tanks and M16s,” Johnson wrote in a letter to his fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives. “Our local police are quickly beginning to resemble paramilitary forces. This bill will end the free transfers of certain aggressive military equipment to local law enforcement and ensure that all equipment can be accounted for. ‟Before another small town’s police force gets a $700,000 gift from the Defense Department that it can’t maintain or manage,” Johnson continued, “it behooves us to rein in the Pentagon’s… program and revisit the merits of a militarized America.” Johnson, who has said he plans to introduce the bill in September, is far from alone. On Thursday, a trio left-leaning lawmakers—John Conyers (D-Mich.), Robert “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.), and Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)—penned a letter sharply questioning the use of military tactics. They wrote: In Ferguson, why do local police dress in military-style uniforms and body armor, carry short-barreled 5.56-mm rifles based on the M4 carbine, and patrol neighborhoods in massive armored vehicles? At best, confronting demonstrator with this show of force is a sign of poor judgement. In all likelihood, the decision to adopt a military posture only served to aggravate an already tense situation and to commit the police to a military response. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) echoed that sentiment in a statement released the same day. ‟We need to de-militarize this situation—this kind of response by the police has become the problem instead of the solution,” she said. Challenges to police militarization haven’t exclusively come from the left side of the political spectrum. Conservative Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) penned an op-ed for Time earlier this week, slamming the scramble by departments to obtain paramilitary hardware and use paramilitary tactics, calling it ‟a systemic problem with today’s law enforcement.” Given these developments, it is almost impossible for many Americans not to feel like their government is targeting them. Given the racial disparities in our criminal justice system, it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them. However, there are still a large number of politicians who charge that police militarization is a necessary element in keeping the country safe, especially when it comes to protecting against the threat of terrorism. “As a past sheriff, we utilized that equipment in a responsible way,” Rep. Richard Nugent (R-Fla.) told the Huffington Post. “End of the day, you can always find misuses of any equipment that’s given or utilized by law enforcement. It’s the responsibility of those communities to keep that law enforcement agency in check. But to just outright ban the usage of that equipment would devastate local law enforcement agencies across the nation.” In what’s undoubtedly the single most infuential book written on the topic, Rise of the Warrior Cop, journalist Radley Balko explains how, even though large-scale protests are the most publicly visible manifestations of police militarization, it’s a trend that’s crept into virtually every aspect of the way law enforcement in America operates. In an excerpt from the book published on Salon last summer, Balko describes how local police forces use heavily armed SWAT teams to accomplish tasks that, from the outside, would appear to be shockingly mundane: By the end of the 2000s, police departments were sending SWAT teams to enforce regulatory law. In August 2010, for example, a team of heavily armed Orange County, Florida, sheriff’s deputies raided several black- and Hispanic-owned barbershops in the Orlando area. More raids followed in September and October. The Orlando Sentinel reported that police held barbers and customers at gunpoint and put some in handcuffs, while they turned the shops inside out. The police raided a total of nine shops and arrested thirty-seven people. By all appearances, these raids were drug sweeps. Shop owners told the Sentinel that police asked them where they were hiding illegal drugs and weapons. But in the end, thirty-four of the thirty-seven arrests were for “barbering without a license,” a misdemeanor for which only three people have ever served jail time in Florida. Well before the events in Ferguson, which were sparked by the shooting death of an unarmed African-American teenager at the hands of a local police officer, the issue was at the forefront of the national conversation. Americans showed a deep and profound discomfort with the idea of militarized forces policing the country’s civilian population. A poll conducted last year by the libertarian Reason Foundation found that 58 percent of Americans think that local police departments’ use of “drones, military weapons, and armored vehicles” has gone too far. Even so, recent history shows there’s no guarantee that legislative efforts like Johnson’s will ultimately go anywhere. In June, progressive firebrand Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) attempted to attach an amendment to a Department of Defense appropriations bill that would have entirely cut off the funding to the very same DoD program that Johnson’s proposed legislation is attempting to curtail. The amendment was struck down by a 62-355 margin. Vanity Fair notes that included in that overwhelming 355-member block was Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), who represents the St. Louis suburb in the House. Regardless of whether Johnson’s effort ultimately proves more successful than Grayson’s, getting rid of this single DoD program will only eliminate one spigot from which police departments obtain military-style hardware. There are still myriad federal programs, such as Byrne and Community Oriented Policing Services grants, providing direct funding for police departments to obtain military hardware. Yet, for advocates of police demilitarization, there is some hope. Members of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee are working to develop a cohesive set of bipartisan reforms to the DoD program. “Congress established this program out of real concern that local law enforcement agencies were literally outgunned by drug criminals,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said in a statement about the effort. “We intended this equipment to keep police officers and their communities safe from heavily armed drug gangs and terrorist incidents. Before the defense authorization bill comes to the Senate floor, we will review this program to determine if equipment provided by the Defense Department is being used as intended.” That said, there’s no guarantee any piece of legislation, let alone one so fraught with controversy, will make it though the least productive Congress in history. But the radical change that occured in Ferguson from one day to the next, between an occupation by militarized police and one that went to great pains to eschew those tactics, shows that a militarized police force is neither inevitable nor immutable. In fact, we may all be safer without it. H/T Huffington Post \| Photo by Jonathan McIntosh/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)From MLM Library This is the era of Mao Zedong, the era of'world revolution and the Afro-American's struggle for liberation is apart of an invincible world-wide movement. Chairman Mao was the first world leader to elevate our people's struggle to the fold of the world revolution —Robert Williams, 1967[1] It seems as if Chairman Mao, at least in the symbolic realm, has been enjoying resurgence in popularity among the youth. His image and ideas consistently turn up in a myriad of cultural and political contexts. The Coup, a popular San Francisco Bay Area hip-hop group, restored Mao Zedong to the pantheon of black radical heroes and in so doing placed the black freedom struggle in an international context. In a song simply called "Dig It" (1993), the Coup refers to its members as "the wretched of the earth," tells listeners to read The Communist Manifesto, and conjures up revolutionary icons such as Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Kwame Nkrumah, H. Rap Brown, Kenya's Mau Mau movement, and Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt. In classical Maoist fashion, the group seizes on Mao's most famous quote and makes it its own: "We realize that power [is] nickel plated."[2] Even though members of the Coup were not even born during the heyday of Black Maoism, "Dig It" captures the spirit of Mao in relation to the larger colonial world—a world that included African Americans. In Harlem in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it seemed as though everyone had a copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung,[3] better known as the "little red book." From time to time supporters of the Black Panther Party would be seen selling the little red book on street corners as a fund-raiser for the party. And it was not unheard of to see some young black radical strolling down the street dressed like a Chinese peasant—except for the Afro and sunglasses, of course. Political Propaganda of the Chinese Revolution. International Visions & M Like Africa, China was on the move and there was a general sensibility that the Chinese supported the black struggle. Actually, it was more than a sensibility: There were real life black folk calling for revolution in the name of Mao as well as Marx and Lenin. Countless black radicals of that era regarded China, not unlike Cuba or Ghana or even Paris, as the land where true freedom might be had. China was not perfect, but it was much better than living in the belly of the beast. When the Black Panther leader Elaine Brown visited Beijing in the fall of 1970, she was pleasantly surprised by what the Chinese revolution achieved in improving peoples' lives. "Old and young would spontaneously give emotional testimonies, like Baptist converts, to the glories of socialism."[4] A year later, she returned with one of the Panther founders, Huey Newton, who described his experience in China as a "sensation of freedom—as if a great weight had been lifted from my soul and I was able to be myself, without defense or pretense or the need for explanation. I felt absolutely free for the first time in my life—completely free among my fellow men."[5] More than a decade before Brown and Newton set foot on Chinese soil, W.E.B. Du Bois regarded China as the other sleeping giant poised to lead the colored races in the worldwide struggle against imperialism. He had first traveled there in 1936—before the war and the revolution— during an extended visit to the Soviet Union. Returning in 1959, when it was illegal to travel to China, Du Bois discovered a new country. He was struck by the transformation of the Chinese, in particular what he perceived as the emancipation of women, and left convinced that China would lead the underdeveloped nations on the road toward socialism. "China after long centuries," he told an audience of Chinese Communists attending his ninety-first birthday celebration, "has arisen to her feet and leapt forward. Africa arise, and stand straight, speak and think! Act! Turn from the West and your slavery and humiliation for the last 500 years and face the rising sun."[6] How black radicals came to see China as the beacon of Third World revolution and Mao Zedong thought as the guidepost is a complicated and fascinating story involving literally dozens of organizations and covering much of the world—from the ghettos of North America to the African countryside. The following account, therefore, does not pretend to be comprehensive.[7] Nevertheless, we have set out in this article to explore the impact that Maoist thought, and the People's. Republic of China more generally, had on black radical movements from the 1950s through at least the mid-1970s. We also explore how radical black nationalism has shaped debates within Maoist or "antirevisionist" organizations in the United States. It is our contention that China offered black radicals a "colored," or Third World, Marxist model that enabled them to challenge a white and Western vision of class struggle—a model they shaped and reshaped to suit their own cultural and political realities. Although China's role was contradictory and problematic in many respects, the fact that Chinese peasants, as opposed to the European proletariat, made a socialist revolution and carved out a position in world politics distinct from the Soviet and U.S. camps endowed black radicals with a deeper sense of revolutionary importance and power. Finally, Mao not only proved to black folks the world over that they need not wait for "objective conditions" to make revolution, but his elevation of the cultural struggle profoundly shaped debates surrounding black arts and politics. The Long March Anyone familiar with Maoism knows that it was never a full-blown ideology meant to replace Marxism-Leninism. On the contrary, if anything, it marked a turn against the "revisionism" of the post-Stalin Soviet model. What Mao did contribute to Marxist thought grew directly out of the Chinese Revolution of 1949. Mao's insistence that the revolutionary capacity of the peasantry was not dependent on the urban proletariat was particularly attractive to black radicals skeptical of the idea that they must wait for the objective conditions to launch their revolution. Central to Maoism is the idea that Marxism can be (must be) reshaped to the requirements of time and place and that practical work, ideas, and leadership stem from the masses in movement not from a theory created in the abstract or produced out of other struggles.[8] In practice, this meant that true revolutionaries must possess revolutionary will to win. The notion of revolutionary will cannot be underestimated, especially for those in movements that were isolated and attacked on all sides. Armed with the proper theory, the proper ethical behavior, and the will, revolutionaries, in Mao's words, can "move mountains."[9] Perhaps this is why the Chinese Communist leader Lin Biao could write in the foreword to the Quotations, "Once Mao TseTung's thought is grasped by the broad masses, it becomes an inexhaustible source of strength and a spiritual atom bomb of infinite power."[10] Both Mao and Lin Biao recognized that the source of this "atomic bomb" could be found in the struggles of Third World nationalists. In an age when the Cold War helped usher in the nonaligned movement, with leaders of the "colored" world converging in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 to try to chart an independent path toward development, the Chinese hoped to lead the former colonies on the road to socialism. The Chinese (backed by Lin Biao's theory of the "new democratic revolution") not only endowed nationalist struggles with revolutionary value, but they reached out specifically to Africa and people of African descent. Two years after the historic Bandung meeting of nonaligned nations, China formed the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization. Mao not only invited W.E.B. Du Bois to spend his ninetieth birthday in China after he had been declared a public enemy by the U.S. state, but three weeks prior to the great March on Washington in 1963, Mao issued a statement criticizing American racism and casting the African American freedom movement as part of the worldwide struggle against imperialism. "The evil system of colonialism and imperialism," Mao stated, "arose and thrive with the enslavement of Negroes and the trade in Negroes, and it will surely come to its end with the complete emancipation of the black people."[11] A decade later, the novelist John Oliver Killens was impressed by the fact that several of his own books, as well as works by other black writers, had been translated into Chinese and were widely read by students. Everywhere he went, it seemed, Killens met young intellectuals and workers "tremendously interested in the Black movement and in how the art and literature of Black folks reflected that movement."[12] Their status as people of color served as a powerful political tool in mobilizing support from Africans and African descended people. In 1963, for example, Chinese delegates in Moshi, Tanzania, proclaimed that the Russians had no business in Africa because they were white. The Chinese, on the other hand, were understood as being not only part of the colored world but also not complicit in the slave trade. Of course, most of these claims serve to facilitate alliance building. The fact is, African slaves could be found in Guangzhou during the twelfth century, and some African students in Communist China complained of racism. (Indeed, after Mao's death, racial clashes on college campuses occurred more frequently, notably in Shanghai in 1979, Nanjing in 1980, and Tianjin in 1986.)[13] Furthermore, Chinese foreign policy toward the black world was driven more by strategic considerations than by a commitment to Third World revolutionary movements, especially after the Sino Soviet split. China's anti-Soviet position resulted in foreign policy decisions that ultimately undermined its standing with certain African liberation movements. In southern Africa, for example, the Chinese backed movements that also received support from the apartheid regime of South Africa.[14] "Chairmen Mao." Mixed media image by Zhang Hong tu. Courtesy of the artist. Yet, Mao's ideas still gained an audience among black radicals. Although Maoist projects in the United States never achieved the kind of following enjoyed by Soviet-identified Communist parties in the 1930s, they did take root in this country. And like a hundred flowers, they bloomed as a confusing mosaic of radical voices all seemingly at war with each other. Not surprising, at the center of their debate over the character of class struggle in the United States was the "Negro Question": What role will black folk play in world revolution? The World Black Revolution People of the world, unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs! People of the world be courageous, dare to fight, defy difficulties and advance wave upon wave. Then the whole world will belong to the people. Monsters of all kinds shall be destroyed —Mao Tse-Tung, "Statement Supporting the People of the Congo Against U.S. Aggression" (1964)[15] All over Africa, Asia, South, Afro and Central America a revolution is haunting and sweeping. —Revolutionary Action Movement, The World Black Revolution[16] Maoism in the United States was not exported from China. If anything, for those Maoists schooled in the Old Left, its source can be found in Khrushchev's revelations at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party Soviet Union in 1956, which prompted an anti revisionist movement throughout the pro-Stalinist left. Out of the debates within the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) emerged several organizations pledging to push the Communists back into the Stalinist camp, including the Provisional Organizing Committee (POC, 1958), Hammer and Steel (1960), and the Progressive Labor Party (PLP, 1965).[17] The PLP, an outgrowth of the Progressive Labor movement founded three years earlier, was initially led by ex-Communists who believed the Chinese had the correct position. Insisting that black workers were the "key revolutionary force" in the proletarian revolution, the PLP attracted a few outstanding black activists such as John Harris in Los Angeles and Bill Epton in Harlem. Epton had become somewhat of a cause c61ebre after he had been arrested for "criminal anarchy" during the 1964 riots.[18] Two years later, the PLP helped organize a student strike to establish a black studies program at San Francisco State University and its Black Liberation Commission published a pamphlet titled Black Liberation Now! that attempted to place all of these urban rebellions in a global context. But by 1968, the PLP abandoned its support for "revolutionary" nationalism and concluded that all forms of nationalism are reactionary. As a result of its staunch antinationalism, the PLP opposed affirmative action and black and Latino trade union caucuses—positions that undermined the PLP's relationship with black community activists. In fact, the PLP's connections to the New Left in general were damaged in part because of its attack on the Black Panther Party and the black student movement. PLP members were thrown out of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1969 with the help of several radical nationalist groups, including the Panthers, the Young Lords, and the Brown Berets.[19] Nevertheless, predominantly white Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties were not the primary vehicle for the Maoist-inspired black left. Most black radicals of the late 1950s and early 1960s discovered China by way of anticolonial struggles in Africa and the Cuban Revolution. Ghana's independence in 1957 was cause to celebrate, and the CIA-sponsored assassination of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo inspired protest from all black activist circles. The Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro's infamous residency at Harlem's Hotel Theresa during his visit to the U.N. brought black people face-to-face with an avowed socialist who extended a hand of solidarity to people of color the world over. Indeed, dozens of black radicals not only publicly defended the Cuban revolution but visited Cuba with groups like the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.[20] One of these visitors was Harold Cruse, himself an ex-Communist still committed to Marxism. He believed the Cuban, Chinese, and African revolutions could revitalize radical thought because they demonstrated the revolutionary potential of nationalism. In a provocative essay published in the New Leader in 1962, Cruse wrote that the new generation is looking to the former colonial world for its leaders and insights, and among its heroes are Mao: Already they have a pantheon of modern heroes—Lumumba, Kwame Nkr
tie on the away goals rule.[21] There was to be more disappointment for Brady as Hull were relegated after finishing the season in 18th position, three points behind Aston Villa.[22] Norwich City [ edit ] On 29 July 2015, Brady joined newly promoted side Norwich City on a three-year deal, for a reported fee of £7 million.[23][24] He netted his first league goal in a Norwich City shirt on 26 September 2015, opening the scoring in a 2–2 draw against West Ham United at the Boleyn Ground.[25] On 1 March 2016, Brady lost two teeth in a clash of heads with teammate Gary O'Neil in a Premier League match against Chelsea.[26] Norwich ended the season in 19th place which meant back-to-back relegations for Brady.[27] Brady opened his 2016–17 goalscoring account on 1 October 2016 with a stunning 25-yard strike in the 2–1 away win at Wolverhampton Wanderers.[28] He doubled his goal tally for the season on 5 November, opening the scoring in a 3–2 home defeat to Leeds United.[29] On 31 December, Brady was sent off in the 0–0 draw at Brentford in a controversial decision with manager Alex Neil saying: "Robbie clearly isn't going in to injure the lad and both of them are sliding at impact, but we're not getting the rub of the green right now and that's just another example."[30] Norwich appealed the red card shown to Brady but it was rejected, meaning the Irishman would miss the next three matches.[31] He returned to the side for a 1–0 defeat by Southampton in the FA Cup on 18 January 2017[32] and scored a penalty in the following league match, a 3–1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers.[33] On 28 January, he made his final appearance for Norwich in a 2–0 win over Birmingham City, registering an assist for a Timm Klose goal just before half-time.[34] Burnley [ edit ] On 31 January 2017, the final day of the January transfer window in England, Brady completed a move to Premier League club Burnley in a club record deal reportedly worth £13 million, meaning he would link up with his longtime friend Jeff Hendrick and international teammate Stephen Ward. He signed a three-and-a-half-year deal with the option of another year.[35] Four days later, he made his Burnley debut as a second-half substitute in a 2–1 away defeat to Watford.[36] Eight days after that, on 12 February, he scored his first Burnley goal, a 20-yard free kick, on his full debut for the club in a 1–1 home draw against league leaders Chelsea.[37] In the following match on 25 February, Brady provided an assist for Michael Keane's equalising goal in the 1–1 draw away to Hull City, his former club.[38] International career [ edit ] Youth [ edit ] In September 2010, Brady made his under-21 debut in the Cornaredo Stadium in Lugano.[6] On 9 August 2011, Brady scored two goals in a 2–1 win for Republic of Ireland U21s in a friendly match against Austria U21s.[39] He also scored in the 2013 European Championship qualifiers against Hungary and Liechtenstein.[40][41] On 26 February 2012, Brady was named 2011 Under-21 International Player of the Year for his terrific performances throughout the year.[42] In September 2012, he became the record goalscorer at Irish under-21 level with his seventh goal for his country.[6] Senior [ edit ] On 8 September 2012, Brady received his first senior international call-up for a friendly against Oman.[43] He scored and set up two more goals in a 4–1 victory over the Arab opponents.[44] On 18 November 2014, he scored his first brace for Ireland against the United States.[45][46] On 29 March 2015, Brady started at left-back in Ireland's Euro 2016 qualifier against Poland at the Aviva Stadium in a match that finished 1–1.[47] On 13 November 2015, Brady scored in the 82nd minute of the crucial Euro 2016 play-off first leg match against Bosnia and Herzegovina to earn a 1–1 draw.[48] Three days later, he assisted one of Jonathan Walters' two goals to earn Ireland a 2–0 victory and qualification to UEFA Euro 2016.[49] On 22 June 2016, Brady scored a crucial header against Italy in the 85th minute of Ireland's last Euro 2016 group stage match resulting in a 1–0 victory, which enabled Ireland to progress to the knockout stage of the competition as one of the best-performing third-placed teams.[50] He also scored a penalty in Ireland's 2–1 defeat to the host nation, France, as The Boys in Green exited the tournament in the Round of 16 stage.[51] On 28 March 2017, Brady captained Ireland for the first time in a 1–0 defeat friendly international defeat against Iceland at the Aviva Stadium.[52] Personal life [ edit ] Brady is in a relationship with choreographer Kerrie Harris, who runs a dance school called Soul2Sole Dance Academy in her native Swords, Dublin. They have one child together, a daughter named Halle.[53] His younger brother, Gareth, has played internationally for Ireland at under-17 level.[54] His other brother, Liam, also appeared for Ireland at under-18 level.[55] Career statistics [ edit ] Club [ edit ] As of match played 23 February 2019 International [ edit ] As of match played 19 November 2018[65] Appearances and goals by national team and year National team Year Apps Goals Republic of Ireland 2012 4 1 2013 2 0 2014 5 2 2015 9 1 2016 11 3 2017 8 0 2018 2 0 Total 41 7 International goals [ edit ] As of match played 14 November 2017. Republic of Ireland score listed first, score column indicates score after each Brady goal.[66] Honours [ edit ] IndividualJobcentre Plus Job Loss Risk As Government Plans To Close 1 in 10 JCP Offices Jobcentre Plus jobs are at risk after news that the government plans to close more than 10% of Jobcentre Plus offices. The cuts are likely to result in the loss of up to 750 jobs. There are currently 714 Jobcentre Plus offices in England, Wales and Scotland operating on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. The Minister for Employment, Damian Hinds, cited that the reason for closure as online serivices such as Universal Jobs Match changing how people use welfare services. He claimed that Jobcentre Plus offices are becoming underused as people increasingly manage their benefits claims and search for jobs online. In an interview, Hinds said, “The way the world works has changed rapidly in the last 20 years and the welfare state needs to keep pace,” he said. “As more people access their benefits through the internet many of our buildings are underused. We are concentrating our resources on what we know best helps people into work.” The details of the DWP’s plans to close 1 in 10 Jobcentres are still to be confirmed but initial reports suggest that 78 of the smaller Jobcentre Plus offices will be closed. These JCP offices will be merged with larger, local jobcentre offices forcing people to travel further for jobcentre appointments. Jobcentre Back Office Closures The announcement also included the planned closure of 27 back-office buildings. Their services will be further centralised into larger progressing sites. This will including the building on five new service centre, with work scheduled to start in 2018. Unions have already made statements opposing the planned closures. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union said, “Jobcentres provide a lifeline for unemployed people, and forcing them to travel further is not only unfair it undermines support to get them back to work. We are opposed to these closures and will vigorously fight any attempt to force DWP workers out of their jobs.” However, the DWP tried to reassure JCP staff that job losses would be minimised by a relocation initiative and the offer of new roles within the DWP.The upcoming eight-episode seventh and final season of Fox’s New Girl, which was picked up yesterday, will feature a time jump. But before we get to that and other details about Season 7, let’s look back at the wild past few days when the comedy series went from a shoo-in for a 13-episode final season to the brink of cancellation to an eight-episode renewal. New Girl has been an important show for Fox and sibling 20th TV: It was the network’s first big comedy hit in a long time, it became the first big SVOD sale of a current broadcast comedy series to Netflix for a reported $900,000 an episode, and six seasons in it continues to be Fox’s highest-rated comedy series. So when the Season 6 finale came and went last month, everyone assumed the comedy was getting one more chapter for a proper sendoff. But as broadcast series renewals and cancellations started rolling in midway through last week, a shocker hit the rumor mill — New Girl was getting canceled. While the show did not officially get the ax, it came very, very close to it. I hear that was because of various reasons (for instance, star Zooey Deschanel is on maternity leave having just given birth to her second child), most if not all main cast members would not be able to return to work until the fall. With the logistical challenges, no space on the midseason schedule and a Season 6 finale that tied in a bow so many loose ends, the network leaned heavily toward not going with a seventh season. That’s when I hear creator/executive producer Liz Meriwether made a last-minute call and pitched a final-season arc that turned the tide. I hear it features a time jump, with Season 7 picking up three years after the Season 6 finale, in which Jess (Deschanel) and Nick (Jake Johnson) rekindled their romance, Cece (Hannah Simone) and Schmidt (Max Greenfield) became expectant parents, and Winston (Lamorne Morris) called his father. I hear Season 7 would feature major milestones for all main characters over the period of one year, including a big one in the series finale. I hear that pitch got everyone excited. Fox’s midseason schedule was revisited. After some discussions, the network’s executives were able to find a stretch of eight weeks for New Girl. Next, the actors’ deals had to be renegotiated to lower their guarantees from 13 to eight. When that was also done, with not a minute to spare, New Girl was officially renewed Sunday, just a day before Fox’s upfront presentation. So, after a roller-coaster final stretch, a show with a long and successful history on Fox will get a proper send-off from the network and give fans a chance to say goodbye, instead of an after-the fact cancellation. RelatedNetwork Series Renewal ScorecardMilitant organization the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has asked one its leaders in Aleppo to step down after footage of him threatening an elderly man came to light, according to a Twitter post by an account linked with the organization. Scroll down to see the video. The ISIS member was filmed threatening an elderly man with a weapon for lacking knowledge about Islam. Abu Bakr al-Masri, the ISIS “emir” of the city of Jarabulus in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, is seen waving and pointing a handgun at an elderly man who repeatedly fails to answer a series of questions about Islam. Abu Bakr al-Masri, the ISIS “emir” of the city of Jarabulus in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo points a gun at an elderly Syrian man. (Photo courtesy: YouTube) “Do you know the Prophet [Mohammad]?” al-Masri, who is sat on a cushioned chair, asks the old man. “No,” responds the old man, who is seen clasping his hands while sitting close to the militant. “Do you at least know the name of the prophet,” al-Masri asks. “Really, I do not,” the old man says, adding, “teach me.” Al-Masri continues to probe the old man’s religious knowledge, asking him about “Judgment Day,” Muslim prophets and angels, to which the old man always responds with “I don’t know.” The ISIS member is seen grinning to some of the old man’s answers, which also spark laughter among spectators who are not visible in the video. “You don’t know the Prophet [Mohammad],” said al-Masri, counting the list of items the man failed to answer, says, before reaching for a pistol beside him. The old man, distressed at the sight of the weapon, lowers his head and starts to kiss al-Masri’s hand and legs. “You don’t know the Prophet [Mohammad], nor Judgment Day, nor the angels,” al-Masri said, addressing the old man in an aggressive tone of voice with a gun in his hand. “Nobody taught me these things,” the old man responds. “Forty years and you never learned these,” al-Masri says, before slapping the old man on his forehead. The man jumos to his feet, but al-Masri orders him to “sit down.” “When are you going to learn these things?” al-Masri asks. “You can teach me,” the old man responds. “I teach you?” al-Masri asks. “I will teach you everything right now,” al-Masri, who begins to load his firearm, says. The video ends just at the point where the old man reaches for the weapon, pleading with al-Masri to “please stop, stop.” According to a Twitter post, ISIS asked al-Masri to leave the organization following the incident. Last Update: Thursday, 19 June 2014 KSA 18:04 - GMT 15:04Steve Mascord looks into the salary cap increase in Super League and the uncertainty of rises in NRL and whether it could cause a wave of talent to travel to Super League. IN isolation, the rises in Super League’s salary cap announced last week won’t affect the balance of talent between the European competition and the NRL. But in concert with recent events Down Under, they just might. After years of few changes, the Super League cap is to rise from £1.85 million to £2.1 million over the next three years. There will also be two marquee players permitted per club, up from one, and other concessions including for stars who’ve been out of the sport for five years or more. That is still around half the NRL salary cap – so what difference could it make? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Salary cap increased, 2 marquee players allowed and allowances to attract RU players. Good work by the @TheRFL and SL clubs. Well done — Marwan Koukash (@drmarwanK) April 5, 2017 Because of political pressures within the NRL which have very little to do with players or the clubs’ abilities to pay them, no-one knows exactly what the cap there next year is going to be. During the close-season, the NRL offered clubs 130 per cent of the salary cap in grants. That’s right: they would pay the 16 franchises enough money to cover their entire wages bill and 30 per cent on top, mainly out of TV money. But what that meant was that the NRL was suddenly invested in keeping the salary cap as low as possible. The most recent offer was put at $5.36 millon – but some clubs have supposedly already committed to spend $6.06 million. The Rugby League Players Association is disappointed with this figure and will no doubt push for a lot more money - maybe a million dollars more. However, it is entirely possible that even if they are successful clubs will be left with undertakings they are no permitted to honour. NRL salary cap fallout: Legal action threat if players are squeezed out https://t.co/rxnElmgod0 — The Daily Telegraph (@dailytelegraph) April 9, 2017 That’s where Super League comes in. If each club has to shed $700,000 in talent, they’ll be looking to the northern hemisphere. On Sunday, player agent Steve Gillis told colleague Michael Carayannis of the Sunday Telegraph that players could take legal action if they have been promised money that a restrictive salary cap subsequently stops them being paid. “There’s even been suggestions down the track of looking into players’ legal position if the cap was not to budge and the clubs were over the cap,” said Gillis. “… whether or not legally the players would have grounds to be compensated.” We could even see a situation where NRL clubs actively try to find their players a start in Super League – and continue paying a portion of their contacts. What a role reversal! What does all this mean? That Super League clubs had best not spend all their new-found cash at once.Dallas Cowboys defensive end Greg Hardy looks on from the sidelines during the first half against the Miami Dolphins at Sun Life Stadium Sunday, November 22, 2015 in Miami Gardens, Fla. (G.J. McCarthy/The Dallas Morning News) They were successful. Long announced on Twitter Tuesday evening that he had signed with New England. It's a one-year deal, a source confirmed. The defensive end visited New England on Monday and left without a deal. But after New England traded Chandler Jones to Arizona for guard Jonathan Cooper, the Patriots did all they could to keep Long from making his visit to Dallas. Chris Long was scheduled to have dinner with Cowboys coach Jason Garrett on Tuesday night. This is an opportunity and I am so thankful!!! Whatever it takes!!! See you soon Boston. GO PATS 👊🏻 There isn't one. The position is so picked over at this point it could force the Cowboys to reassess their desire to keep Hardy. The signing leaves the Cowboys in a serious bind at defensive end. Greg Hardy isn't expected to return. Randy Gregory is suspended for the first four games of the season, and DeMarcus Lawrence is coming off back surgery. The wound is too fresh to say whether that will happen. But the current questions at defensive end are so significant that it pushes the club ever closer to Ohio State defensive end Joey Bosa at the No. 4 pick. Even the most ardent fans have come to grips with what's taking place before their eyes. The Cowboys won't make a big splash in free agency. The club has decided not to guarantee millions of dollars to players who have yet to make the Pro Bowl as so many teams around them have done. That doesn't mean there isn't work to accomplish. Here's a list of what the club intends to do before owner Jerry Jones and executive vice president Stephen Jones leave for the NFL's annual meetings this weekend. Will it all fall into place? Hard to say. The Cowboys had interest in cornerback Nolan Carroll, who visited Valley Ranch last week. He decided to stay in Philadelphia on a one-year deal for $2.36 million that can escalate to $3 million with incentives. That's not much for a solid slot corner. It's clear the Cowboys are only willing to spend up to a point to address their roster in free agency. With that in mind, here's the checklist: One Retain defensive lineman Jack Crawford, which is imperative now that Long has signed with New England. The Cowboys have re-signed six of their own since free agency began one week ago. But the biggest piece of unfinished business is Crawford. Crawford proved to be a solid member of the defensive line rotation. While not flashy, he plays hard at all times and is dependable. He finished with four sacks to rank fourth on the team and had 10 quarterback pressures. Defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli sends his linemen at quarterbacks in waves. He relies on eight players every game. Crawford has earned his trust and can play inside and out. It would be a significant blow to the rotation if he's not back. TwoBUDDY Franklin leads the Coleman Medal race with 34 goals, and the superstar Swan could kick the ton. Gold Coast's Tom Lynch, with 30 majors to his name, is the next big thing and both would have claims in a hypothetical All Australian side after round eight. But there's an argument that neither Franklin nor Lynch could be called the best all-round key forward so far this season. Instead, that man might be rejuvenated 33-year-old North Melbourne veteran Jarrad Waite. In seven key metrics picked by AFL.com.au, Waite is one of only two key forwards in the competition rated 'elite' (top 10 per cent of position) or 'above average' (top 35 per cent) by Champion Data for: Contested marks Forward 50 marks Forward 50 ground-ball gets Score assists Score involvements (disposals or hit-outs in a passage of play resulting in a score) Forward-half pressure acts Tackles In a year-and-a-bit at North Melbourne, Waite has turned his flagging career around. The oft-maligned ex-Blue is doing it all, winning the ball in the air (2.1 contested marks) and on the ground, bringing his teammates into the game (2.0 score assists) and applying heat when the Roos haven't got the footy. His elite forward-half pressure acts (10.8 per game) and tackles (4.5) form a vital part of North's manic defensive intensity. Another former Carlton forward, West Coast's Josh Kennedy, is the only other spearhead who is 'elite' or 'above average' judged on AFL.com.au's statistical indicators. The 196cm Eagle has been dominant in the air and a menace on the ground, especially at the club's Domain Stadium fortress. Kennedy is better than most at finding the ball on the deck inside 50 and he's ranked third for pressure acts (8.3) among key forwards. On Sunday against St Kilda, the reigning Coleman medallist was on track for a record-breaking haul of goals after booting five in the first term. Kennedy has more goals than minutes on the clock with this snap around the body. #AFLEaglesSaints #ohwhatafeeling https://t.co/92yKtW6yb4 — AFL (@AFL) May 15, 2016 While he didn't add another in the next three quarters, Kennedy seemingly derived more enjoyment from setting up teammates than scoring himself and never stopped chasing. Harassing opponents is cream on top for key forwards, but it's a facet of the game that separates the game's budding superstars from being the finished product. Tom Lynch, Jeremy Cameron and Jesse Hogan are incredible talents, however Cameron's pressure acts (3.8) and tackles (1.3) numbers are considered 'poor' (bottom 10 per cent) by Champion Data standards. But the exciting Giant has plenty of tricks and is better than anyone bar Franklin at finding the footy on the ground. Hogan is the youngest, and the boom Melbourne forward should naturally improve his 'below average' pressure acts (5.4) and tackles (1.5) over time. But there's a reason the 21-year-old could command an extraordinary salary if he were to be lured away from the Demons, with his aerial ability (3.3 marks inside 50) almost unrivalled despite his tender age. .@jesseBhogan with a classic pack mark and the Dees are closing the gap. They trail by 15 points. #AFLDeesDogs https://t.co/DWyBa6H4Qp — AFL (@AFL) May 15, 2016 Lynch has become a big-moment forward and one of few shining lights in a bleak season for Gold Coast. The 23-year-old is 'elite' for score involvements and contested possessions and 'above average' at winning ground balls inside 50, although his 'average' pressure acts and 'poor' amount of tackles per game is where he can still improve his repertoire. Even with those areas to work on, Lynch looms large as the next challenger for Franklin's throne as the most prized key forward in the competition. But Franklin has all the weapons and is at the peak of his spectacular powers. He boasts a booming kick, stunning speed and agility for a man his size, plus a contested mark that needs to be respected. A 'below average' number of tackles per game (1.6) is the only thing that separates him from Waite and Kennedy on the above stats, although when Franklin wraps an opponent up it's generally a bone-crunching tackle. But, at a cut-price rate, Waite, in particular, is showing there's more than one prototype for a match-winning key forward. STATS QUIRK OF THE WEEK: Essendon booted its lowest half-time score since 1915 against North Melbourne (0.4) at Etihad Stadium on Saturday, continuing a slow-starting trend for a side that has scored 14 points or less to half-time in three of the past four games. This season, the Dons have scored 29.33 (207) in opening halves compared to 38.42 (270) after the main break. Want to read more from the Stats Files? (function (d, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) return; var t = d.createElement('script'); t.type = 'text/javascript'; t.src = '//assetscdn.stackla.com/media/js/widget/fluid-embed.js'; t.id = id; (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] \|\| document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(t); }(document,'stackla-widget-js'));The arts-and-crafts Web site Etsy recently published an extract from David Rees’s new book, “How to Sharpen Pencils.” The extract—a meticulously detailed guide to the correct use of single-blade pocket sharpeners—was lavishly illustrated with monochrome photographs of Rees at work wearing an apron, a set of head-mounted magnifying goggles, and a craftman’s expression of sombre pride. The comment-thread reactions were unusually good-humored, although many readers felt the need to point out the date on which the extract was posted. “Nearly had me, lol—happy April 1st!!!,” wrote one. “Happy April Fool’s Day yourself, Mr. Rees,” wrote another. You couldn’t blame these cordial commenters for thinking the whole thing was a poker-faced hoax, and that the aproned gentleman in the photographs tweezering pencil shavings into a sealable plastic bag was gently mocking the whole neo-artisanal culture for which Etsy serves as an online fulcrum. But Rees isn’t messing about—or, at least, “messing about” is an inadequate phrase for the kind of immersive seriocomic undertaking he’s involved in here. For the past three years or so (ever since he quit doing “Get Your War On,” his viciously funny satirical cartoon strip about the war on terror), Rees has been running a small pencil-sharpening business out of his home in Beacon, New York. Clients send him fifteen dollars and a blunt pencil, which he then sharpens by hand before sending it back to them complete with bagged shavings and a signed certificate of sharpening. (If fifteen dollars a pop seems a little steep, here’s how Rees explained his prices in an interview with Details magazine: “I’m sure there’s somebody in India who could sharpen your pencil for $8, but if you want authentic American craftsmanship … that’s how much quality costs these days.”) If this were merely a put-on, it would be an unusually elaborate and time-consuming one, and Rees would be a kind of Daniel Day-Lewis of the method prank. The book is powerfully funny (the chapter on novelty pencil-sharpening methods, which includes a guide to a Hendrix-style behind-the-head technique, is particularly inspired), but it’s a more beguiling literary endeavor than its publisher’s “humor” classification might suggest. If booksellers had such things as “avant-garde reference” sections, Rees’s book would be as much at home there as in the “humor” section (which is, after all, probably the last place you’d expect to find something to make you laugh). The nature of the book’s appeal—the way in which it heaps perilous quantities of language and significance onto what is just about the most inconsequential activity imaginable—is summed up in the magisterial comprehensiveness of its full title: “How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical and Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening, for Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, and Civil Servants, with Illustrations Showing Current Practice.” The book is an extended exercise in narrative tone. There’s a kind of punctilious courtliness to Rees’s instructional writing that seems both wildly counterintuitive and naggingly familiar (when I interviewed Rees, he mentioned that he’s an avid collector of early-to-mid-twentieth-century industrial manuals, and that the tone he cultivates here is partly a result of that obsession). His alertness to the subtle absurdity of the passive voice invests the chapter on the “Anatomy of the #2 Pencil” with a wonderful deadpan resonance. “It is assumed,” he begins, “the reader is already somewhat familiar with the #2 pencil. Let the remarks below serve only to further refine his or her understanding in the context of best sharpening practices.” Shortly after, we are informed that it “behooves” us to inspect foreign-made pencils “for any deficiencies that would render sharpening attempts futile.” It’s a stylistic high-wire act, and Rees never teeters, even when he shifts into full-on absurdist mode in later sections on celebrity-impression and telekinetic pencil sharpening, or the appendix on wines that taste like pencils. (Bordeaux reds are the way to go, if you’re interested.) It’s a little ridiculous to invoke Melville when discussing what looks like the kind of book you might buy for the bathroom, but at points I couldn’t help thinking of “Moby-Dick.” Melville is forever describing, at near-preposterous length and detail, the arcane practices of whaling and seafaring and, through a kind of intellectual prestidigitation, making them signify larger philosophical and moral truths. He was a genius of transfigured triviality. Rees is occasionally capable of pulling off a similar feat, albeit on a much smaller scale. The tension between the desire for perfection and the need to live in a world in which perfection is impossible is a covert theme in the book, and Rees’s frequent allusions to the analogous relationship between an imperfect pencil tip and an imperfect life seem both goofily ironic and utterly sincere. In its unsharpened state, he writes, a pencil is like an ideal Platonic form. “Putting a point on a pencil—making it functional—is to lead it out of Plato’s cave and into the noonday sun of utility. Of course, life outside a cave runs the risk of imperfection and frustration. But we must learn to live with these risks if we want enough oxygen to survive.” There are scattered references throughout the book to Rees’s own life, and these are often oddly jarring given the elaborately stylized context. In a list of supplies that every serious pencil sharpener should have in his “toolkit,” he includes tweezers for collecting shavings. “It’s not hard,” he remarks, “to come by a good pair of tweezers; I use the ones my wife left behind when she moved out.” In a later chapter entitled “Psychological Risks Associated with Pencil Sharpening: Assessment and Coping Strategies,” he counsels the reader on how to deal with situations in which the graphite tip breaks off in a sharpener, leaving a “hollow collar” of cedar (a phenomenon he tells us is referred to on the pro sharpening circuit as the “headless horseman”): The unhappy absence where one was expecting abundance may well trigger unwanted associations with financial, intellectual, and romantic aspects of your life. Ignore them. Amputate the empty collar, clear the sharpener’s burrs of the forfeit point, and set course for the future abundances that are your due. Rees has described his book as “basically an emotional memoir disguised as a how-to manual hidden inside a ‘humor’ book,” and as unlikely—and borderline-preposterous—as that might sound, the book really does lend itself to being read that way. The idea of a broken pencil tip bringing into focus all the unhappiness of a person’s life is, on one level, a richly comic one, but on another level—and particularly when you realize that Rees started writing this book in the aftermath of the breakup of his marriage—it’s a quietly poignant one. The book also recalls, at times, the work of the Oulipo group, the fraternity of experimental Francophone writers who are especially fond of imposing odd restrictions on their work as a way of provoking creative ingenuity. Georges Perec’s novel “A Void” was written entirely without use of the letter “e”; Raymond Queneau’s “Exercises in Style” recounts the same insignificant incident ninety-nine times using ninety-nine different styles of narration. Those guys would have liked the idea of trying to write an emotional memoir as a guide to pencil sharpening composed in decorous, genteel prose. And they would have loved the idea of its being written by someone who actually worked, semi-professionally, as an artisanal pencil sharpener. “How to Sharpen Pencils” is very funny—it’s the work, let’s not forget, of the guy responsible for “Get Your War On”—but it’s no April Fools’ joke, and it’s no bathroom book. It’s a literary oddity that, even as it gleefully pursues the comic possibilities of its premise, subtly gestures towards its own secluded seriousness. And, for what it’s worth, it also marks the standard to which all future pencil-sharpening textbooks must now aspire. Photograph by Meredith Heuer.Canada is preparing to embark on a far-reaching program of financial surveillance of senior public officeholders, from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Governor-General David Johnston and Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin down to thousands of elected politicians and senior bureaucrats. Many who will be affected by the program are unaware of what is coming. One who is aware, retired Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, is stunned by its reach to her children. In a little-known law that Parliament has already passed, these officeholders are known as "politically exposed persons" and deemed at risk of being involved in corruption, money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Financial institutions, from banks and insurance companies to investment dealers and real estate brokers, will be required to keep special tabs on them. And not only them, but on their children, other family members and "close associates." Story continues below advertisement The law, part of a Conservative budget omnibus bill last year, has not taken effect yet. It awaits cabinet approval of regulations that will set out its precise scope. Those regulations propose a vast reach: For 20 years after the politically exposed persons (PEPs) leave office, the financial institutions will need to keep their eyes on them, their family and associates. The financial institutions' first job is to identify the PEPs; then to assess their risk; and then, if the institutions determine the PEPs are a high risk – there is little public explanation on how the banks are expected to do this – they will need to monitor the PEPs' account activity. The institutions will need to report suspicious activity (anything they suspect is connected to terrorism or money laundering) to a federal intelligence agency known as Fintrac, which investigates and can turn over files to the Mounties or the Canada Revenue Agency. The law also reaches back 20 years to former senior office holders, such as prime ministers Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien, their children, relatives and associates. (Mr. Martin said through an aide that he has never heard of the law.) The law is raising questions about how to protect against corruption in the political offices of the nation without making unwarranted or arbitrary incursions on former office-holders' privacy and the privacy of their children, spouses and associates. Just last month, a judge sentenced Lise Thibault, a former Quebec lieutenant-governor, to 18 months in prison for fraud and breach of trust. Separately, Quebec's Charbonneau Commission revealed corruption in the province's construction industry, affecting high-level politicians and senior bureaucrats. And the Senate has been roiled by allegations of financial misdeeds, with one member, Mike Duffy, currently on trial. (The new PEP law covers the Senate and members of federal and provincial legislatures. It also covers mayors.) "I think corruption is growing by leaps and bounds," Garry Clement, a former national director of the RCMP's proceeds of crime program, said in an interview. "It's far greater than people are willing to accept." The law also raises questions about the financial costs, which some say will be in the millions of dollars, perhaps tens of millions, each year that will be borne by each large financial institution, and ultimately by the consumers. Some question how effective the law will be. Canada has had a similar law in place since 2008 covering foreign PEPs – senior officeholders who work on behalf of foreign countries, or merely in them, such as ambassadors – and a Senate report two years ago found that no foreign PEP had been caught laundering money because of the provisions, according to Matthew McGuire, a member of an anti-money laundering advisory committee to the federal finance department. Story continues below advertisement Story continues below advertisement "It's a wide net that catches very few fish," Mr. McGuire said in an interview, of the law that will cover domestic PEPs. He said 31,000 financial entities in Canada will have monitoring responsibilities under the law. Finance Minister Joe Oliver stressed Canada's international obligations to combat money laundering, in a statement to The Globe: "Money laundering has become a serious global problem, which is why it is being dealt with by the International Financial Action Task Force, which includes 36 member countries, including all G7 member countries. Canada has a strong anti-money laundering regime that meets international standards. The principles of our regime are based on IFATF guidelines." In 2012, the Financial Action Task Force, to which Canada belongs, required

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.